Folks, sharing some thoughts on Big Tech that has become an integral part of our daily lives as individuals as well as collectively. The trigger was the massive outage of Microsoft devices some weeks ago. Have been having some thoughts since then. Let’s see how it goes..
First and foremost, here is a link to the outage of Microsoft devices due to some issue with CrowdStrike, for those who might have forgotten it : Microsoft Crowdstrike creates worldwide outage: Life across the globe comes to a standstill
So many parts of our lives came to a halt, because someone somewhere screwed up!
It was a major news headline for atleast a couple of days. And then, we moved on once things were back in order, dismissing this as a temporary hitch in our day-to-day existence.
Of course, it was inadvertent.
Such things happen at times and computers crash. Nothing more to it, even if this event let to a massive number of computers to crash near simultaneously!
Hence, no outrage.
However, given the fact that life in so many countries came to a grinding halt across various sectors due to this unintended outage, one question that bothers me is what if next time there is an INTENTIONAL outage??
When I say ‘Intentional‘, I don’t necessarily mean by some evil geniuses running the large corporations of the world, but also governments who have a lien on the day to day functioning of such companies by the virtue of they being geographically located there.
Why I say this is because, if I as a govt had the power to disrupt or monitor lives of people and countries who are of interest to me, why the hell would I NOT do that?
In fact, a prime example of that landed up on my TL not very long ago: This is RFK Jr. revealing that 37 hours after President Biden was installed into the White House, they opened an illegal portal between social media giants and the FBI, CIA, CDC, etc, to begin the rampant censorship of Americans! Arm-twisting / threatening by Govt forced them!
Of course that doesn’t mean that atleast some of the owners of Big Tech / Social Media Giants were not already on a ‘trip’ of their own! Remember, one Social Media Giant deplatformed Trump even when he was STILL the President!
By the time Trump was out of office, he had been banned by FB, Twitter, YouTube, Snapchat and the likes. Reddit even banned some Pro-Trump forums! (Source)
Mind you, FREE SPEECH is basically what the platforms deem to be ‘free’ as per their own policies. And of course, what the host govt deems to be ‘free’! The aftermath of Twitter acquisition by Elon Musk was their for all to see. I’ll still share two snippets of Vijaya being questioned:
Before moving on, you MUST see the two videos above. One phrase that the lady in the second video used to address them was ‘You all as the Sinister Overlords’. Nothing could explain it better! And to think that these platforms actually shape narratives around the globe!
Just as another example, during the 2024 Indian General Elections, YouTube approved 48 advertisements in English, Hindi, and Telugu that violated YouTube’s OWN policies about advertising and elections misinformation! (SOURCE)
Talk about Sinister Overlords!
The thing is that even though the platforms themselves just are a source code running on its own, doing what it is supposed to do, but the people who created that damn code are still humans. Humans, with their own biases and leanings.
Humans who don’t even know they are biased!
Humans, who think that anyone who doesn’t think like them is a liar and NOT deserving of free speech.
Why?
Because they hold the power of denying them free speech just because they happen to have a divergent view from those who control the platforms!
(LINK TO TWEET SCREENSHOTTED ABOVE)
If they could do it to a Donald Trump, folks like Op India are pretty ‘small’ fries, no?
And the Sinister Overlords already have a bagful of templated replies to any queries seeking the rationale behind their decision to censor your or my voice!
Of course, outright banning is too ‘extreme’ and more than that, too ‘visible’! So there are also other means such as Shadow Bans and simply hiding access to information! I don’t know the reason behind these, but sharing two examples from Google:
(Link to tweet screenshotted above)
Talking about Shadow Bans, that term seems to be a wrong one, atleast as far as Twitter before Elon Musk went. Apparently, the correct terminology was : VISIBILITY FILTERING!
V.E.R.Y innovative of the SINISTER OVERLORDS of ‘Free’ Speech, I’d say!
But sadly, even after Shri Elon Ji took charge of the ship, the Shadow Ban .. err .. sorry, VISIBILITY Filtering goes on unabated! I have already ‘yelled‘ at Elon Musk Ji, as he suggested. Let’s see what comes of it!
So intimately involved have the Social Media giants become with life and politics around the globe, that even removal of a Blue Tick signals (to some), the beginning of the downfall of a hero or a leader!
Then there are the in-house AI algorithms who need data and material to train on. And guess who chooses what databases they shall train on .. well, HUMANS of course! Such scenarios are NOT at all surprising in such a situation!
As I mentioned in the beginning of this blog post, govts have ways and means to ‘influence’ behaviour of Big Tech / SM Giants. Here is the European Union that wants to control the flow of information within their own borders!
Yup, ‘FREE’ speech indeed!
And how can one forget the recent arrest of the founder of Telegram App in France!
His ‘CRIME’?
Not submitting to demands of some govts to give them a ‘peep’ into his App!
You get my drift, don’t you?
Being a ‘popular’ Social Media giant comes with its own perils at the hands of govts that decide that they will get to decide what constitutes ‘Free’ Speech!
Then there are govts who will punish their own citizens for as much as posting a meme!
Bottomline is that at the end of the day, even the ‘Cloud’ the we talk about when talking of the www, is actually a server farm located on a piece of land governed by the sovereign govt and administered by humans who are prone to their own biases and govt pressure. What we don’t realize is that by giving so much access to them into our daily lives, individually as well as collectively, we make ourselves potential targets for manipulation.
They may try to be ‘smart’ about that, but it does not change the fact that there is pretty much NOTHING that one can do to them because they are ‘merely following their own policies’!
The only way out from this vicious circle is to have indigenous platforms to ensure free speech to own citizens under the existing laws of the land. And with a population of 1.4Bn, we are already far far too late for this.
Beginnings were made. But they fell by the wayside.
Regardless, we need to keep working towards indigenous platforms to form the backbone of social media within our borders and accountable to the Govt of the day. Else, these things will keep happening, and with absolutely nothing that we can do about it.
(Link to tweet screenshotted above)
There will always be govt biases as well, when it comes to foreign social media giants. Biases from govts that may not be very ‘friendly’ to us at the same time.
Implications are potentially disastrous.
(Link to tweet screenshotted above)
Of course, the founder of Facebook had an epiphany and an awakening, but so much damage has already been done and is irreversible by now. What we can definitely do is to limit the damage going ahead.
Of course, the founder of Facebook had an epiphany and an awakening, but so much damage has already been done and is irreversible by now. What we can definitely do is to limit the damage going ahead.
As I wind up this blog post, I will leave this thread of my very personal experience of Visibility Restriction at the hands of Twitter! This, by itself, lays out the case which I have built in the thread so far.
I’ll close this blog post now by going back to the accidental Microsoft Outage of last month.
What if the next outage is NOT accidental?
What if the next outage is deliberate and focussed?
What if such things have already happened?
Food for thought, no?
Before winding up, I will share two more tweets from Op India itself.
Let me just reiterate in the end that there is absolutely no alternative to indigenous social media platforms in the current world scenario. One hopes it fructifies sooner rather than later!
With that hope, I conclude this chain of thoughts.
:FIN:
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