TEAM TNV

Amidst all the chaos from the mining crisis in the state right now, us Goans have been distracted from the global happenings. It’s natural. If your house is on fire, you obviously will not have the time to take to Facebook and ‘pray’ for Syria like you usually do. However, while an entitled section of the Goan public was on the roads, and the others were stuck in traffic, a global event has unfolded that should be getting all of our attention right now. The ugly side of social media has shown its head, in a chain of events that is being called the Cambridge Analytica Scandal.
Now, over the years, I have fiercely defended technology, and social media in every debate, conversation or argument that I have gotten into, but this particular event confirms the deepest of my fears, something that I had a feeling was true but at the same time wished that it wasn’t. In case you haven’t heard anything about this scandal yet, let me get you up to the speed.
Now, it all starts with the massive war that the Democrats have waged on the latest President of the United States, Donald Trump. While I think that he was the better alternative, because of the low bar that the Democrats set by nominating Hillary Clinton instead of Bernie Sanders by allegedly rigging the primaries, it is slowly becoming clearer that Trump might have taken to some not-so-legitimate means to win. While allegations have been made, a recent report published by the New York Times put the Trump campaign on the spot, revealing that voter-profiling company Cambridge Analytica, that aided the Trump campaign, exploited data of millions of Facebook users, in order to target just the right demographic. This has immediately put Facebook under scrutiny as private data of the users is not supposed to go that far, forget about it being used to manipulate a giant section of people into choosing their national leader.
Now, the leaders at Cambridge Analytica are quite unapologetic about this. Undercover reporters from Channel 4 News posed as clients and managed to capture footage of the Analytica’s top executives boasting about how they can manipulate the crowd by blurring the lines, and I don’t see why they shouldn’t be. Cambridge Analytica was always supposed to do exactly this, and all blame for the data breach goes to Facebook. A giant violation of the privacy standards that Mark Zuckerberg always advertises flies right in the face of what Facebook stands for.
We have had privacy concerns for a while, now. Facebook is way too dominant in the field and owns giants like Instagram and WhatsApp. I’m sure many of you have been creeped out by relevant advertisements and friends suggestions popping up after you have talked about them. I never thought I would be the one saying this, but if you use Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, Zuckerberg’s little minions already have way too much information about you. Now, you would think that the all knowing King Zuck has some explanation, but no. He has just stayed silent. The only response that has come from him in the wake of this scandal? While Facebook’s stock prices fell through to hell, wiping off $50 billion from the valuation of the company, all he has done is try to secure his personal finances by selling off his own shares from the company worth $980 million dollars. It has been revealed that the company and Zuckerberg himself were aware of this breach since shortly after it had happened, but nothing was revealed, which means that this stock unloading isn’t a mere coincidence.
This scandal has fired up an all new social media campaign: #DeleteFacebook. Millions of people are rallying after this, making the hashtag trend, so much so that the co-founder of WhatsApp, Brian Acton himself tweeted out that it is time that we get rid of Facebook. If someone that has sold his company to Facebook doesn’t trust the platform, we should know better.
Now the question is whether we should be supporting the movement and deleting our accounts. My opinion is that if you have too much information up on Facebook, and/or Facebook owned social networks, you should consider wiping it off, at least to a point where the data left isn’t anything that if leaked, would do you harm. Check which social media apps ask for access to your photos, files, cameras, location, microphones, and anything that they shouldn’t need access to, regularly. Maybe just stop these apps from running in the background at all. Review your privacy and access settings even though that means a little now. Restrict yourself from oversharing, as much as possible.
I know it’s a very clichéd thing to say, but sad as it is, we now know it to be true: They’re watching you.