How much do you know about Fac(ad)ebook?
Throughout the years, we’ve heard plenty. The platform has inspired, surprised, and betrayed us. A lot of us seem to have a love-hate relationship with Facebook, because while we recognize and resent their control over our personal information, we continue to condone their actions by being present on the site.
In this episode, Alexander McCaig and Jason Rigby analyze the true intentions of Facebook after reading an article on how researchers lost access to their accounts after digging up data against the platform.
Since its creation, the platform has had its fair share of ups and downs. While it remains one of the biggest social media sites in the world and its presence has helped people connect with their loved ones it’s also been the subject of controversy.
In 2014, Facebook was criticized for running psychological tests on 70,000 unconsenting participants in 2012. This test involved removing a certain list of words from their news feeds to see how it affected their reactions to posts.
Later, in 2018, the Cambridge Analytica scandal showed everyone just how compromised their Facebook accounts were. The data analytics firm improperly harvested data from millions of users for ad targeting during the 2016 election.
And in 2019, the FTC fined Facebook $5 billion over violations of user privacy.
There are plenty more scandals in the past decade to illustrate how the platform has consistently pushed the boundaries of user privacy and personal rights. And yet, people continue to use the platform—effectively giving Facebook the power to also continue commercializing their personal data.
Alexander McCaig clarifies that he doesn’t care about the platform. He explains that this is because Facebook is a commercialization engine, and has been clear about their intentions for their users.
It’s difficult to expect change from a super tech company that is set on its ambition to continue profiting from its users. A more realistic goal to work on would be to take away its biggest source of income, which is its massive user base.
Jason pointed out that if a huge momentum against Facebook occurred and a billion users collectively decided to just stop using the platform, it would have a tangible and more concrete impact on their actions. In contrast, writing articles would not be as effective.
The anger towards big tech corporations like Facebook is misplaced. With all the awareness around what it’s capable of doing and what it has already chosen to do before, people don’t need more content on how they’re being used as cash cows. They need a way to mobilize against the platform; an incentive to move away from using Facebook as their primary source of connection and entertainment.
The TARTLE platform is capable of giving people this renewed purpose on the internet. The marketplace is designed to fully respect the autonomy and privacy of each individual. Users are free to fill out all the data packets they want and earn from their hard work. Everybody who is on the TARTLE platform has the opportunity to become a data champion.
If you have the strong desire to stop an enormous commercialization system like Facebook from using people as cash cows, the first step towards achieving your goal is to find out what you have control over—yourself, and your participation in that very system.
Cutting off their access to your data may seem insignificant when you are just one person out of a billion users on the platform. However, change is never about one big miraculous step that suddenly and neatly solves all the problems. It’s a series of small steps that amount to a big change over time.
You could be the first step of the movement that takes down Facebook’s monopoly over other people’s data. All you need to do is stop using it—and if you want a renewed perspective on your power as an individual, make the switch to the TARTLE marketplace.
It’s time to find out: what’s your data worth?
Sign up for the TARTLE Marketplace through this link here.
New Mexico has in the past benefited from its vast reserves of fossil fuels. The state has received massive amounts in taxes from the corporations that have mined those very resources. The state government has even managed to benefit as public opinion and policy has shifted in a more environmentally friendly direction. In 2019, the Energy Transition Act was passed and since then New Mexico has been investing more in clean energy. Some though, have asked whether or not New Mexicans have actually benefited from any of the money coming in.
The clear answer is that they have. The presence of so much industry does a lot to create jobs in the state for a great many people. Not just jobs like working at an oil derrick or a solar panel manufacturer, but secondary jobs such as road construction and restaurants. The amount of secondary and tertiary jobs the energy sector has created just by being there is in all honesty impossible to quantify.
The tax revenue brought in also helps by giving the state money to improve its infrastructure, building new roads, repairing old ones, as well as programs to help the poor. Since clean energy has begun to take over, New Mexicans get the additional benefit of cleaner air and the associated improvements to overall health.
However, that doesn’t mean that it is all sunshine and roses. While that shift in energy production has led to many positive benefits for the state’s residents, it has created a couple of downsides as well. One of them is displacement.
As most know, wind farms and solar take up massive amounts of land. It takes thousands of acres of either to generate what a fossil plant or especially a nuclear plant can do with a dozen or so. That isn’t to say that the land can’t be reclaimed to an extent. Cattle can graze around windmills and shorter grasses at least can grow around a solar farm. And of course, New Mexico has plenty of desert to place these renewable power generators in, making the impact on the locals relatively small.
However, some still have lost access to land because of the construction and the additional infrastructure that is needed to get the material out to those remote sites. Also, let’s be honest, not everyone likes the site of those windmills or the solar panels reflecting all that sun. That means the locals have to deal with loss of land, and loss of peace and tranquility that they had previously taken for granted.
And this brings us to the real problem we’d like to focus on here. Whether it’s fossil fuels, or wind and solar, no one has bothered asking the locals what they think about everything going on. What kind of power do they want? Would they rather have the windmills along the roads or the smokestacks in the cities? Or maybe they would rather have nuclear. As things currently stand, the state just makes deals with the energy companies with nothing more than lip service to the will of the citizens. They offer tax breaks and companies come. Sometimes it’s hard to see where the government stops and the company starts.
Instead, wouldn’t it be better to ask the people what sort of power they’d like to have? What kind of trade offs do they want to make since they are the ones most affected by them? Do they want an obstructed view and cleaner air, or dirty air but no loss of trails to explore? Or good views, clean air, but a slight risk of a significant accident?
Naturally one might be concerned that the average person isn’t equipped to make those decisions. All right, equip them. Take the time to actually educate people without talking down to them. Give them the data and treat them like people capable of making decisions on their own. Show people the data, the good, the bad, and the ugly of all the options. Once they have that data, they could actually make an informed decision and from there, they could let the state government and companies work out the particulars.
What’s your data worth?
