With all this hype of WhatsApp’s new policy, a lot of people are talking about shifting to Signal, Telegram, Facetime, etc.
Laraib and I are jotting down a book these days on issues that the next generation will have to prepare for when it comes to data and its usage. The book is inspired by true events. We’ve been researching all related topics for the past six months, so I thought of putting a word out for the current situation.
1: This is not only an issue of a platform; this is an issue of technology and the chips used as well. This issue will not resolve by changing a platform.
2: Even if we take it as a platform issue, the new platform will soon have enough data to start monopolistic practices. This phenomenon is called Data Capitalism.
3: We can’t escape this; we’ll have to find a way to live with this. All the documentaries and books produced on this topic have never been able to suggest a solution.
4: If you look around, all the facilities you get today are a result of this surveillance. You can’t even use Google maps properly if you stop providing this data, let alone the other services that make our lives easy. There is no way we’ll reverse the whole technological advancement, which means the solution will come out of the same thing.
5: Last but not the least, this has been going on since the early 2000s, every single platform has more data about you than you can ever imagine (You can’t live without having devices around you in this era, so you really have to sign up for it). This is just now that these issues have been surfacing for mass awareness.
If you are afraid of negative usage of this data, don’t worry, if someone has to use it negatively, they can easily anyways attain it through hacking your devices.
If you want to avoid the giant companies refraining from their monopoly by centralizing this data, the regulation and centralization will worsen the situation through public corruption (Just like we see in the government institutions).
If you are afraid of the ideological conditioning and manipulation of young minds through this data, this has already been happing through other mediums of mass awareness like Book, TV, Radio, Internet, etc (The only solution is to become competent and populate the platforms with your right content).
I don’t think this is such a huge issue to put your mental health at stake. Changing the platform and changing your whole lifestyle is just like “اینٹ کا جواب پتھر سے دینا۔”
