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Is it Time to Regulate the Social Media Giants?
The law of unintended consequences is accelerated in the Information Age.
Poor Edward Snowden. Poor Chelsea Manning, downloading illicit U.S. government secrets to Lady Gaga’s “Telephone”.
What whistleblowers like Snowden and Manning risked so much to tell the world- namely that everything we were doing, and saying, on the internet and on our fancy new smartphones was being minded by all and sundry- is now merely passé, common knowledge.
Not only do we know it, we let them.
It has already occurred to most of us that everything we do on the internet- every search, every email, every preference expressed- is being analyzed by someone for some purpose. We hope they are only trying to sell us things.
For the convenience of a million and one uses, we are willing to tolerate the fact that our devices, and by extension the people responsible for all the wondrous and marvelous things those phones, tablets, laptops and wearables do, have an awful lot of information about us.
Maybe too much.
Where we go and with whom. How much money we make, our contacts, schedule, buying habits, exercise habits, lifestyle choices, resting heart-rate, thoughts, opinions, causes, friends, likes, dislikes. It’s all so convenient.