Social Networks: We have a big and complicated problem to solve
It is no exaggeration to say that the vertiginous growth of social networks on the Internet is perhaps the greatest challenge contemporary society faces. Some will say that it does not overcome the issue of economic inequality, the new cold war between the US and China, the environmental tragedy or ideological polarization. But the reality is that all these issues end up being incorporated into the agenda of users of social networks, a space without laws, at least until now.
To regulate or not to regulate, is the dilemma. It is not a simple question because it involves a large number of variables, from technology, communication and economics to psychology and cognitive sciences. But, it seems, the solution can start on the financial side, that is, the profit earned by the large social networks cannot be left to those who manage them.
Companies like Facebook and Google have become true gold mines because they do not pay for the raw material used in their respective businesses (the data left by their users). They charge fortunes for the sale of information processed from this same data, and they refuse to pay fees or taxes claiming that they only distribute what is left by those who access them. But the financial issue is perhaps the least of all the challenges that social networks pose to our society.
We have a serious economic problem generated by the concentration of financial power in the hands of a small group of digital platforms that started to earn billions of dollars by advertising and selling information. A business monster with many heads is emerging. One of them, Meta, which owns Facebook, earned a third-quarter gross of no less than $29 billion with a net profit of $9.1 billion, up 35% from the previous year. The Alphabet conglomerate, owner of Google company, earned 76 billion dollars last year, 88% more than in 2021. It is a concentration of economic power whose growth is unparalleled in human history.
The networked “cognitive warfare”
The economic strength of big techs has political extensions because networks today play a decisive role in conditioning decision-making by their users. They form today a fundamental political/ideological mega arena in defining elections and large social movements. It is no coincidence that the world’s extreme right has turned social networks into its preferred tool by exploring new social behaviours arising from virtual interactivity. News sensationalism, fake news, misinformation and hate speech have become part of the political environment with tragic consequences for the democratic system.
The extreme right’s communicational strategy on the Internet has increased the importance of the so-called “cognitive warfare” whose main objective is the control of the mental process of making decisions of all kinds. It is a process that could be defined as Machiavellian because it seeks to define any conflicts before they happen and without those involved realizing it. The front of the “cognitive war” is the internet because the outcome of the “news war” depends on vast flows of data, facts, events and ideas, capable of inhibiting people’s ability to reflect on what is happening.
And as if all this were not enough to convince everyone of the need to curb this chaotic process of growth of virtual social networks, we still have the phenomenon of so-called “data colonialism”. Large social networks, along with large databases, accumulate an immeasurable volume of information that is obviously used according to the interests of the major players in the global economy. It is the electronic version of the old commercial and political colonialism through which a more powerful nation extracts from a weaker one a raw material that later yields enormous profits only for the dominant country.
The TikTok case
Virtual social networks have become so important that the very ideological war between capitalism and socialism has moved into cyberspace, as shown by the legal/political/economic battle in the United States over the Chinese network TikTok, today with more than one billion users. The US government fears that TikTok could transmit US user data to Chinese intelligence services, something that has yet to be proven. But it is enough fear to feed back the ghost of communism, now in a cybernetic version.
The combination of these factors shows that laissez-faire in the digital space occupied by social networks of all types and nationalities must be regulated to avoid lack of control, abuse and chaos. It cannot be a straitjacket standardization because it would not be able to stop the dynamism of digital technological innovation. The key issue, which neither companies nor governments touch on in-depth, is the redistribution of profits from networks to their users. This redistribution is more than fair because, after all, the data that feed the billionaire wealth of Facebook and Google was given away for free by those who searched the Web or exchanged messages with friends or companies.
Journalists and artistic producers are among those who are led to give their work to social networks without any payment, or for a minimal remuneration compared to Google, Facebook, Instagram, Youtube and TikTok with advertisements published alongside news, video, photos and texts. It will be challenging to solve the problem of regulating the operation of virtual social networks. The millions of direct stakeholders, the users, are fragmented and spread across the world, while the networks number less than 20 and wield enormous financial and political power.
