DNA Special: How we are letting social media influence every aspect of our lives

‘A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes’ - said Mark Twain once. This holds true for social media giants too! Nowadays, Google, Facebook, Twitter, among others are not just social media platforms. In fact, they are the ones influencing our lives the most. These sites are now controlling our likes, dislikes and behaviour. We are merely products for them, which these companies have bought. Now these tell us what to buy, where to visit and even which political party should vote.

Companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google have begun to interfere in the political system of countries. These companies can topple the elected government in a country if they want. Spreading Fake News can create a fake anger in people against governments. There have been a lot of examples in recent times. The violence against the citizenship law ( CAA) earlier this year is the biggest example.

Often we think Google is a search engine and Facebook is a means to connect with friends and share photos with them. If you think so, your opinion will change after what we are going to tell you here.

There is a debate all over the world whether Facebook and Twitter are working in favour of a particular party and ideology? Earlier this month, the Standing Committee of Parliament summoned Facebook's India head Ajit Mohan. In the meeting, some MPs asked Facebook several questions and sought a clean-up on the allegations. These are some allegations that Facebook India is yet to respond to:

Facebook deleted about 700 pages related to the Congress just before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. But the total number of Followers was only about 2 lakh.

In the meantime, Facebook removed 15 pages supporting BJP, but the number of followers was close to 2.6 lakh.

Facebook has some external fact-checking agency in India. But some people of these agencies are also associated with political parties.

-It has also been found that the Fact Check for Facebook itself spreads Fake News several times. A similar rumor about new airports in the country was spread by Facebook's Fact Checker before the Lok Sabha elections. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said that 35 airports were built in the 4 years, but the fact check website appointed by Facebook said that only seven new airports have been built. The Ministry of Civil Aviation had issued a statement and put all the facts.

It is also seen that Facebook doesn't delete hate speeches of people from certain communities or ideologies, for e.g. Asaduddin Owaisi and Kanhaiya Kumar.

All these information has been placed before the Standing Committee of Parliament. The MD of  Facebook India Ajit Mohan worked in the UPA's Planning Commission and he joined Facebook right before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

Siddharth Majumdar of Facebook's public policy team is said to be close to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and Ahmed Patel.

In the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha election, Manish Khanduri, Facebook's then head of news partnerships for India, joined the Congress and was immediately rewarded with a ticket from a constituency in Uttarakhand.

Not only these, social media these days is also influencing the way we think and act. Several documentaries have been made on the influence of social media on our lives. These social media giants gauge our mood and know what we like and dislike and tend to influence. They have data of our everyday lives and they use artificial intelligence to influence our choices and decisions.

This is the power of social media. Like everything, these have their pros and cons. However, we shouldn't let these influence our lives to such a large extent.