The Force that Pulls the Lever: Behavioural Economics and Big Data

Western democracies are desperately searching for Martin Luther. Following the Facebook and Cambridge Analytica data scandal, the social media platform in particular and tech giants generally have found themselves increasingly under scrutiny for their data practices. Such scrutiny takes many forms: is Facebook a threat to democracy?; are tech giants too big?; who has agency over our data?; and so on.

These are questions that have always existed, not just for social media, but for all private interests and indeed all states. There is little objective nuance in these questions. New technologies have always altered the power of the masses, and thus potentially threatened democracy; monopolies have always existed in one form or another; agency has always been a very transient thing. Even when existential questions about social media have been asked, most obviously in the campaign to delete one’s Facebook, the irony has been missed on those who distributed their rallying cries via hashtags, blogs and twitter feeds.

Luther, rather than David, is the character whom many seek as we consider data in a more critical light. We do not wish to slay social media; we want to reform it.

Social media reactionaries, irony aside, do not actually want to delete Facebook. We enjoy the curated information steams decorated in gradients of blue, the egalitarian means by which we might show approval, and the undeniable efficiency of social media as a means of consuming said information and showing said approval. Even the toxic areas of social media – and the Internet as a whole – act as reflections of social problems that exist without social media. At best, social media allows us to peer into fringe groups with relative safety. At worst social media allows these fringe groups to project their ideas outwards, protected by anonymity, which whilst often detestable or uncomfortable, we should recognise is a truth that might not have formally been identified.

Those that believe retreating from social media is the preferable reaction may be accused of suffering a similar belief that the power of invisibility may be gained by shutting one’s eyes. Just because they no longer see the world change around them does not mean change has stopped.

The question, then, is what is being reformed? To take the above scrutiny, the rhetorical questions that precede such outrage may be translated into two statements:

“Why did Facebook collect THAT piece of data about me!?”

“Facebook did WHAT with my data!?”

These statements represent either a shallower, or a deeper – respectively – understanding of the age of data. It is for those who reject the quantification of the world that exclaim the former, and not without good reason. There are legitimate causes for consternation. Privacy is that of most notable concern, and just as we teach young children not to talk to strangers, it seems good practice to not wantonly share data with faceless companies which unravel one’s privacy and leave oneself exposed.

When we realise that we have been doing such a thing by participating in social media – as many surely have since the Cambridge Analytica scandal – it is a natural reaction to withdraw. It is not necessarily the correct reaction.

By deleting one’s Facebook or Twitter, each of us might claim to be reclaiming some privacy and authority over our data. But we forget that companies which collect our data are companies, and insofar as they offer a service we would like to acquire we must pay a price. If the alternative is to pay a membership to these platforms, we would simply find ourselves out of pocket, as well as digitally exposed. If it is to legislate what data may and may not be acquired by these companies, that imbues a whole miasma of regulatory back and forth, arbitration and conflict – issues which, let’s be honest, the vast majority of social media users simply don’t care about.

Concern for one’s personal data security on something as individually innocuous as Twitter or Facebook is simply arrogance – as a data point, we are all very much unimportant. I will, however, return to this conjecture. The point is, for the vast majority, the price of their personal data is a fair cost for the services that the likes of Facebook and Twitter provide. When our data is used to suggest interesting people to follow on Twitter, to organise social gatherings on Facebook, or to recommend delectable entertainment on Amazon or Netflix, we see the great benefit that the tech giants generally provide.

This brings us onto the second statement. It follows quite logically that if the ‘THAT,’ piece of data is willingly given to produce a better service, when that same piece of data is used for an enterprise that is not a better service – the ‘WHAT,’ function – we will criticise the platform specifically, not the process generally.

This is perhaps the cure for the irony identified above: those that were calling for the deletion of Facebook were calling for the culling of a bad actor, whilst Twitter, Blogspot and others had done nothing wrong, and would have been unfairly targeted if this irony were true and discrediting. But this is not the point.

