5.24 billion people use social media, spending over 12 billion hours online every day. That’s a lot of time—and an even more data. Every like, share, and comment made is a piece of the puzzle, building a detailed profile of who you are, what you love, and how you think.
You’re not the customer in this game. You’re the product.
“Free”
Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and X don’t charge you. You are supposed to be a “user”. So how do they rake in billions? By selling access to your data to advertisers. You think you’re playing for fun, but you’re a pawn maneuvered by invisible hands. Every click, every pause, every emoji you drop—it all feeds a digital version of you, crafted to be sold to the highest bidder. That ad for shoes you didn’t even know you wanted? It’s precision targeting, made possible by tracking every move you make.
A dangerous game
In 2018, Cambridge Analytica got caught stealing data from millions of Facebook users without consent. They used it to build detailed profiles—knowing you better than friends with 10 likes, better than best friends with 70, and better than family with 150, and with 300, better than a spouse (source). This let them target people with political ads to sway the 2016 U.S. election, showing how social media can manipulate you in scary ways. By dissecting users’ online habits, companies trap them in echo chambers that amplify their beliefs while quietly reshaping their worldview. They make people think they are right, on everything. They influence how you act.
“Just don’t use it”
Some shrug and say, “If you don’t like it, just stop using it.” This is similar to telling someone to stop breathing because the air’s polluted… In today’s world, being offline feels like vanishing. “Online” is where we bond with friends, share our lives, and hunt for jobs. For billions, it became essential. If you are not online, you don't exist. What we see happening is called asymmetric information—corporations know everything, while we’re left in the dark.
Sources:
W. Youyou, M. Kosinski, & D. Stillwell, Computer-based personality judgments are more accurate than those made by humans, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 112 (4) 1036-1040, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1418680112 (2015).