Today, nearly five billion people in the world use social media, whose initial purpose was to allow people to connect digitally with friends and family regardless of geographic distance. However, alongside the plethora of benefits that the age of social media holds for us, there come challenges that have sparked debate as to whether we, as users, are the consumer or the product. The evolution of the media, from the printing press to the digital age, has arguably dampened the freedom of expression and posed a threat to our privacy as users over time. Indeed, with respect to Facebook in particular, media theorist and writer Douglas Rushkoff said that ‘you are the product, not the customer’. Moreover, when Senator Orrin Hatch asked Mark Zuckerberg in a Senate hearing in 2018 ‘How do you sustain a business model in which users don’t pay for your service?’, he replied, ‘Senator, we run ads’. This precisely epitomises the control that social media outlets hold over their users. Through a study of algorithm controlling and the right to express information, this essay will argue that the users’ behaviour has been converted into a product under current social media market, with business and politics clients lining up to alter it.
1. Algorithm is becoming increasingly the dominator of users’ emotions.
Instead of being served for their communication demands, social media audiences are more like unwitting guinea pigs used to optimise the profits for technology companies and other power holders. Although they may often be unaware of it, the general public is under continuous scrutiny and manipulation over their minds and behaviours.
B.F. Skinner, a notable behaviourist, once devised a systematic technique called a “Skinner Box”, in which imprisoned animals received goodies when they performed a specific action without external influence – a purely isolated mechanical action. Various behaviourists applied the same strategies to a select group of social media users. The reward patterns in the brain – referred to as “the little dopamine hit” by Sean Parker, Facebook co-founder, and also the negative feedback used by social media, are getting users addicted to the platform. They are also inclined to modify their behaviour according to what other people think. As such, Lanier (2018) stated that generating rewards and punishments has been the easiest way to instigate and manipulate social emotions, in the way the controllers behind expected.
With the algorithms incessantly changing so as to ameliorate the engagement results with the users, it turns out that negative feedback is the best choice for business. Therefore, according to Lanier (2018), it appears more often on social media to trigger more emotional reactions from the users. We are thus invited to consider that users, who are blinded by the virtual world to which they wholly adhere to, are a mere tool for social media companies to make profit, instead of the real clients, and the distinction between the consumer and the product becomes blurred. Furthermore, as Tripathi (2021) argued, social media algorithms are “adaptive”. This indicates that they are in constant evolution in order to attract users back to the content and consequently become more profitable. This points to the way in which social media holds power over the user, not the other way around, highlighting the deleterious inversed power dynamic. Hodge (2019) hence maintained that ‘If it’s free online, you are the product’.
2. Social media users are stripped of their rights to receive and express information freely.
The functions of algorithmic controlling are not limited to the aforementioned elements. Huguet (2013) demonstrated that social media provides its users with a platform where they can have a comprehensive source of information. It serves the users a digital public sphere where they can discuss societal and political affairs freely within the huge online network, promoting liberalism and freedom of speech. However, while the modern age encourages the distribution of ideas and the freedom of expression, social media is instead causing the opposite effects.
Unlike during the nineteenth-century era of the printing press, today's social media users are continually being surveilled by the algorithm. Their private information is over-exposed to the giant tech companies, destroying fundamental human rights and further leading to surveillance capitalism.
Under the special mechanism, the algorithm gathers and analyses users’ personal information, aiming to introduce compelling content that has captivated other users with similar traits. While Gayo-Avello (2015) celebrated it as “personalisation” and defined surveillance capitalism as a means to inclusive economic or political institutions, the mechanism is in fact overriding everything about the users which is personal, and as Zuboff (2019) referred, is “a profoundly antidemocratic social force”. One of the most important reasons is that the uncaring, relentless and robotic algorithm only renders the behaviour data required for service enhancements, which are later reinvested in the user experience for better manipulation. A type of digital tyranny that relies on people but is not of the people is thus established, with all of the users being equally objectified, except the tyrant.
(1) Politics tyranny in social media - users are being treated as “marionettes”
Governments and political parties seek to manipulate social media. They massively disseminate the information which is beneficial to them on the platform in various forms of political propaganda. Rather than actively choose what to see, users then would passively receive the information delegated by the algorithm after its accurate detection and analysis of their personal preferences. The same data would be repeatedly reinforced to users’ minds through the algorithm recommendation once they have interacted with the content.