The point is this reaction to the ‘WHAT,’ function is a more rational response as it accepts the transactional nature of data and social media – that data is given only insofar as it creates and improves desired services. When Facebook as the trusted keeper of this data oversteps their mandate, or is lax in their protective duties, or both, situations like the Cambridge Analytica scandal arise. For policy makers, at least initially, this should be the area of legislative interest.

However, this simple model of social media and agency is incomplete, and not wholly due to simplicity. Whilst for some the collection of data (THAT) is the point of incredulity, for many it is the outcome of having given that data (WHAT). But how does THAT become WHAT?

As stated above, individually our data is not substantial. Most people understand this, hence the emergence of Big Data. But Big Data is often an overvalued asset; social media sites will gleam any and all data they can from us, and they will surely have fantastical ideas of the services they might provide in the future (the THAT and the WHAT, respectively). A specific example is Cambridge Analytica, who siphoned the data of Facebook users with the intention of supporting a particular election outcome.

Perhaps it is unique to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, with its politicisation, or perhaps it’s a condition of our data obsessed lives, but the scandal was not about the THAT and the WHAT. Users had already given Facebook that data, and citizens were already exposed to campaign advertising via the Internet and traditional platforms. The scandal, I believe, revolves around the HOW.

It would be abjectly unfair to place the blame for the scandal at the door of behavioural economics. For the most part, Big Data analysis doesn’t really care why a person with a particular set of data points is more likely to support one candidate/product/idea as opposed to another. Big Data simply identifies the pattern and targets the resources associated so as to match the pattern. Here, behavioural economics becomes the far too fastidious an advisor, the consultant who didn’t get the memo about going fast and breaking stuff.

As such, in lieu of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, pillars of behavioural economics such as nudge theory probably find more of a role as villainous underlings in targeted news campaigns (the presumed resources of a political advertising machine) than they do in deciding who will be targeted in the first place. Indeed, would the Cambridge Analytica scandal be a scandal if people did not believe – rightly or wrongly – that the efforts of the company were relevant to whatever outcome they were trying to facilitate?

Possibly, but it is much less clear than it might be otherwise. If the HOW of the matter is to receive some blame, and be subject to some reformation, behavioural economics may be as worthy of criticism as Big Data is. I find myself coming to this conclusion on the Cambridge Analytica story: Big Data is the new corporate sexy; cognitive deficiencies make us feel dumb. The latter should not be forgotten because the former is a more palatable creature.

This point, however, should not be conflated with the Cambridge Analytica story. That circumstance is more unique; the tandem utilisation of Big Data and behavioural economics need not be.

In an election, everyone is a potential consumer. Whilst Big Data might be used to target those more susceptible to a particular side’s advertising, for those who are accidently targeted the message is not wholly lost – the message is just less efficiently received. But for a commercial advertising campaign, where the promises of bang for your buck may make or break a would-be Cambridge Analytica’s business model, behavioural economics becomes more relevant.

Here, there is no need to go fast, and certainly no desire to break stuff. On the contrary; where the demands of Big Data are the maximum return from the number of advertisements placed, behavioural economics comes to the aid. The manipulation or exploitation (both controversial words) of ubiquitous cognitive shortcomings may reduce the cost of accidental mis-targeting, whilst the framing of products as defaults, offers as loss averting and the use of multiple ads to invoke herding effects may make advertisements too effective for those already considered susceptible.

In other words, Big Data may tell us who to talk to, but behavioural economics may tell us what to say. In this sense I return to the title of this piece; behavioural economics may be the force that pulls the lever of Big Data. This is a logical realisation I believe many in the field of behavioural economics will come to. A nudge such as a default option effect is far from perfect; for benefits of this nudge to be seen, a great many observations are often needed. As such, the domains in which Big Data and behavioural economics rely are the same: across populations.

Whilst the discussion of this piece has been framed around a scandal, it is not my intention to suggest either Big Data or behavioural economics are malignant. As with the discussion of the benefits of social media, such an accusation would be far too simple, and far too easy. But a great deal of the commentary on the nature of data and its place in society misses the point: it is HOW we use data that matters. If this discussion is to be had, I feel behavioural economics must be included.

