The Price of Information in the Digital Economy

The proliferation of social media platforms, while beneficial to society, can harm those who use them. Although these services market themselves as free to the many users unwittingly allowing the collection and sale of their personal and browsing information upon signing user agreements. Social media corporations such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter all sell user data to advertising companies for them to develop targeted ads to profit off of their users. Facebook, for instance, made 84 billion in advertising revenue in the 2020 fiscal year, which was a twenty percent increase from previous years (Johnson, 2021). These massive profits have allowed companies such as Google and Facebook to achieve near unrivalled power and influence in the digital mark place. The rapid growth and domination of these companies have allowed them to avoid regulations and acquire smaller platforms to maintain their market dominance. These services have continued to lobby the government so that their hold on the advertising industry and their expansion towards media will continue to go unquestioned.

Google has had an extraordinary impact on the marketplace by using its search engine feature as a boon for advertisers which have allowed the company to hold a virtual monopoly for years. The vast amount of data collected and sold has helped Google become a leading force in the digital age (Morton & Dinieli, 2020). Unfortunately, Google’s services are biased and do not provide search neutrality. Google services are often promoted first instead of the best service, which results in an uneven competitive landscape. Without search neutrality, the services and information accessible to consumers often becomes manipulated. Search neutrality offers users the most accurate information first instead of what is the most beneficial result to the company that hosts the information (Mays, 2015). Google has faced criticism in the past for neglecting search neutrality to promote its services and features. The vast amount of data collected and sold has helped Google become a leading force in the digital age (Morton & Dinieli, 2020). With the amount of resources and expenses Google has at its disposal, the company has the financial means to dictate what services consumers use and eliminate any service that threatens their services. For example, Google has acquired several independent film studios to help expand their utilizing ad-tech services to increase the advertisement revenue. For instance, Jeremey Stoppleman, CEO of Yelp, testified in front of congress that Google threatened to delist Yelp from its horizontal search results due to Yelp executives protesting the incorporation of Yelp reviews into the Google Plus service. This incorporation is problematic as it would misrepresent where information has come from and misleads users about its popularity (Mays, 2015). Not only is stealing reviews from Yelp an abuse of power, but by taking content from another service, Google misrepresents its power in promoting its services over any competition.

YouTube is a free streaming service that allows users to upload and view content. Google initially developed a service called Google Videos, but after it failed to gain traction, Google purchased YouTube (Luckerson, 2016). Google acquired YouTube in 2006 for 1.65 billion, a prominent figure at the time (Luckerson, 2016). YouTube’s popularity has allowed Google to extend its dominance in advertising. For instance, Google used YouTube’s user-generated content to increase its advertisement empire. Videos are easy for users to spread through various platforms through links and even with its service. Users decide on the keywords to link their videos to other categories and topics to promote a following. YouTube promotes user-generated content where advertising can be targeted based on the videos they gravitate towards. YouTube today has grown to the point where its influence rivals Film and Television (Cunningham, Craig, & Silver, 2016). This influence has increased Google’s and YouTube reach, which itself has become dangerous. For instance, the algorithm tends to curate media that reflects a user’s search history which can put users into a bubble of their interests and separate them from content reflecting other viewpoints.

Furthermore, YouTube’s algorithms can negatively affect users when promoting videos that have high views even if the content is problematic (Cunningham, Craig, & Silver, 2016). While a helpful service, YouTube can have harmful side effects in which offensive content regularly gets promoted in the pursuit of cornering the media marketplace and expanding Google’s ad revenue. As controversial videos bring in many views they also provide mass amounts of user data to sell. Preferring profits over morals has allowed objectionable content and misinformation to proliferate on YouTube, which poses harm to users, such as radicalizing users to extremist views and spreading conspiracies that can put people in danger (Craig, Cunningham, & Silver, 2016). For example, after the insurrection at the United States capital building, Google and YouTube relented to banning content that contained violent threats even though they received warnings from watch groups months previously (Elias, 2020). A theory soon evolved from these algorithms likening them to a zombie bite that had an impressionable impact on audiences of the alt-right and like an infection that the interest in their content would allow it to spread to other audiences (Munger & Phillips, 2019). Algorithms are problematic in the digital media landscape and ensure they do not continue to pose risk to users. Google must thoroughly address the issue instead of focusing on maximizing its ad revenue.

Corporations use their power and wealth to buy out the competition before it becomes a threat, limiting consumer agency and choice. Social Media companies have long built their empire on collecting and selling user data; as this becomes more profitable, these companies have developed more methods and avenues to collect this data. Facebook has developed Beacon to collect data and learn more about select user interests and exploit them, such as creating personalized advertisements based on how their users use their service. Facebook initially let users opt-out of having their information shared on third-party apps, but as soon as the data about their users became profitable, Facebook removed these protections (Yoo, 2012). Because of services such as Beacon, Facebook has hired advertising agencies to exclusively work with them, as it allows advertisers to promote their products to more susceptible users directly. In another effort to maintain its hold on the market, Facebook used its capital to develop additional services, such as instant messaging systems, streaming services and a digital marketplace. For example, in 2017, Facebook monitored a social media app called House Party that branded itself a “the internets living room” and was essentially a video chat app to connect the users with their families and friends (Morris & Setharanam, 2017). Facebook attempted to quickly set up meetings with the House Party’s executives to explore a potential buyout (Morris & Setharanam, 2017). By acquiring these companies, conglomerates provide their parent company with more services at their disposal and less fear regarding the competition. The more powerful companies become through acquisitions, the more resources they will have to fight against legislation that impacts the hold they have on their users’ data and the revenue gained through advertising.

Social media corporations have put our information and privacy at risk; as these corporations grow so does users’ dependence on them and, to an extent, so does their trust. Through Google’s growth in advertisement revenue, other social media companies were quick to follow. Such as by following Google’s example by buying out competitors and expanding the scale of business ventures. Google has expanded through YouTube, Facebook has developed through Instagram and What’s App, and Twitter has taken the lead in how many people communicate and obtain information. These services have led users to isolate themselves in their personalized filter bubbles, in which consumers mainly follow and pursue their interests. Which can become dangerous depending on what content these social media companies find profitable. All in all, users “[withdraw] into their own small gated community, afraid of some larger forum. They stay inside their little ponds leaking whatever truth suits them into the growing cesspool at large. The different cardinal truths neither clash or mesh. No one is invalidated, but nobody is right.” (Kojima, 2001).

References

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Elias, J. (2020, October 15). YouTube tightens rules on conspiracy videos, but stops short of banning QAnon. Retrieved April 23, 2021, from https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/15/youtube-tightens-rules-on-conspiracy-videos-but-no-qanon-ban.html

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Mays, L. (n.d.). The Consequences of Search Bias: How Application of the Essential Facilities Doctrine Remedies Google’s Unrestricted Monopoly on Search in the United States and Europe. The George Washington Law Review, 83(2), 721–759.

Munger, K., & Phillips J. (2019). A Supply and Demand Framework for YouTube Politics. Penn State Political Science

Morris, B., & Seetharaman, D. (2017, August 09). The new copycats: How facebook squashes competition from startups. Retrieved April 23, 2021, from https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-new-copycats-how-facebook-squashes-competition-from-startups-1502293444

Morton, F. M., & Dinielli, D. C. (n.d.). Roadmap for a Digital Advertising Monopolization Case Against Google. Omidyar Network.

Yoo, C. S. (2012). When Antitrust Met Facebook. GEO. MASON L. REV, 19(5), 1147–1162.