Someone sent me a link to this article about how Google can influence an election and I found it to be a little frightening. We are all so connected to our devices these days, that I think we forget that the constant stream of information coming at us can affect the way we think about things without us even realizing it. I know for a fact that Facebook has done social experimentation on its members. They admitted as much in 2012 when they altered the feeds of 700,000 member to see their reactions to a variety or negative posts. (Facebook's Not-so-secret Mood Manipulation Experiment ).
I've also heard rumblings about the"gay marriage rainbow profile filter" app that was made available to Facebook users following the Supreme Court's decision to uphold gay marriage. Rumor has it those were a social experiment too. I've read various reports that never definitively corroborate or disprove that it was, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if it were true. Can you imagine what an immensely powerful tool that would be to have access to the thoughts and feelings of a wide and varied range of the population? Old, young, conservative, liberal, crunchy, hipster, religious, atheist, ethnic, white...they're all represented on Facebook.
To be fair, marketers and politicians have always tried to figure out which ways work best to sway us, so none of this is really new. There have always been polls and surveys and even controversial social experimentation, like the Obedience Experiments conducted by Stanley Milgram, but I think there's a fine line between trying to figure out what makes humans tick so you can learn about human nature either for purely academic reasons or to hopefully persuade them to choose something, and controlling people with manipulation. Some of this stuff just plays out to me a little bit too much like some of the dystopian literature I've read (Fahrenheit 451, A Handmaid's Tale, Nineteen Eighty-Four etc). What are your thoughts? Do you think the "powers that be" are using our Internet activity to manipulate and control us (or at least working hard to figure out how to do so)? If so, what can one do to counter it?
PS: I promise I was not wearing a foil-hat while writing this. :)
The internet is an easy place to get information, so why wouldn't people use it to control other's minds? That's why ads exist. Nobody likes ads on websites or TV, so why are they still there? Companies pay to have their ads show up because it brings in customers (controls people's thoughts). If ads can bring in customers, what’s stopping search engines from altering your search results to show things that would make you think a certain way? If I were shown unrelated search results that said good things about a political candidate each time I looked up something on the internet, I would subconsciously be pulled toward voting for that candidate. The internet controls us every day, it keeps young minds from learning buy pulling them away from the classroom and into a world of social interaction via text and images. With the advent of smartphones, people can be constantly engaged in things on the internet while driving, hanging out with friends, or at home. By being glued to the internet, we neglect important things in life like friends and family. The internet is great, but like all things, its best used in moderation.
ReplyDeleteI have also read Fahrenheit 451, A Handmaid's Tale, and Nineteen Eighty Four and after reading the stories, it just make the idea of the internet manipulating people plausible. I feel like the government is trying to find whats makes people tick; however in the sense of how people counter it, is limited. People just have to be careful to what they respond to on social network.
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