A Modest Proposal for a New Social Media

For many observers and commentators of the recent Facebook data scandal, now is the time to bask in smugness. Smugness, in one regard, because it is Silicon Valley (or at least a major member of it) finally receiving what some might consider to be comeuppance, but also because many will claim to have seen such a scandal coming. The logic behind the latter consideration is simple; with so much data, and so many users, eventually something would go wrong. Popularity, or perhaps frequency, breeds inevitability – a notion that we will return to.

The response to such a scandal, too, has thus far been quite typical of the current digital age, with hashtag movements seeming to galvanise the popular, if sometimes discreet, zeitgeist rejecting social media (irony, of course, pervades, namely, a hashtag campaign to rally against Facebook membership). Meanwhile, governments, who, in more ways than simply potential election irregularities, have felt marginalised by social media, embrace the opportunity to assert some legislative position, even if ultimately nothing transpires from these witch hunts (the use of the phrase ‘witch hunts,’ is not done with some hyperbolic tone as might be conceived; such investigations are supported, and the phrase has been used for lack of a better word).

It is valuable, and indeed necessary, in my opinion, that we begin to examine the role of a) social media, b) digital enterprise more widely and c) big data within the frame of the democratic and social contract. Such examination, I believe, was necessary even before the several high profile examples of dubious social media exploits that have brought these questions to the fore; whilst one should be sad that said scandals have occurred, one must be grateful of any progress given the unrelenting ferocity with which some imagined, ‘future,’ seems intent on imposing itself on society (again, I fear the negative undertones in my words; to be sure, whilst sceptical, it is poetic license, and not the entrenchment of a position, that should be identified from my choice of phrasing). Be it some calls for the public ownership of big data, or the application of anti-trust laws in the face of Silicon Valley behemoths, solutions, be them effective or fanciful, are valuable if only in acknowledging that there is a problem.

Yet, despite the themes alluded to thus far, a precise picture of what has and is happening does not appear clear. It is argued here, to an extent, this is because nothing fundamentally has changed in the way Facebook and its users operate. I think it is a helpful to begin by considering the impending crisis in social media (which, I would suggest, is not necessarily a crisis solely within social media, but also within big data regulation and anti-trust laws around tech companies) to that of the 2008 financial crisis. The parallels, though superficial at times, do, I believe, provide a reasonable basis of thought with which to proceed.

In terms that are far too simplified, the 2008 financial crisis was a failure from regulators, from government, and from individuals, in moderating the behaviour of massive financial institutions as they placed a vast number of moral hazard trades. Such hazardous morality was (and is, to an extent) found in their size and importance to society at the time. The collapse of the banking system challenged not only the financial dominance of the Western world, but also the civil authority of governments – certainly their political authority. Genuine fears of the loss of deposits (even if the threat of such lost deposits was not genuine, the fears certainly were), of home repossession and so on highlighted the importance, yet simultaneous fragility, of the financial system as a social institution. Whilst profit-motive was certainly a driving factor from the perspective of bankers, from the perspective of customers, their motive was to receive some fantastic benefit – say, a home – from the perceived progress and innovation within the financial system. They were sold an idea.

I suggest similar, all be it less apocalyptic, parallels can be drawn between the 2008 financial crisis and Facebook (amongst others) today.

Social media and the social contract

It is foolish to ignore the integral social role Facebook, Twitter and Google play in our society, even if the actual purpose or value generated by these companies within an individual mindset is limited or even possibly negative. The value of these sites is not in the services they provide per se; rather, value is derived from the ubiquity of their services. It is quite impossible to tell if Facebook is the best social media company, or Google the best search engine; but we are quite certain that a plethora of friends may be found on Facebook, and a sufficient quantity of relevant information found on Google. This is the tenet of big data – precision may be forgone, provided a large enough sample is available (precision is oft the word used when discussing big data – it is perhaps more appropriate to say personality when discussing Facebook or Google, amongst others). Equally, quality may be forgone, provided what remains is sufficient given present demands. This phenomenon, rather than traditional mechanisms of establishing monopoly, is how these sites have become embedded in our society. They do just enough, and those few that would like more, or at least different, are just that – few.

