Photo by Cottonbro Studio
Recently I was looking for a small rug for the hallway of our apartment. After browsing several websites, one rug in particular caught my eye. Its harmonious blend of color, size and pattern was nearly perfect. I compared prices on other rug websites, but when I had to get back to work, I put the search on hold. But the rug hasn’t let me forget about it. Whenever I visit news sites (which I do a lot these days) or even shopping sites that have nothing to do with rugs, that same rug appears--pulsating on the screen, taunting me. It dares me to ignore its existence and scroll past it.
This experience brings up a larger issue. Users are involved in a devil’s bargain with the corporate entities behind social media platforms. These companies fully understand the enormous benefits they reap from their business models, but many users are not aware of what they’ve bargained for. The platforms offer benefits to people: the ability to connect with others, to organize events, access news, to vent emotions, and to sense the pulse of society. But for this, people give up their privacy.
Our actions online are meticulously tracked, and vast amounts of data are collected about our behavior. It hardly matters which website you're on—most social media companies are involved. When I went to the rug store, it retrieved a cookie on my browser that identified me to Facebook. If a company asks Facebook what ad they should show me, Facebook has the answer. In exchange for the service of being networked to others, we give up deeply personal information about ourselves. That information is then turned into billions of dollars in profits for these corporations.
Most of us are aware that tech and advertising companies have been tracking our online activity for some time. A recent Federal Trade Commission report that came out last week highlights just how extensive this surveillance is. Major players like Amazon, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, ByteDance (the owner of TikTok) Reddit, WhatsApp, and more, are all complicit.
The data is used to construct detailed user profiles, so that ads can be targeted more effectively to capture your attention. The data is collected from many different sources. Some users directly provide, such as names, ages, and demographic information. It also comes from what users post, share or ‘like’ on these platforms.
Algorithms are designed to keep people engaged by presenting an ad or post that the algorithm believes a person would be most interested in. Algorithms are used to construct profiles of users, inferred by the user’s online behavior. For instance, the algorithm can determine whether you're an extrovert who enjoys party cruises or an introvert who prefers a quiet evening with a good wine. You’ll be sent either an ad for a party cruise or an ebook, tailoring content based on your personality type. And the algorithm is usually right.
The algorithm knows that since I’ve been looking at the same rug on different websites and comparing prices, I’m probably pretty interested in buying it. So it makes sure that the rug is in my field of view wherever I go on the Internet. If I place the rug in a shopping cart to check shipping costs, I will be hounded by texts from the company that I left something in my shopping cart.
One of the most insidious ways that companies collect data is through tracking pixels. These small bits of code are embedded into a third-party website and can collect all sorts of information about a person’s online behavior such as the websites they visit, what they browse, what they click on, and even whether they open an email sent by a marketer. Pixels violate privacy, plain and simple.
These companies fail to adequately protect personal data, which can then be exploited for malicious purposes. If this data falls into the wrong hands, it can be used for fraud, identity theft, and other serious consequences. Worse still, companies don’t distinguish between teens and adults, treating both groups the same in terms of data collection.
Last year, it was revealed that the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) used Meta Pixel, violating patient privacy. The scariest part was that these pixels collected patients’ medical data like when people visited websites to learn about HIV, cancer, or gender identity counseling. This data in turn was sent to Meta combined with the user’s IP address and Facebook details to be used for targeted advertising. You can imagine how if this data became public it could jeopardize employment, relationships and could harm mental well-being.
Users’ attitudes towards being tracked by technology have changed over time. When the Internet first came into widespread use in the mid-1990’s, early adopters felt very strongly about protecting their privacy and were cautious in their use of the Internet. In 2003, Facebook was launched and by 2005, e-commerce was exploding. By around 2015, people became increasingly aware of privacy concerns and learned how to change settings to protect their data such as deleting cookies and clearing browser caches. From 2016-2019, though still critical towards tech, people became more lax, allowing tech into their homes like Alexa and Google assistant powered devices, that collected sensitive information about them.
A 2019 Consumer Reports survey revealed that 62% of respondents believed that for some online practices, the risks outweigh benefits, such as when sharing email addresses, giving access to their camera, photos and location.
Perhaps because users have now become more tech savvy, they feel they are more in control of actions to protect privacy. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. While users can take measures like blocking ads, turning off notifications, and rejecting cookies, companies still track their online activities. Personal data continues to be collected.
The issue is that users, rather than the government or tech companies, must bear the burden of having to do the work to protect their privacy. The Federal Trade Commission report recommended that Congress should pass federal legislation to protect users’ privacy, which includes measures to limit surveillance. It also called on companies to do their part by enforcing strict data retention policies, deleting user data when no longer needed, and refraining from sharing data with third parties—selling data is a major source of revenue for social media companies. It also recommends that companies not use tracking technologies that collect private and sensitive data of individuals and that special protections should be given to teens, who should not have their accounts managed the same way as adults. This is crucial to guard against predators and other risks.
On Sept. 21, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed legislation aimed at reducing the influence of algorithms on social media, particularly as it affects minors. The legislation would require social media companies to display posts in chronological order instead of having the algorithm determine the order. What I find an especially effective part of the law is that tech companies will be prohibited from sending notifications to people under 18, between 8 am and 3 pm on schooldays; and when kids should be sleeping, between midnight and 6 am.
Tech companies profit by capturing our attention, earning them billions of dollars annually. While social media offers some positive experiences—research shows people benefit from connecting with others, especially those in marginalized groups like LGBTQ communities—there’s no denying that these companies can do better. They shouldn’t earn billions by keeping us hooked to their platforms and harvesting our personal data to sell us products.
So here we are in 2024, in the apex of digital freedom, where our every click, search and post, is captured by the monoliths of Silicon Valley. These companies have woven an omnipresent web in which we participate, sometimes without realizing it, and we have become the flies in the trap. Our thoughts and desires are sold as commodities and packaged into algorithms. Users should not bear the primary burden of protecting their own data--it’s time for both governments and corporations to take stronger, more ethical steps toward safeguarding our privacy. Only then can we strike a fairer balance between the convenience of online connection and the protection of our personal information.
You can read more about how algorithms are designed to capture our attention in my book Attention Span.