My Way or the Highway!
Platforms and Public Life
Everyone has three lives: a public life, a private life and a secret life.
Gabriel García Márquez to his biographer Gerald Martin
Platforms have transformed our lives and removed the distinction between public, private and secret. And we have seen our private lives being broadcasted live on platforms and many companies like Google have become “Repository of Human Intentions” by tracking seemingly private life for their profits.
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If you would like to read a summary of the 45 posts in 2020, please do read the first week’s newsletter.
DTW
During the Week, major social media sites banned/removed/suspended President Trump from their respective platforms.
This has raised lot of questions about the power of platforms in our day-to-day life especially from public life perspective. I have written about power of platforms in democracy, nation states, regulations, negative network externalities , brands, news media and social good. I have tried to summarise some of the key learnings from previous posts to discuss the Platforms’ influence on our public life which can be visualised through the following graphical representation.
This recent Twitter vs. Donald Trump controversy has brought to fore a significant power play between Platforms and News Media. We can visualise this relationship in three ways- One, Platforms as aggregators of news/views ; Two, Platforms as user engagement channel for news media ; and Three, Platforms as Arbiter of Truth ! The role of these social platforms in spreading fake news and rumours is still being researched but the harm is there anecdotally for all of us to see. The fact remains that the platforms themselves have been responsible for spread of false and at times malicious content. Prof Scott Galloway talks about Twitter and Facebook as rage machines and argues for strict regulations of their algorithm when their revenue/business/engagement model depends on propaganda/hate speech. Platforms claims of not being a publishers and hence not responsible for the content published on their sites flies in the face of evidence that they tweak their algorithms to allow/promote certain content over others and thus “"Control the Narrative”.
About platforms and democracy, it is true that platforms have freed us from the tyranny of space and time and have enabled us to organise/protest (an inherent feature of democracy) at scale. In many ways , they have made our democracies more open, more direct, more interactive, more inclusive and definitely more relatable to more & more disenfranchised segments of society. They have afforded convenient and affordable stage to organise on local, glocal and global issues. Calls to control, break or ban platforms in interest of free speech or national security have added another dimension to the discourse. Many governments are wary of power of these platforms for helping the minorities or fringe groups to organise themselves and create movements on ground. Some of the encryption offered by the platforms make them a difficult proposition from a law enforcement perspective and thus there have been calls to create “local data centres”. State’s power to regulate information has been enhanced as internet shut down can effectively curb all forms of communications. Censorship whether official or unofficial is easier to impose as very few platforms control most of the market.
Relationship between platforms and Nation States could be seen through a three dimensional framework - first, platforms being supra-national; second, platforms as national identities; and third, platforms as tools of nations. Nations have to think out-of-box to deal with platforms as their relationship is going to become ever more complex. We are entering a new world where seemingly unrelated events in far off countries can have damning consequences for millions far away in time and space. Technology and globalisation have increased the potential of platforms acquiring power that they should not have and can not control !
We can look at the issue of platform and regulations from three different perspectives- Regulation of Platforms , Regulations on Platforms and Regulations by Platforms.It is time to externally regulate them, help them to regulate their internal ecosystem and of course avoid lagging behind them in visioning and enforcing regulation.
Platforms have created enormous Negative Network Externalities - same side and cross side. The growing market valuation of BigTech firms can be attributed to investors looking for positive impact of growing network effects. It is also imperative that we start looking at the negative impact of network externalities to mitigate it and thus ensure a sustainable future. We could visualise negative impact of network effects through Community, Control and Content. We have had too much focus on generating value for end users and investors of various platforms. This has generally resulted in adverse impact on gig workers and larger communities where these platforms function. It is time that the platforms start contributing to the welfare of PUBLICs.
Finally, new reality of our public life is also lived through the brands we love and engage. In fact , the relationship between Brands and Platforms could be visualised through a three parallel alternative realities in a New Matrix World - Brands on platforms, Platforms as brands and Commodification of brands on platforms. Most of the platform convey the perception that they are free for the users and hence Good for ALL. I go by an adage which says- If you are getting it for free then you are the product.
To conclude, it is slowly dawning on many of us that it is no more politics which determines our public life but increasingly technology especially platforms and other businesses. They can be nudging and at times rushing us towards choices in food, celebrations, finance and career and eventually kind of life-both public and private- that we “want” to live.
OTW
Over the Weekend, I finished few more chapters of an interesting book titled Why We Sleep. It is one of the finest work on ‘The New Science of Sleep and Dreams” by Mattew Walker who is Professor of Neuroscience and Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and Founder and Director of the Center for Human Sleep Science. The ill-effects of sleep deprivation are becoming clear with rise in memory loss, aggression, hallucinations, delusions, cardio-vascular problems etc.
Running especially endurance running demands adequate rest and experienced athletes always emphasise on sleeping at least 7 hours at night. In fact, one of the frequent piece of advise I give to my younger friends is to eat well but more importantly sleep well.
I Love You
Shailendra
mid blowing decision from both the giants Facebook and Twitter. In a era where countries like china bans the media and India where they control media according to their needs, there are still media giants who possesses the power to remove any one in nation`s benefit. This shows the power of social media over any power who he trying to use platform for negative spread of news.
sir I opened you newsletter right after I read that Zuck banned trump and went on the newsletter "platform and nations".
thanks a lot.
Yeah, even I was also monitoring the war between these platforms and Ex-President Mr. Trump. And, what I found out is that, these platforms like Twitter and Facebook, they are not doing it for anybody or for any public or noble cause, rather than doing for themselves, to be in the good books of the newly elected government. And, if they really wanted to take such a step which I called a Bold Stroke, they should have done in the past couple of years where they have encountered many occasions & opportunity to do so. However, they didn’t! But why now, reason is obvious.
It’s not only is US, where the supporters of a particular political party have been transformed into the supporters of an individual, we have seen quit of them, and wait for this kind of situation to witnesses by yourself, in certain democracy again.
Well, Sir. Won’t you think “My Way or the Highway”- would be better w.r.t. that of WhatsApp’s New Privacy Policy, especially, when they are forcefully making people to accept the policy on or before, 8th Feb. 2021, or else you can kiss your app bye.