It is the popular premise that big data, harnessed via social media’s complex algorithms, can provide a social networking experience that offers genuine benefits to the user; an augmentation of a user’s social interactions with others for the better. Yet it seems unreasonable to allow a company whose business is the augmentation of societal interactions to exist outside of the social contract that governs all other social interactions, especially when the natural barriers of reality are blurred and belittled by digitised substitutes (it might be cute and amusing to see a company’s sassy Twitter response to a customer, but one should not forget that each retweet is also advertising, for example).

By engaging in this industry, one must accept their social responsibilities, and the moral hazards that are also brought forth, and act in such a way as to not defile the former and exploit the latter. Further, and in what will be discussed in more detail below, it is an insufficient argument to suggest that the lack of obvious equitable exchange between a social media platform and its users constitutes a means of invalidating the social contact; quite the opposite, I suggest: data is not currency, and as such, any exchange involving it must embed the tenets of trust and consent that follow a great many other interactions governed by the social contract.

If one still remains unconvinced that social media holds a social contract with us, or more generally that the movement of activities from reality to the online space serves to invalid any formerly present social contract, one need only ask oneself would they divulge the same amount of personal information given online to real world strangers? Would they post a photo of themselves in the middle of the town, knowing that photo is not just liable to be seen, but also stolen and exploited, by those one neither knows nor trusts? Perhaps, if all one’s friends had also participated, but then we must ask the question of who is validating the action? Surely a social contract still exists; not between oneself and the entire town, but between oneself and one’s friends, whereby faith in their judgement is levied against any other consequences. However, such an argument seems dumb – the fury at any und to ord consequences is surely to be levied at the person who steals the photo or hijacks the information, not the colleagues who advocate the advertisement of such things in the first place. And surely, by extension, the existence of any fury demonstrates a violation of something borne between oneself and this mystery villain – a social contract.

And thus, even if you would be willing to give tremendous amounts of personal information to a stranger, be it for apparent benefit, or via a friend’s recommendation, or both, one might only deny the presence of a social contract if an undesired – yet possibly permitted – use of that information does not invoke outrage, fury or despair. Given the furore presently surrounding social media, and what I would contend is a perceived undercurrent of distain for social media more generally – though, of course, I offer no evidence for this conviction – I believe my argument is sufficiently valid, at least insofar as this piece is concerned, to take that as evidence of the presence, and recent violation of, a social contract between social media and society at large.

Accepting that a social contract does exist between social media and its users demands, thus, that we consider how this relationship manifests currently, which is to say how are these companies presently embedded within society?

Where Twitter has enabled the public broadcast of a stray thought as would previously be limited to a conversation in a coffee shop or bar, Google has enabled the modern construction of Alexander’s library. Facebook has perhaps been even bolder, combining all which might be called media into a self-curated space – what I have previously likened to the invention of the soul. These companies challenge our notions of institutions, public and private, by leveraging promises of efficiency that what might be called terrestrial institutions could never possibly achieve. The impetus of such efficiency is, of course, data; and it is to data we now turn (it is not beyond me that the transformative nature of social media makes the former comparison between social media and the stranger on the street dubious, as social media may redefine what a stranger is and indeed force us to question where, or at least how long and wide, the street is. Yet I feel the comparison still serves a relevant purpose, if only insofar as it makes a complex digital landscape more rational for non-digital entities – namely humans – to understand).

To understand what role social media plays in society, we must consider how we and it interact, and – in what might be an economist’s unavoidable habit – perform something akin to a cost-benefit analysis. I first propose a simple idea: that the exchange of data, insofar as it might act like currency, for greater efficiency through the medium of customisation, is as equitable a trade as the exchange of dollars for bread. Supposing this notion is true, then it is not the case, as some might suggest, that the act of exchanging data is inherently bad. Instead, it is an act that is concerned with choice and trust. Returning to the financial crisis, the act of taking out a mortgage was not in itself malignant; yet the act of irresponsible lending – where choice was manufactured and falsified, and trust manipulated – produced a crisis.

