By SERGIO AMADEU DA SILVEIRA*
Are we capable of coming together and building alternatives to the culturally impoverished and homogenized communication operated by Big Techs?
1.
In a short essay called Democracy and secrecy,[I] Italian jurist Norberto Bobbio stated that “democracy is ideally the government of visible power, that is, the government whose acts unfold in public under the control of public opinion.” Without any naivety, states considered democratic have vast areas of opacity, especially in their security, intelligence and defense activities. However, the central mechanisms for defining the direction of power, especially elections, need to be highly visible and publicly controlled for a state to be considered democratic.
Furthermore, transparency in democratic decision-making processes is not enough.[ii] There must be fairness in the dispute to form the public's opinion. Regular elections are not enough. In these elections, those running for governor must have at least equal conditions for debate, the presentation of ideas and communication. Without this, the formation of the majority is compromised by the authoritarian distortion of the process.
Unlimited economic power and political censorship by certain groups have almost the same effect on the formation of public opinion. Both distort and block the ability to communicate and alter the constitution of the majority and the population's perception of reality. The first is able to corrupt and distort, with the power of money, the process of dispute that should be at least fair. The second is able to block the freedom to express ideas and prevent society from having knowledge of or access to certain propositions.
Here, before continuing, a note is worth noting. Several liberal-democratic countries prohibit Nazi propaganda, since its doctrine aims to destroy democracy. Several mechanisms for protecting democracy are widely incorporated into their legislation.
Another major distortion in the formation of public opinion is misinformation. Organizing the will of the majority based on lies, facts that did not occur, denial of science or its decontextualization is to base democracy on unreality. The choice of a government's direction can be affected by misinformation when the falsification of reality is converted into truth and forms a possible majority. The issue is not simple, because in a certain way, the dominant ideology brings legitimizations based on the falsification of reality and on assumptions that are not supported by history. This is a major problem, the relationship between misinformation and ideology.
2.
The common sense that guides us and allows us to organize our daily lives has numerous reactionary traits and elements, and at the same time, solidarity, progress and orientation towards justice as equity. Such solidarity emanates from a long history of ordinary people and their resistance, their way of life and support for their peers, of confronting suffering, of initiatives for collective care, especially in the poorest segments of society. But common sense is also full of discriminatory views, of the cult of reactionary values, of hope in selfish individualism. Common sense is almost always dominated by the ideology of capital, despite living with a constant estrangement originating from reality.
This brings us to the big problem we face today. The far right, flush with money, has decided to dominate opinion-forming processes based on disinformation in order to accelerate the destruction of democracy. One of the main leaders of the Trumpist far right, Peter Thiel, a former partner of Elon Musk, stated in 2009: “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”[iii] Many neoliberal businesspeople and theorists no longer tolerate the idea of a government that could limit the economic power and entrepreneurial force of capital. Has Silicon Valley become the enchanted valley of neoliberalism? Perhaps it always was, but now it assumes this doctrinal status. Big Tech is becoming the political infrastructure of the far right.
According to the TIC Households 2024 survey,[iv] Of the Brazilians connected to the internet, 92% use instant messengers (WhatsApp, Telegram, etc.) and 81% have profiles on social networks. Thus, these devices have become essential in everyday life, for talking to family, for arranging activities with friends, for professional activities, for entertainment, etc. According to the aforementioned survey, 46% of people connected in Brazil watched live broadcasts and audio or video transmissions on the network platforms. This data confirms that the firepower of Big Techs is undeniable. It also shows that the large presence of various segments of the population on online social networks gives Big Techs a power of access never seen before in history.
Online social networks present themselves as neutral and public spaces. But this is nothing more than propaganda. The terms of use of these social networks change according to the interests of their owners and the investment groups that dominate them. They say that they do everything they do only to improve our “experience”. In reality, their logic is one of extreme monetization. Almost everything is converted into resources to enrich their shareholders or exclusive owners.
But how did they achieve so much success? First, by bringing people together in their daily lives. Second, by using the free platform access model. Third, by collecting user data and analyzing their online behavior in order to form their consumption and interest profile. Fourth, by using algorithmic systems, generally artificial neural networks, to modulate users' attention. Fifth, by calibrating their algorithms to prioritize eye-catching or spectacular content.
We can only browse a social network, such as Facebook or Instagram, if we are registered on it. Then we save our password in our browser and forget about it, since we don’t need to enter it every time we access the social network. It is common practice for many people to wake up and go straight to their cell phones to check the news on their instant messaging client or their favorite social network. The practice of reading the newspaper at the breakfast table has been replaced. An increasing number of people are getting their information from WhatsApp and online social networks. Invisible algorithmic systems are what manage the content that will be displayed on these networks. Here we return to Norberto Bobbio.
