Living just a short forty minute drive from Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, I thought I knew what Facebook was all about. It was the first social media platform that I had ever created a profile on, and to this day still use it to keep in contact with some of the older people in my life like my parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles…you get the idea.
But millenials have slowly but surely backed away from Facebook and have begun to use other platforms such as Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter to stay connected to one another. With the rise of these social media channels, attention has been drawn away from Facebook, and because the general population that uses Facebook regularly starts around the age of 50, less and less younger social media users feel the need to create a profile on what seems to be an out of date platform.
Zuckerberg claims that the survival of any social media outlet relies on the growth of new users, but if this is true how has Facebook not gone out of style like capri shorts? The answer is 2.2 billion. Facebook, since its creation has gained well over 2.2 billion users that log their information into their profiles for just about anyone to see.
Having a third of our population on one website is something we never thought we’d see happen in society, and proven time and time again to be incredibly dangerous.
Having our information be this accessible allows for companies to advertise their target audiences with extreme precision. Facebook’s ability to give your personal information away to the highest bidder is what has kept this social media platform alive and well for so long. Micro-targeting has become the most used and most successful from of advertising that our society has ever seen. If you are online at any moment searching for something specific, companies who dominant the internet- Google, Amazon, Apple, and Facebook- are able to sell your information- name, age, location, background- away to advertisers in order to get their product in front of you right that moment. It’s become THAT simple.
But with these advancements has come controversy. Beginning with the 2016 election, campaigners for Presidential candidates used Facebook to spread “mis-information” in order to get society to turn on itself. People thought they had the right information, when in fact they didn’t. Politics became polarized and the future of our nation had become a little less clear.
Supports of current President Donald Trump paid Facebook to micro-target users who had proven to be susceptible to what we call “fake news”, in the past. And how did they know this? Because they, whoever they are, are always watching your internet adventures.
President Trump has utilized platforms such as Twitter and Facebook like no other candidates have. He has gotten inside our homes and told us what to believe. It has made people think, including myself, if we will ever be able to believe what the media has to say?
So switch up your searches, look up something you normally wouldn’t to throw propagandists off their game, because while you may think you’re just sharing information with your close network of family and friends, someone is always watching.
From Nicole's Perspective 