Consequently, different types of political ideology are being shaped, such as Trumpism in the US and Brexit in the UK, and the divisions among all kinds of the ideologies are being intensified. Today especially, political polarisation and partisanship are becoming a trend. Social media users are like zombies who are significantly sensitive to the opinions from distinctive sides, and mechanically confront them with zero tolerance. They are forced to enter into a post-truth era, a liminal stage where the social norms are distorted. In this liminal stage, the algorithm acts as the fake “ceremony master” who restores a form of order, overseeing and controlling all the information the users digest in. Everyone at this stage holds their version of truth under the effects, and is going for extremism. The unhealthy ideological contagions are overwhelming within social media, negatively directing users’ behaviours.
Meanwhile, cancel culture is also being built up – one side of users are convinced that they must “kill” other sides of users’ opinions to prove they’re right, even if in fact their arguments most of the time are only logical fallacies. In short, all sides see the others as the disease, and themselves as the antidote. Their beliefs could only strengthen, rather than weaken, when they can’t persuade the others (Margetts, 2018). The illustration that ‘I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it' is no longer a consensus principle of speech in the social media age.
These outrageously bigoted points of view, however, cater to the intentions of particular political parties and are being weaponised for their success. The cruel reality is that no matter how ideologically antithetical these political movements and identities may seem to be, they are all too generalised and can’t accept simplistic corrections (Nicholson, 2021). But the users who serve as a mere political tool are all the way blindfolded – their free will has been imprisoned in the filter bubbles, and they have no choice but to yield to the manipulation, which stifles users’ freedom of expression on social media.
Moreover, under the current climate, knowledge is not the power, obfuscation is. Fake news and conspiracy theories, like QAnon, are increasingly emerging on social media for malicious political interests, such as fighting against the opposition parties. As discussed above, the algorithm mechanism learnt that negative emotions are the best choice for the business. Therefore, more and more negative clickbait news stories are being produced for better engagements. A good example is the 2016 US election where many fake news stories were circulated on social media to support political campaigns. During the election, there was a widely shared article from the website denverguardian.com with the headline “FBI agent suspected in Hillary email leaks found dead in apparent murder-suicide”. It’s obvious that the cultural war is triggering users’ fight or flight emotions, exacerbating the political polarity, and ultimately obliterating political center and democracy. In consequence, users’ mental health could also be damaged because of the negative news crammed into them. However, as the products, they don’t have the liberty to choose but to suffer from it.
As Nicholson (2021) stated, it is a current cultural deformation with users being over-exploited within Western social media. In the meantime, it is perhaps more pertinent to examine cases of state-controlled media.
While these media platforms could act as democratic empowerment, Kalrav (2022) demonstrated that they are more like a governing instrument used to ensure users’ mental exclusivity in India, warning of its shrinking democracy and the rise of misinformation in what he described as a post-truth country. Among the users, journalists evermore fear the harsh censorship enforced by the majoritarian state which they find oppressive. For example, Mohammed Zubair, known as a fact-checker and digital expert, has been arrested allegedly because of state-sponsored intimidation for publishing hateful comments made by prominent BJP officials. It’s arguably leading to a question of whether the law is a tool of harassment, making journalists feel that they are a ‘significant threat to the dominant narrative of the state’ (Trivedi and Thaker, 2022). This alludes to the control that is exerted over journalists and the lack of freedom they hold.
At the same time, an average Indian social media user is bombarded with false information as the mainstream media is often an agent, sometimes even an enabler, in uncritically disseminating false narratives and engaging in polarised partisan debates, often susceptible for monetary reasons. Social media spaces have also significantly contributed to Hindu radicalisation and anti-Muslim hate, one of the BJP’s ideological foundations.
Therefore, it’s worth noting that despite the political systems being different between the countries, the larger purpose of the political parties for all is to capture and control the flow of information online, an important aspect where there is not enough space for users’ voice and independent media, any consensus on the idea of the truth, or shared histories and lived realities. It echoes German political and legal theorist Carl Schmitt’s concept of political theology, where all powers ultimately flow from the sovereigns and are governed by the principle of modern political order. The sovereigns decide the reality of truth and what constitutes truth: exercising control over spaces where truth is contested for modern political sovereignty.
(2) Business tyranny in social media – who are the real clients?
Advertisers, who are the real clients, pay money to social media companies. With the help of the algorithm, the online network enables the business corporations to match their customers and then fulfill the page content with their products to maintain their brand popularity. However, to some extent, users’ access to the diverse business market has been limited, destroying the survival of their freedom.
Users are lost in lies. The advertisers behind them are manipulating everything, optimising their profits. You found something with good reviews, but they were emanated from fake people. You watched some popular videos on Facebook or Twitter because there were a lot of views. However, most of the views were made by armies of bots, duping us into believing that we are following a public trend when in reality this trend is fabricated by the algorithm. In the social media world, what is real is fake. Reality is being replaced by irrational numbers.