In a sense, one might accuse the transgressions during the financial crisis of consisting of an irresponsible leveraging of social equity, leading to dramatic consequences when such an account was ultimately balanced. Similar, I propose, has occurred with Facebook. In utilising personal data to achieve desired efficiencies such as targeted advertising, the leveraging of social equity has occurred, and it has been disastrous. In part, I feel, because the recent exploitation of private data was done with intent and purpose, rather than simple neglect, damaging the sanctity of trust between user and site.

But in part also because data is not currency. The value of data is not in the collective belief in its value, as currency might be said to function, but rather in its specificity to an individual. In that sense, we cannot compare the risking of deposits on risky mortgage products with the careless utilisation of data for questionable ends as the bank notes – regardless of one’s depository claims – bare no intrinsic relation to the depositor in the process of utilisation, whilst the data always does. The attitude of treating data like capital which might be utilised to achieve profit ignores the fundamental characteristic of data, and as such perpetuates its misuse. This serves to demonstrate the apathy of choice; that any utilisation of personal data demands that we choose to have our data utilised that way, and in absence of that conscious choice we feel betrayed. Such a betrayal may not intimately be felt when our deposits are gambled by banks, as we choose to deposit a specific amount of money, not a specific type of money (which is to say, we do not care if the bank notes we receive on withdrawal are the exact same notes we deposit, only that the value of the withdrawal meets the value desired).

Thus, in considering how social media is currently embedded in society, I suggest the answer is immediately prevalent. It is the process by which social interactions are used to derive and ultimately combined with those that might seek to interlope on such interactions – advertisers, special interests, punditry perhaps – which forms the odd amalgamation that is social media, and thus that leaves us wanting. The exploitation of personal data on an industrial scale on the one hand serves to atomise the individual’s relevance and degrades concepts of choice and trust attached to their data (for remember, data is not currency; unlike the bank deposit that can be spent as the bank wishes, for their only obligation is to return the deposit upon request, personal data is only ‘deposited,’ in the context of the need expressed by the company, and as such any further use of the data, serves to violate the data in the context of the social contract).

If we are to fix social media, or at least address some of the issues and concerns that are coming to the fore, it seems necessary as part of a partial solution to improve a user’s perception of their choice when using social media, and to improve the trust relationship between platform and user. These things are, of course, only part of the solution, though additional problems, most notably the widespread use of misinformation online, receive significantly more coverage than the problems of choice and trust. Whilst this piece does not seek to belittle the need to solve the problems of fake news and clickbait (to give them their accurate titles), these problems may be implicitly tackled by improving the choice and trust in social media. Choice, in that rather than algorithms identifying those potentially more susceptible to misinformation (and any targeted information, for that matter) it is the user whose conscious actions consent to their viewing that information. And trust, for whilst any misinformation online is undesired generally, a user will feel more aggrieved at, say, Facebook, if they believe either through intention or negligence they are receiving false information and that they can’t trust the site to respect their data and/or their intellect.

A  modest proposal

Multiple ways of embedding choice and trust surely exist, and are accessible to those minds more inspired than I; I offer here a single conceptualisation. It is an inescapable fact that those who use social media must be subjected to advertising, and thus it seems logical to target this element of social media beyond all else. My idea is rather simple at the heart of it: allow users to choose what advertising they see, and show them nothing they have not elected to see. Of course, we must then ask the question: why would anyone elect to see advertising? The answer I propose is because it is part of a fair, equitable exchange.

Here is the crux of my proposal. Social media should implement a reward based system for users, allowing users to generate some sort of token currency, perhaps even a cryptocurrency (yet, at this early stage of conception, this seems to create more problems than solutions), from their regular activity online. This currency could then be taken to an online marketplace where users could purchase benefits from innocuous cosmetic items to perhaps real-world discount coupons (in lieu of cryptocurrency once more, such a platform seems odiously suitable for a product such as crypto-kitties). In purchasing these coupons, users would consent to these companies advertising to them on the site, and thus an equitable exchange of sorts may be seen to have been established (again, and with emphasis on the infancy of this idea, such currency might be used to pay for online news subscriptions, adding a barrier to entry for dubious sites to get onto social media feeds, and imbuing in readers an expectation of quality news given they’ve laid out their hard earned, shall we call them, clicks?).

