When Mark Zuckerberg first conceived of “The Facebook” at his dorm room at Harvard University, it is likely he never had an inkling of how global and powerful it would become.
Today, Facebook has 2.3 billion users all over the world, its 15th anniversary dotted with milestones both good and bad.
It indeed has connected the world, allowing for easy communication and information-sharing among friends and family wherever they are. These days one can know about the activities of relatives one has not seen in decades. It is so much easier to keep in touch with friends who have migrated to another part of the world and feel like they are still very much around.
But the lifestyle shift has come with tradeoffs.
Its users willingly give up personal information and other intimate details of their lives. Sure, it’s by way of “sharing”—but they are hardly aware that in doing so, they broadcast their circumstances and preferences to anyone who might have commercial, political, or, worse, criminal designs.
After all, once you put it out there, your life becomes fair game.
Zuckerberg last year appeared before US lawmakers after the revelation that a political “think tank,” Cambridge Analytica, harvested information about Facebook users that it then exploited to influence election outcomes.
At 15, a person is just beginning to be exposed to life choices. Decision-making processes are not mature. Most 15-year-olds act more out of impulse rather than a consideration of consequences and a weighing of right versus wrong.
Facebook, at 15, has grown leaps and bounds. The phenomenal growth has given it responsibilities it has not been prepared to handle. And yet it has remained wildly popular, with revenue and profits hitting a record of $55 billion and $22 billion, respectively.
The coming years will show us whether people will continue to be on Facebook, revealing much of themselves voluntarily, and how much the business model will change to reflect emerging possibilities.
Despite the bad press, at the core of all this is user awareness. There is no law that tells people they should be on social media, and yet they choose to be there. In doing so, they should be aware of the risks and consequences of sharing information online. The present and future crop of users need to be aware at all times that once the information is out there, anything can happen, and if such information is too sensitive, then they should not even be on the Internet in the first place.
They should also be aware that the things that appear on their feed have been determined and curated by intelligence, and the objectives are never altruistic.
It is too late in the day to tell the 2.3 billion about to be wary about the most popular social network—or any other network for that matter. Facebook has its benefits, and it has already become too much a part of our daily lives.
Still, it is not too late to make people aware that the only real protection they can have online is the one they give themselves.