The companies don’t always know the identities of the advertisers, the parties who are benefiting from manipulating the users. Therefore, there are likely to be actors manipulating us - manipulating you - who have not been revealed. Social media, which is marketed at us by convincing us that we are expanding our network, is essentially selling us to advertisers.
(3) Users losing the freedom to express themselves
The actual customers, such as the advertisers, could always force a change on the expression. For example, when the innocuous soap ad was played in sequential order with a disturbing terrorist-recruitment video on Youtube, Google removed the terrorist content straight away and also paid the real money for compensation after the advertiser complained about the content.
However, normal users wouldn’t be able to enjoy the “privilege” as the advertisers did. One of the common examples would be that females would always find their photos/posts on social media being sexualised or fully integrated into a violent or manipulative framework. The online identities of women and ethnic minority groups could always be altered for the purpose of humiliation or harassment (Bamman, Eisenstein and Schnoebelen, 2014). It hence could be illustrated that most users don’t have any autonomy over the way their expressions are going to be displayed to others. What they say would always be interpreted into another meaning under certain contexts for someone else’s purposes and profits. The algorithms and crowds of fake people will mix their voices up with what others say, which ruins the freedom of expression.
As Lanier (2019) claimed, only “crazy extreme asshole communication” could survive a bit under current social media circumstances. It’s thereby no surprise that Andrew Tate, an influencer and former kickboxer, is given the loudest microphones for his misogyny and homophobia speech recently on social media, which pathetically gets even increasingly influential under the algorithm amplification. This would further suppress people’s freedom to express themselves online, which is particularly the case for those vulnerable groups. For example, thanks to the algorithm’s manipulation, any common photos of girls which are later put together with those discriminatory remarks about females would be highly likely translated maliciously, as those manipulators expected. It would predictably deepen the harmful influence of those asshole communications or even trigger new ones, bringing forth a vicious cycle.
Thus, instead of giving the users, who are supposedly consumers, a fair chance of expression, the platform provokes hateful speech, such as white supremacy or racism. As a consequence, the rights of users to voice for themselves are weakened on social media, and, worse still, they may gradually lose the courage and even the ability to express themselves, finally becoming numb and prone to manipulation of the pernicious politics and capitalism.
3. Solutions - looking into the future
In conclusion, social media is a panopticon where users can see what they are looking for, but can’t see how the manipulators in the dark are using their personal information to build up a personalised network. It’s troubling that we always have to put up with subsidising our continued existence through periodically exposure to thoughts, emotions and desires imposed from above, by some external commercial source, in some devilish sponsored content partnership of the self. Our modern lives as social media users to some degree have been transformed into code, into highly marketable stockpiles of personal information.
Frustratingly, as Arun (2018) claimed, it’s hard to change the situation that users are always the products with their freedom restricted because now even the scientists can’t fully understand how the algorithms work. They only improve based on the feedback. At the same time, the power of both tyrannies are so overwhelming that users are not able to turn the table even if they want to – a study by Marketing Dive in 2022 showed that social media sites saw continuous declines in user satisfaction in the past two years over their privacy protection and content reliability, despite a surge in online activity during the coronavirus pandemic.
However, as the French sociologist Henri Desroche argued, millenarian movements would see change as having three stages. Firstly, members of the movements would be oppressed. Secondly, they fight with the oppression. Thirdly, they overcome the oppression, bringing about a fundamental transformation and a better or even utopian world.
To achieve the final aim step by step of unleashing users’ freedom as real consumers, firstly, readers should be encouraged to read adequately so as to have the ability to make more informed decisions by themselves. This includes reading wider and deeper, across many media outlets, and they must know precisely what must be rejected in the complicated social media age. Secondly, there should be more regulations on the transparency of social media algorithms in order to withstand the spread of fake news, misinformation, and other types of intimidation. Thirdly, with much of the political “chatter” on sites like Twitter being still generated by established journalists, based on the Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2021, it’s imperative for the journalists and media scholars to improve their professionality on reporting, and also to strike a better balance between media ethics and freedom of expression. By breaking down this taboo, it could lead to the enhancement of freedom of speech for both journalists and the general public, without the fear of censorship. Finally, it is essential to eliminate toxic business and political models over the social media operation. It would help ease the influence of political power and redistribute it to the people in a fair way, whilst also aiming to not fuel capitalism. Countries all over the world need to show solidarity and come to a collective consensus to restore users’ freedom of expression as a universal paradigm.
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