Several problems present themselves, most notably, how might such a system be created such that it is not rife for exploitation and does not degrade the meaning of a like or a share. Additionally, how might the financial relationship be structured such that a click (see above), which seems to have even less inherent value than real world fiat money, translates into a pound or a dollar?

On the latter note, my initial estimation would be that the spending commitment generated by the selling of a discount coupon is greater than the revenue generated from even well targeted advertising. Of course, without such a system in place to test such a hypothesis, we are left to pontificate. On the former, I would task the hypothetical computer scientists and mathematicians to resolve this problem. Exploitation of the laws of diminishing returns built into complex and tightly guarded algorithms with currency sinks (see cosmetic items) to regulate this new currency market seem like one answer, yet again, such a system seems difficult to judge purely theoretically.

I am not beyond the slippery slope. The slow but promising rise of Sesame credit in the East seems wholly comparable to the click system proposed here, and must certainly raise the question of where would it end. To regulate a secondary market in coupons, for example, a unique user code tied to each social media account may be necessary – how long before this becomes an online identification code?

Further, would such a system suck any soul out of social media, turning the process of socialising into a financial grind? Would a like become meaningless; a status update literally a means of earning the daily bread? For some, surely these things are already reality; yet who am I to subject others (potentially) to such a reality?

Finally, there is of course the problem of control. Those same algorithms and the computer sciences behind them would hold tremendous sway over a potentially enormous online institution. Any changes, and all judgement calls, would not just impact a person’s convenience, but also their financials. This is serious enough in itself; but when combined with the copious amounts of data also held by these gatekeepers, be it age or gender or race, the risk of implicit bias built into a system which, in its present state and for better or worse, is rather equal in this regard, seems not without concern. However, though not to diminish these issue, we should acknowledge that such faceless discretion is held by social media giants presently and must, as anyone in the regulatory and policy world will tell you, be held by someone no matter how the system is assembled. This is not to excuse this concern as one without solution; instead, I only wish to suggest any solution will likely not being wholly or even mostly satisfying.

I bring up these issues because they are inescapable whilst borne out in theory, and it is incumbent as part of good authorship to acknowledge them, even if solutions are not forthcoming. As part of any criticism that might surround this piece, surely these weaknesses must form an integral part. Whether one accepts the proposal given here as panacea, or rejects this proposal as a menacing nail in an imagined coffin, the key to any development, and certainly any online development, is time and consideration. Though hardly the sexiest of messages for Silicon Valley, if this piece has any point it is to highlight that social media cannot ignore its social responsibility, and thus, if any solution is to be proposed, it seems prudent to address the issues openly, as a means of forestalling negligence.

We cannot escape social media, and in the spirit of the internet – indeed, by the means which social media functions so effectively, it is difficult to rationalise an application of anti-trust laws as was seen with the robber barons. That is not to say these laws are irrelevant, but additional tools and nuanced ideas, of which it is hoped this piece has contributed towards, might sure to provide more effective solutions to the problems of social media.

The Disentanglement of Social Media

For all the difficulty and pretentiousness surrounding David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, the point – if such a book can be said to have a point – is that what you believe is good for you, what you believe you want and even what you believe is right may not, after a while, turn out to be all that great.

Whenever I talk to people about social media, I get this feeling. It did not take last month’s data hacking scandal to convince the world that Facebook was in an overly powerful and compromising position; nor was it the impetus for misgivings about social media. If I were to speculate, part of the problem with the innate ill feeling that I do believe is prevalent in the face of social media is it’s hard to explain what these feelings necessarily are. I think Wallace sums up my view of social media in its current form best with this line:

“Was amateurish the right word? More like the work of a brilliant optician and technician who was an amateur at any kind of real communication. Technically gorgeous… but oddly hollow.”

