Dark sides
Then came 2016, when the internet revealed two dark sides. One is related to individual users. Smartphones with LTE mobile infrastructure created the first content-delivery platform that was available every waking moment, transforming the technology industry and the lives of two billion users. With little or no regulatory supervision in most of the world, companies like Facebook, Google, Amazon, Alibaba, and Tencent used techniques common in propaganda and casino gambling, such as constant notifications and variable rewards, to foster psychological addiction.
The other dark side is geopolitical. In the United States, Western Europe, and Asia, internet platforms, especially Facebook, enable the powerful to inflict harm on the powerless in politics, foreign policy, and commerce. Elections across Europe and in the United States have repeatedly demonstrated that automated social networks can be exploited to undermine democracy.
The Brexit referendum and the US presidential election in 2016 also revealed that Facebook provides significant relative advantages to negative messages over positive ones. Authoritarian governments can use Facebook to promote public support for repressive policies, as may be occurring now in Myanmar, Cambodia, the Philippines, and elsewhere. In some cases, Facebook actually provides support to such governments, as it does to all large clients.
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