Another Internet Technology-Use “Study” that is Fake!

Photo by Tim Bennett on Unsplash

A few years ago my partner joined an “experiment” called 99 Days of Freedom that had her quit Facebook for 99 days. It was passed on to her from a friend through Facebook much like Twitter tweets are redundantly retweeted to gain traction. This kind of sharing of links is in many ways a sharing of carefully crafted ideologies that, as the collective awareness of its users increase, is beginning to show its true nature as a way to collect, aggregate, and analyze data specifically for a rather disingenuous purpose. As we have become accustomed to quizzes and surveys embedded on our social media sites, for example telling us what Star Wars Character we would most likely be, we should be reminded that although many of them are created by users themselves, the data from them becomes the shared property or sometimes exclusive property of the site host. That data can and is used to target ads, promotions, videos, and propaganda to suit specific users’ tastes and in some cases to persuade users whose data profiles has revealed that they are undecided. Proof of such data abuse has been revealed in the recent documentary The Great Hack (2019).

The Need for New Media Education Training

To back up to the beginning of this post, I did a cursory search of what the 99 days experiment was actually about. It was not about getting Facebook users to quit or even to consider their own level of addiction to it. It was the opposite. In fact, in 2014 Facebook itself admitted that much to the Guardian and revealed that it was playing with users’ news feeds in an experiment to see how much they could influence and control emotions Facebook Experiments with Users Emotions. In reaction to this scathing news report, Facebook paid for an advertising and research firm from Holland to create the 99 day challenge for its users to quit temporarily with certain conditions of course. The site  99 Days of Freedom is still up and has of this date 53,303 unwitting Facebook users participating in this “experiment”. Participants sign up and are asked to provide feedback at day 33, day 66, and at the end on day 99. What was not apparent to my partner was that the experiment was the creation of a dutch company Just, hired by Facebook to literally appear to help Facebook save face in light of the Guardian news article. But when looking through the company’s site, it becomes quite obvious that the deeper intention behind the 99 day experiment was to collect data to help Facebook determine ways to keep its users online and actively being exposed to advertising and corporate persuasion on Facebook which is its main source of profit. This kind of insidious use of third parties to raise the profit margins of Facebook is something that needs to be taught in a way that might effect some change at least in how students learn about social media in classrooms. Schools for the most part have left criticism and investigation of social media and internet technology to the informal discretion of individual teachers. Although the BC curriculum invites exploration of new media, it has in no way formalized any education of the kind in its teacher-training programs at the post-secondary level. The very idea that teachers are ill-equipped to help young people negotiate the hidden truths and complicated nature of social media and internet technologies is repugnant.

It is incumbent upon schools to teach students how the day to day operations of social media sites is influenced by the business models upon which they rely and the extent to which they will use users’ data to ensure profitability. This is not part of a traditional style of business, but one that seeks to influence users with targeted information collected in unethical ways. Classrooms today employ all kinds of internet-based technologies without realizing the full extent to which participation with these technologies inform how the classroom is designed, how the lessons are shaped, and how much influence is exerted by companies making inroads into the highly desirable and lucrative market of education. It is a very complex issue that requires time and deep understanding in order to teach what informed choice truly looks like. After all, what teacher would dare try to pull apart an End User License Agreement (EULA) in a middle or high school class? However, this kind of education is desperately needed. Teachers are less motivated to handle this subject in their classrooms as there is very little formal teacher training on the subject.

Post secondary schools need to train teachers in this area if there is going to be chance for society to end the unethical treatment of peoples’ online data and end the kind of social unrest such abuse by companies like Facebook via Cambridge Analytica creates as illustrated by Brexit and the 2016 U.S. election. My partner was upset to learn that her 99 day “experiment” was just another form of data collection used with the added deception of aligning Facebook with Cornell University, as the press release from the company  called Just facetiously presents in their Press Release. That page incidentally has not been shared on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter since it was published January 14, 2016.

Truth Lies Behind the Fiction

Being critical of new media is paramount in an age where data has become a commodity that drives profits. With an increased awareness of how and why data collection and analysis is bought and sold, at least the control of personal data can be returned to some extent to the user who creates it. The European Union has introduced legislation in this regard to retain ownership of personal data with the creator, but advertising takes advantage of an all too complacent attitude in the general population’s desire for convenience and cachet as illustrated here:

I strongly believe in the notion that advertisers prey on the principle of least resistance. Lifestyle and more specifically the increased convenience and prestige that technology affords has become the mantra for many corporations, The selling of ideas has taken a strong foothold in the psyche of the consumer and little attention is paid to utilitarian values, necessity over desire, health and safety, and environmental impacts. Even when the latter is introduced in such campaigns as McDonald’s McCafé’s ethically-sourced bean advertisements, the actual environmental cost amounts to a green-washing of the corporation’s image only to make the customer feel as though they are doing something beneficial by purchasing coffee from a fast food chain.

It will be more important to the generation ahead to effect the kind of ideological change necessary in the face of climate change and the ever-growing culture of inclusiveness and reconciliation. As our use of technology further diminishes the amount of time spent face-to-face (Drago, 2015.), it also threatens to limit our view of the world and see it through the eyes of those companies that dominate the screen space with ads, promotions, videos, and propaganda. Students need to learn that they have data rights that are being violated and exploited. We will need to teach a higher level of media awareness so that we might stop consuming more than our share, be able to forgive ourselves and those before us, and be able to move on to a truly sustainable form of economy and living for all.

Reference

Drago, E. (2015). The effect of technology on face-to-face communication. The Elon Journal of Undergraduate Communications 6:1 pp.13-19 direct link (no doi found):The Effect of Technology on Face-to-Face Communication