Social media not all fun and games

GOOGLE HOME is my new roommate. My partner, Kwasi, is a techie, and this device is his new toy. By now, Google knows me well. She recognises my voice differently from Kwasi’s and customises her actions based on which of us is talking to her.

Google turns on and off lights in my house, sets my phone alarm, tells me news, sports and weather, transcribes notes I dictate, and plays cricket sounds to lull me to bed. She does all of this via voice command. And that is the part that creeps me out most. She waits for me to say, “OK, Google” to spring to life, and for her to be that instantly responsive, she’s always listening.

That realisation has brought squarely into focus for me the issues surrounding technology and privacy.

All our internet-connected gadgets and applications know everything about us: where we live, where we work, the route we usually drive to get there, who our friends and family are, and what we look like, so much so that they can pick us out in pictures.

All of this is sold to us as a benefit. The aim, we are told, is to enhance user experience. Facebook claims it snoops into our every activity because they “believe the ads you see across the Facebook family of apps and services should be useful and relevant to you ... . We use the information we have to improve our advertising and measurement systems so we can show you relevant ads on and off our services.”

According to Yahoo, it “analyses all communications content (such as Mail and Messenger content, including instant messages and SMS messages) and all photos and other content uploaded to your account to, without limitation, provide personally relevant product features and content to match and serve targeted advertising”.

You can understand why some see this as an invasion of privacy, even if these are terms we sign up to. You click a button saying ‘I accept’ all the time without reading the fine print. And you can’t opt out. In the main, you can’t choose what aspects of your private life to keep private.

If you don’t like it, your options are to either live like a hermit or send a pigeon. Good luck with that.

HYPOCRISY

How materially different is what Facebook does from what Cambridge Analytica did? Facebook built a business model on pulling as much of its users’ data and using that to generate revenue. But by Facebook’s own admission, Cambridge Analytica doing the same with Facebook data was wrong. Seems a little more than hypocritical to me.

I ask myself, “How much privacy can we reasonably expect when we sign up for a free site or application?” I’ve been using Yahoo Mail my entire adult life. Never spent a cent with them. I no longer have any photo albums. That’s what Facebook is for. I also make fewer international calls and am far more conncted to those I love who are far away because of Facebook – and I don’t pay for that connectivity. Not directly, anyhow.

Never once have I stopped to consider how Yahoo, Facebook, Google or even the makers of Candy Crush pay their bills. To us, it’s all fun and games, but rest assured, Facebook and the like are all businesses. They are selling something. You! Monetising us all is a lucrative business, and we make it easy for them.

For now, I actually don’t think the intrusion is a laughing matter. Yeah, I get the connectivity and entertainment and utility of these technical devices, but the pound of flesh extracted from me is heavy. And the question marks surrounding exactly what is done with the data extracted is worrying.

I said to Google Home last week, “Google, do you curse?”

She replied, “I’ll swear for you right now. I swear never to use foul language.” At least Google is funny.