Okay, so recently I had an epiphany — my first real one this year.
Sometimes epiphanies can be good things. Sometimes they are crappy moments, like when you realize your dog only loves you for your treats or that your bank and your local Walmart don’t just want your money, they want ALL of your money.
My own epiphany happened after I read the recent news about Meta blocking Canadian news content from Facebook and Instagram. This happened after the Federal Online News Act was passed, forcing Meta and Google to reach commercial deals with news publishers to share revenues for news stories that appear on their platforms.
Apparently, by removing news from its platforms, Meta will no longer be subject to the legislation.
My epiphany hit moments later when I read the formerly innocuous line on my Meta/Facebook feed, which invites users to create a new post: “What are you thinking about, Wayne?”
‘I’m thinking that ignorance is not so blissful after all,’ I thought.
‘Ah. Good ol’ Facebook,’ I mused, ‘still one of the few places in the universe where you can have 20,000 friends and still be alone on a Saturday night.’
‘Phooey,’ I thought again. ‘Epiphanies suck sometimes.’
I don’t know about you, but my Meta experience is, henceforth, ruined by this single revelation: ‘Ignorance is only fun if you’re a creepy-crawly, money-grubbing algorithm.’
‘Uh, who wants to know?’ I would normally ask the computer screen, feeling only slightly annoyed that an Artificial Intelligence (AI) wants to know what I’m thinking when most people never give it a second thought. I would also normally try to come up with something clever, maybe a funny little one-liner or a harmless chuckle.
Now I think, ‘None of your beeswax Mr. money-grubbing algorithm.’
I will type nothing because, for the first time in my Metaverse experience, I realize that is exactly what this AI entity wants me to do, and not because it has ever cared one whit what little ol’ me was ever thinking.
In other, less jovial moods, I’ve also been tempted to suggest that Meta go procreate with itself but I feared it would get me banned. I don’t want that because I am inexplicably hooked on this platform.
I can only imagine how raunchy you would have to be to get banned from any form of social media, where ignorance and immorality are not just a normal way of life but critically important bullet points in a successful business plan.
Besides that, one of my more skittish Meta Friends might have me put in Facebook Jail. It’s not a real jail, mind you; it’s similar to the detention you get in elementary school for swearing out loud in math class. Ahem.
Worse, they might be tempted to —gasp — Unfriend me. I don’t really fear getting Unfriended, per se, but I do feel sort of miffed when I accidentally discover on a particularly lonesome Saturday night, that some smarty pants I barely knew, Unfriended me two months ago. Okay, I admit, I am sometimes tempted to message them to ask why: “Hey friend, did you unfriend me by mistake or what? Call me sentimental but I sure miss seeing all those beautiful snapshots of your Sunday dinners, man.”
You don’t, of course — mostly because you are also blocked, LOL. LOL (ICYMI) is a favourite idiom of many social media idiom users, who also happen to believe that ignorance is bliss.
Let’s be blunt: Meta does not actually care what’s on my mind, or your mind. Neither does Mark Zuckerberg.
In case you were just born and have not yet had the time to experience your own epiphany, Facebook is free for one reason: it earns pretty much all of its revenue from advertising.
According to Britannica.com, “. . . the bottom-up, peer-to-peer connectivity among Facebook users makes it easier for businesses to connect their products with consumers.”
In other words, you are what’s known in the advertising world as a ‘target.’
Meta may ask what’s on your mind, but Meta couldn’t care less, unless you share it by typing something on your keyboard; hence, you become an easy target for companies out there who want all your money.
Want proof?
Do a Google search on anything.
Then, go back on Meta/Facebook and scroll down the page.
In no time at all, you will see ads specifically related to your Google search, ads targeted to you and related to the question, “What are you thinking . . . ?”
And that, my digital friends, is the real point of my epiphany: Ignorance was bliss, but that was before people like Zuckerberg and the Metaverse existed.
That said, notwithstanding my obvious lack of literary prowess, I predict this column won’t get read very much for two other reasons:
First, it will appear in a Canadian media outlet and so the Metaverse will block it. Second, unless you’re an artificial intelligence, who really cares what I’m thinking anyway?
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