Not long ago. ten or twelve years, Facebook entered our lives. It wasn't the first social media platform, I remember Myspace and Hi5 too. Facebook, however, did manage to put a mark in our lives and be part of our daily conversations.
Although the idea was not original, social media already existed, the groundbreaking concept was that you would join it with your real name! No more funny or dark nicknames, you would join Facebook with your real full name and you would share pictures of your daily life and share with your friends. Real friends or friends that you never met (and never will). Suddenly, you could reconnect with long lost friends from your childhood, relatives that you met in weddings and funerals and your crush from primary school.
The best part of it? It's all for free! How crazy is that? Such a cool tech and all for free? This is so cool! Even the Blogger app where I dump my thoughts right now is free, there has to be a catch somewhere! What's the catch? Oversharing personal data that might cost you having an insurance claim refused? Being blackmailed from fraudsters overseas who pretend to be blue blonde Norwegian girls into sending them tons of money or your naughty pictures will be sent to your family and friends? These are just some of the consequences.
There is more to come. Governments monitoring what you post on your social media so that they can arrest you for inciting violence because you have radical ideas, whatever that means. Monitoring your pictures to see displays of extravagance or wealth so that they check if you pay the right amount of taxes.
You think that's too much? It's already happening. All it takes now is an LLM where you will instuct it to look for specific things such as pictures showing people on nights out, people on holidays, eating in restaurants etc. Then another LLM can single out the most significant ones and send them to another LLM which will cross-check these people and the income they declare. Good luck with the tax office breathing down your neck then.
There is no need to stop using social media in fear of all of the above. You can still use it just make sure that you think before you post that picture or that rant. More and more, social media is being monitored by governments, fraudsters or simply people who are waiting for you to slip to stab a knife to your back. Don't do them the favour.
What's more the workplace communication has now changed dramatically. Covid made sure of it. We no longer communicate verbally but through messaging programmes like Slack. It's great for finding out stuff but don't be confused. You can't speak freely and if you make a mistake and say something harsh or borderline rude, it will be made 10 times worse since written speech is more passive aggressive. A screenshot sent to your superiors will be sent in an instant by those who want to take you down.
Think before you write something and before you press send, stop! And think again. Can this be used against me? If it can, then you shouldn't send it. It's not that we should stop talking freely. It's also about making sure we are not found guilty of crimes we didn't commit. Are you having a bad day? Try to reply with as little content as possible, keep replies simple and don't try to add your feelings in them. Keep it neat and robotic. People will wait for a slip to hold you accountable, in the age of screenshots anything will be used against you.
You've been warned.
