Before reading this article, I had never thought of Facebook as anything more than a social media hub for photo sharing and messaging with friends and family. But if your eyes are opened in a different perspective by somebody like John Lanchester, you can see what has been happening in front of our eyes from the day your social media account was created.
Once you take in the fact that Facebook to all of us is free, we never think of how a company like that becomes so wealthy. Lanchester explains that we are constantly being sold from under our keyboards. We are being sold to various advertisements and Facebook had created algorithms to 'work out' each individual person, or 'product' in their eyes and these algorithm use our information it is has gathered from 'search engines' or 'likes' to manipulate and mislead us to articles they know we will want to open. They seem to know more about us than our own government; which is terrifying to say the least. They probably even know more about ourselves than we do which is an odd thought.
Facebook doesn't care about the content of the advertisements, all they care about is leading us to 'an advert/article' they know will be of interest to our individual needs, so that when we click, they get paid. Whether news articles shared online are legitimate or 'fake news', they don't seem to be bothered by that, they just need us to keep clicking towards the end advertisement.
'Friends' we may have networked with online, share articles which appear on our feeds as potential interests, but is this really them or is this a perception of Facebook impersonating a trusted friend? Seeing a friend post something must interest you right, as the chances are if you're friends you have common interests. I guess a downfall in the human brain is the 'wanting to have something someone else has'. Whether that is a physical item or knowledge. They are manipulating us from beneath our fingertips. Facebook is more of a 'surveillance' company now than a 'connecting society' organisation. If anything, they are probably dividing society more now then when they were first set up to genuinely connect people. They know whether you're black or white, gay or straight, Muslim or Hindu. What they 'force' a gay white male to see will not be the same as what they 'force' upon a female Muslim's feed.
Remember, we are the product, the customer here is the advertiser. This is how Facebook gets its pay cheques, they lead us to the advert, we look and they get paid. Its pure manipulation!
That being said, be aware of what appears on your online feeds, it doesn't appear by coincidence...
Once you take in the fact that Facebook to all of us is free, we never think of how a company like that becomes so wealthy. Lanchester explains that we are constantly being sold from under our keyboards. We are being sold to various advertisements and Facebook had created algorithms to 'work out' each individual person, or 'product' in their eyes and these algorithm use our information it is has gathered from 'search engines' or 'likes' to manipulate and mislead us to articles they know we will want to open. They seem to know more about us than our own government; which is terrifying to say the least. They probably even know more about ourselves than we do which is an odd thought.
Facebook doesn't care about the content of the advertisements, all they care about is leading us to 'an advert/article' they know will be of interest to our individual needs, so that when we click, they get paid. Whether news articles shared online are legitimate or 'fake news', they don't seem to be bothered by that, they just need us to keep clicking towards the end advertisement.
'Friends' we may have networked with online, share articles which appear on our feeds as potential interests, but is this really them or is this a perception of Facebook impersonating a trusted friend? Seeing a friend post something must interest you right, as the chances are if you're friends you have common interests. I guess a downfall in the human brain is the 'wanting to have something someone else has'. Whether that is a physical item or knowledge. They are manipulating us from beneath our fingertips. Facebook is more of a 'surveillance' company now than a 'connecting society' organisation. If anything, they are probably dividing society more now then when they were first set up to genuinely connect people. They know whether you're black or white, gay or straight, Muslim or Hindu. What they 'force' a gay white male to see will not be the same as what they 'force' upon a female Muslim's feed.
Remember, we are the product, the customer here is the advertiser. This is how Facebook gets its pay cheques, they lead us to the advert, we look and they get paid. Its pure manipulation!
That being said, be aware of what appears on your online feeds, it doesn't appear by coincidence...
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