When someone logs into an online social network, the algorithmic system controlled by Big Tech organizes what each person should see, read and hear. Among the thousands of pieces of content that are posted every minute, the algorithms will choose those that can best capture each individual's attention. This process of modulating attention[v] It is possible because Big Techs have a database with the profile of each user. The profile is formed by constantly monitoring each click made by the user on the social network and while browsing the internet. The user's journey outside the social network is captured by cookies and other ways of persistently monitoring people on digital networks. With behavioral information and the analysis of which topics, subjects, colors, sounds, and friends are most interesting to a certain user, Big Tech can create a profile of that user.
3.
None of this is static, much less visible. Big Techs are in intense competition. Alphabet Group's Google will not pass its users' data to Microsoft, which will not pass it on to Amazon, much less to Meta Group networks or Apple. Thus, each of these Big Techs collects the data of every person on the planet that they manage to convert into a user of one of their services. They store this data in their hyperscale Data Centers. To collect the data, it is necessary to create a device for creating and capturing information. Big Techs' metrics are not natural, objective or supreme.
They were created with the aim of quantifying some of their businesses. The number of friends on Facebook is nothing more or less than a button that someone clicked and asked for the consent of those they would like to interact with. Since the logic of social networks is that of popularity, users accept 'friendships' from people they have never met and do not even know who they are. Quantity is the crucial element in the dynamics of algorithmic systems.
All this ordering is based on the production of triggers and attention grabbers. Modulation is not the same as manipulation. Modulation is the shortening of reality organized by algorithms to capture our attention and offer us paths that can be followed from the links presented. We can reject them, but Big Tech is betting that most people will accept them. That is why algorithms prioritize spectacular content. Everything must be spectacular, visually striking, different, for each segment and micro-segment of society. These procedures, this management of attention and spectacle[vi] It is carried out by algorithmic systems that are invisible to those affected by them.
Recently, a far-right congressman from Minas Gerais had more than 300 million views on a disinformation video on Instagram. The video was distributed quickly on the Meta Group network and was probably boosted by Instagram's algorithmic systems. Without a doubt, views and reach are different metrics. Views are the number of times the content was seen. This metric is cleverly visible, as it is in the interest of Big Tech to draw the attention of its users, based on the logic that highly viewed content is content that should be seen. However, the reach of the content is not disclosed.
Reach is the actual number of people who actually saw the content at least once. Without a doubt, both metrics can also be manipulated and artificially constructed by online social media managers. However, Big Techs will contest the analyses and complaints with what Frank Pasquale[vii] calls it obfuscation. These are evasions and pseudo-ethical speeches with the argument that the assumption is made with insufficient or biased samples.
Transparency is non-existent in the management of online social networks. It is an invisible power that acts to shape public opinion. Given that the owners of Big Tech are clearly supporting the far right and neo-fascism, the question remains as to how they will use their invisible power. With Donald Trump's decision to make his policy of combating democratic regulation of platforms explicit, it seems that the invisible power is increasingly free to spread disinformation and destroy the integrity of information.
In Brazil, the regulation of platforms is blocked by the alliance between Centrão and the far right. Big Tech lobbyists work closely with the National Congress and know that the majority of the right could once again be dominated by the far right. Invisible power and the management of the spectacle seem to place these verticalized digital organizations that we call social networks at the service of the far right.
Regulating means establishing rules, limits, and defining possibilities. Rules are essential, but they do not win the game. The left and antifascists need to seriously consider the need to present culturally and daily relevant alternatives to the platforms controlled by Big Tech. We need to think about new architectures for people’s engagement; we need to build a culturally sovereign movement that attracts the enormous creativity of our country to tropicalize, twist, reconfigure, and recombine digital technologies.
Can we put diversity into motion to reflect our worldviews? Are we capable of coming together and building alternatives to the culturally impoverished and homogenized communication operated by Big Tech? Can we combine the experiences and cultures of the peripheries in new digital arrangements that can counter Zuckerberg's limited and boring interface?
*Sergio Amadeu da Silveira is a professor at the Federal University of ABC. Author, among other books, of Data colonialism: how the algorithmic trench operates in the neoliberal war (Literary Autonomy). [https://amzn.to/3ZZjDfb]
Notes
[I] BOBBIO, Norberto. Democracy and secrecy. Translation: Marco Aurelio Nogueira. New York: University of Chicago Press, 2015.
[ii] SILVER, Sergio Amadeu. Democracy and invisible codes: how algorithms are modulating behaviors and political choices. Sesc Editions, 2019.
[iii] LAND, Nick. The dark enlightenment. Imperium Press, 2023, p. 2.
[iv] CETIC.BR. ICT Households – 2024. Link: https://cetic.br/pt/tics/domicilios/2024/individuos/
[v] SILVEIRA, Sérgio Amadeu. The notion of modulation and algorithmic systems. PAULUS: FAPCOM Communication Magazine, v. 3, no. 6, 2019.
[vi] The term spectacle is inspired by the definition present in the text: DEBORD, Guy. The society of the spectacle. Rio de Janeiro: Contraponto, 1997.
[vii] PASQUALE, Frank. The black box society: The secret algorithms that control money and information. Harvard University Press, 2015.
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