fast moving technology

Technology evolves at breathtaking speed .What was a wildly hot IT application can become obsolete so fast.Jun was engrossed as many youths were in the early heyday of social media with Friendster and Myspace and all that has vanished as with the Dodo bird nowadays.
       So when social media sites like facebook and twitter do not protect the privacy of users with strong anti hacking programs,the data can be manipulated by unscrupulous agents to shape public opinion to sway voters in elections or be used by authoritarian governments to spy on dissidents and social activists,thus endangering their work in civil movements.So it is crucial for social media companies to engage with social activists in civil societies who work to empower the marginalized and powerless so that they are not under the surveilance of authorities and their work protected by encrypted software that is non hackable by state authorities.
           How important is data protection is when private data is hacked,it exposes users to scammers,spammers and programmers who use your identity for malicious purposes.Instead of protecting the powerful and famous,these social media companies should sit up to protect the millions of ordinary users from malware,trolls and scams.Once abandoned enmass ,they would end up like Myspace and Friendsters.

disinformation

Just read Joseph Nye's article on fake news.It shows how social media permeates every level of modern society and how it shapes our perception of people and issues.
Using big data,the sites can amass lots of data on an individual's preferences and behaviour and enable politicians and advertisers to shape precise messages to disarm our reservations,bombard us and wear down our mental shields.
                 Lies,oft repeated becomes ingrained as truth.To show our support for something ,the so called likes have created a new business called click farms that generate the level of likes needed to sustain advertising sponsorship.
                Such technological manipulation of preferences can distort reality.
The soft power of social media creator's bosses have seen how they are elevated to the rank of Hollywood celebrities and are on the same level to interact with prime ministers and head of states as compared to CEOs of a bank or manufacturer who would liase with a minister of finance or economy but not on par with the head of state.That shows how the power between the head of state depends on his public image which is shaped by the social media.This perception can make or break the grip of a leader on power come election time.
            So consumers of information should go back to formal news network where investigative journalists do professional work to check and double check the accuracy of information before disemminating it unlike the power held by citizen journalist who may be influenced by subjective biasness without oversight by editors and sub-editors.Misinformation can have adverse effects of inciting hate news or feed the filter bubble of readers who are cut off from opposing points of view.