The past two decades have witnessed the rise of social media giants.
Their product is you and your information, and the buyers so far have been advertisers, politicians, rights activist groups and big oil, and now this machine will evolve once more in the coming decade to not only persuade us of what products to buy and what ideology to vote for and believe, but we will be convinced of anything and everything the highest bidder wants. Elections will literally be bought and paid for, and the companies that utilize data mining on populations of people will infect our browsing experience in order to change ideology, habits, likes and dislikes, and so on.
So the next step in the train of thought is this: Is Steem the answer to protecting your psychological identity, or is it a much more open and transparent platform to be data mined? Who you are at your core is already known and being manipulated at some level through social media. On Facebook it's mostly advertisements, but not all advertisements are for products and services, they are increasingly being used even by governments to shape the minds of populations.
In the past this was a conspiracy theory, or the plot of a good sci-fi novel or movie, but now it's our reality and the manipulation is so invasive that we are not even sure when the fiction became reality. What is certain is that the data wars already use our profiles that are compiled from our posts, searches and other online behavior, and each one of us can be pulled in different directions like a rubber band until whole populations of people will have to be on medication to cope with the strain of the psychological abuse as different entities bombard you with images and words to change how you think.
The cure is to recognize social media as an addiction behavior. If you compulsively go to Facebook multiple times each day without any real reason, you are addicted. It's not like smoking though, and there aren't any serious withdrawal symptoms other than a feeling of being out of the loop, which might make the more gossipy types anxious and irritable. The upside is that you will sleep better, worry less, and have overall better health in the long run when your thoughts aren't being preoccupied by events outside of your daily life.
So many people already admit that something feels wrong in modern society, yet like most addicts we cannot admit consciously what the problem actually is. It is like the monkey Jar, where a jar with a small opening has a piece of fruit inside, and the jar is chained to a spike on the ground. A monkey comes along and reaches inside, grabs the fruit, but now its fist is too large to get back out of the opening. The monkey will be so fixated on getting the piece of fruit out that they never stop to consider that letting go is the answer to being free. This is the psychological battle of all addictions, and why admitting addiction is half the battle.
Does this mean deleting your Facebook, Twitter, Google, and every other account? No; just like dieting doesn't mean never eating food again. The solution is to just be aware of the weapons that people with deep pockets are pointing at you, and think about why you suddenly want to buy something, or why your political ideology is different with no apparent reason. We're so programmed to believe that we are in control of what we want and what we like or what we believe, that we laugh at the idea of someone else being in control, or laugh at someone who talks about data being used as a weapon for control.
Some social media websites are worse than others as well. Like any attempt to be healthier, there are some things you need to cut out entirely. With diet, it might be junk food. With social media, sites like Quora are at present being used to drive ideas into peoples heads. Questions are asked repeatedly by analytics firms that are loaded and suggestive, often phrasing a question by first stating a "fact" (that is actually not true) and then asking what you think about it. I witnessed this behavior for months before admitting that deleting my account was the best option there, having determined for myself that I was addicted to yet another form of social media that preys on you based on your own content and behavior.
There are many other examples, I'm not picking on Quora necessarily, but to steer this back towards Steem - what is Steem's purpose, and is it more dangerous than Facebook if Steem had the same number of users? I will admit that I think Steem in it's current state would be far more invasive and pervasive if the witnesses of Steem decided to go the route of monetizing the ecosystem through advertising. It's worth noting that Facebook apps are also used to mine data, even the most innocent ones that reveal something (obviously fake) about you.
I don't know the future of Steem, it could all go up in smoke or it could become the next Google, there's no way to know for certain. What I do know is that Steem is at least starting off on the right foot, but if Steem's survival means becoming a tool or a weapon to manipulate users like Facebook allows and profits from, then we would all be better off if Steem was unsuccessful in the long run. Protecting speech is important, which is partly what makes Steem so inviting, but protecting speech that has been paid for to manipulate others should not be protected, even if it is not for profit.
This post isn't meant to alarm or turn anyone off from using Steem, but just to remind that Steem has the potential to be a positive or a negative success, but without a large enough user base and without letting things play out, we won't know for sure. The thought of Steem hitting triple digit price is nice, but being able to think for oneself is also nice, and shouldn't be sacrificed for the convenience. Plus, trying to keep up with world events is not that beneficial in most cases. Knowing that a war is happening somewhere does nothing to benefit you, and you can do nothing to benefit anyone else by knowing that a US drone killed a bunch of kids, or knowing which world leaders are doing what.
Political ideology is a terrible replacement for religion, and it is just one of the many ways that our data is being used against us. The cheapest way to attack ideology is to attack the people who are the face of an ideology. In 2016 it was Clinton who was turned into a monster. In 2020 it will be whoever; it might even be used against Trump instead of for him. Its hard to know how a weapon will be used when its access is granted for those with the money.
But, not all entities that utilize data mined from social media are evil, some just want to sell you something or increase awareness of a legitimate problem. I sincerely hope that Steem doesn't go to the dark side however, because it's a one-way trip and we've already boarded the train.
Thank you for reading. shares and comments are always welcome. Keep safe and don't feed trolls.