-        Infinite Jest pp. 740, David Foster Wallace

To an extent it’s impossible to argue that social media is good or bad, partly, I think, because it’s spectacularly new compared to the contemporaneous mediums of news media and, well, human interaction. But also, crucially, because used theoretically it should simply reflect the user; in absence of a user, or taken as an entity in und itself, Facebook, for example, is a tabula rasa. Perhaps, I concede, it is that very thing; that the oddly hollow nature of social media reflects the fact that it is not a community or institution in the classic sense, but a system that may only mimic, and not create.

I understand such musings are not the day-to-day considerations of either the movers and shakers of these social media companies nor the users of said companies; yet, I believe, if we are to rectify the doubts that are present about social media in our society, and indeed to establish the place and purpose of social media in our society, it is crucial to understand quite what social media is intended to be.

The misappropriation of data, for example, seems to me less so an intrinsic breach of trust – for did we all truly believe such nefarious manipulations would not occur given how much data Facebook holds? – and more so a dramatic collision, or perhaps we might call it a reminder, of the reality within which the online presence is held; that all the silly little things we do on Facebook have consequences. Thus, I argue, social media is not just some innocuous means of disposing of time.

The rules and means by which we communicate and interact in the real-world are governed fundamentally not by laws, but by the social contract. The threat of the law is meaningless if we do not first have faith in the law (which is to say, in each other), and thus the social contract prevails. Likewise, such a contract governs the media, yet with an extension that demands the objective reality of the world, insofar as it can be perceived, to dominate the subjective interpretation of the world which we find in common social interactions.

These camps, when considered as a conversation on the street, or the browsing of a newspaper, are distinct and understood. The innovation of social media, when detached from its online domain, is that it seeks to combine these two camps into one, and, in the process, promises tremendous benefits. Yet, such benefits can only be understood as pertaining to either the social camp or the media camp, so long as the new notion of social media remains unembedded in the social contract. Social media may bring us closer together; however, it also highlights the discrepancies in our objective understanding of the world. It may inform our objective understanding of the world; but in doing so, it places us in silos.

The algorithms of social media are technically brilliant. But in practice the result feels absent of any real communication. This, I posit, is the source of any doubts – we, nor the social media giants, know what the purpose of social media is. Any failures of Facebook is also – party –  a failure of society in which Facebook is contained; it is not a question of why does Facebook need our data, instead, it’s a question of why do we need Facebook?

And, drawing on that question, the response we’ve seen in recent weeks of those leaving Facebook seems natural. However, I feel, unhelpful. Insofar as this brief analysis has posited, it seems more coherent to attempt to answer the question posed, as opposed to invalidate the question in the first instance. And the logical answer, again insofar as is posited here, is to break the hegemony of social media back into its constituent parts: social and media.

The benefits of online socialising have at no point demanded the intrusion of advertisers, companies and special interests. Such intrusions, if ever made prior to social media, were done so via the purposeful intention of those whom we were socialising with, and interpreted based on the social credibility with which we attributed to that person. Social media, insofar as notifications and likes are concerned, makes credibility unitary and eliminates purposeful intention. For social media to be social, it must seek to restore these virtues.

And yet, from a business perspective, social media must act as a platform for those aforementioned groups. This requirement being accepted, social media should present news and advertising in a way that absolutely distinguishes itself from the aspects with which the site is deemed social. Such distinctions would return the agency that exists in our current social contract to the user, as it would be their elective to browse the news and consider the advertiser’s propositions. Again, the business voice might say, such a system would result in users electing to avoid such media content and the site becoming unprofitable. To such an argument for the status quo, I reply as such: that is the nature of business, and if the product does not appeal, one cannot blame the customers.

To summarise, we should not reject social media, though we should demand changes. Yet part of those demands must be a holistic consideration by the users as to why, not how, we use social media. For social media, I suggest a distinct disentanglement of the social and media aspects of social media, less doubts be allowed to linger, and the foundations of our patronage be jeopardised. To return to DFW: we have the tools and the technical know-how to leverage them, yet our attempts thus far have been amateurish.