Millions of people have been ditching Facebook and switching to Mountain View, CA-based social media network MeWe[1], touted to be the ad-free future of social networking.
Advised by Sir Tim Berners-Lee[2] (the inventor of the World Wide Web), MeWe has surged to 9 million users worldwide since its inception in 2013, and has zero paid marketing ads.
MeWe CEO Mark Weinstein[3] said in his recent TedX talk[4] that although we check our phones 150 times per day out phones are more dependent on us than we are on them. He says that we are participating in the "greatest socio-economic event in human history" – 'surveillance capitalism'.
The business model of Facebook and the other current social media giants is to track, analyse, and monetise our data.
Our personal information is shared and sold across data companies used to target and manipulate us through marketing from social media companies, advertisers and politicians. Weinstein says that true privacy is becoming a "relic of the past".
The more time we spend using social media, the more revenue that these social media companies can earn from ad revenue.
Facebook has been developing a brain to computer interface[5] – to enable hands free communication without us needing to say a word. Imagine how much data Facebook could collect from users then.
China has a Social Credit System[6] that tracks its individuals for 'undesirable behaviours' such as frivolous spending, waste sorting, not visiting elderly relatives often enugh, cheating in exams, traffic violations, or for making a reservation at a restaurant and not showing up.
The system manages the reward, or punishment of citizens based on their economic or personal behaviour.
Violators