What we do, when we do it, whom we did it with, and the computationally drawn conclusions of our motives are the basis for all digital advertising. Big Brother as a buying assistant is a short step from the storyline of 1984, the novel, with a twist. Big Brother is the MOB aka your neighbor, your workmate, your family members and social circle.
The enticement of on-demand navigational software, in the home and mobile voice search for products and services, and an uptick in use of online services as a whole, has led to an unprecedented amount of information about our lives and our actions being compiled by corporations and companies. These troves of date are employed with ulterior and selfish motives, most commonly profit. The byproducts of this treasure trove of REAL TIME information gathering: Hyper-transparency - resulting in mob actionable conclusions about our daily lives and intentions.
What is happening all around us, in real time, are acts of judgment, by perception, from the greater social networking mob. Mob-based judgment as a result of transparency can be found across our social Spectrum.
Politics, wage and gender gap issues, gender bias, the Weinstein effect, law enforcement’s misuse of power, ethnic bias, and general abuse of power by the government, law enforcement, and big business - all of these new Revelations about centuries-old problems are the results of mob-driven judgment. The Mob has a quiver of arrows and can darken the sky with poison posts (factual or not) about any given subject, individual, or corporate misdeed.
New Mob tools emerge daily, but we all know the major platforms: Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, blogs, user-generated content in many forms, even wiki-based (crowdsourced) reference information. The majority of this new information is not responsibly vetted and acts as a tsunami of opinions, often flooding any reasonable debate or argument. As the size of the mob grows (aka "viral") the greater combined voice of the many drives the sharp sword of mob judgment (presented as transparency) into the stark light of “truth”. This paradigm change in the RPM rate and lack of vetting of released information has resulted in the disemboweling of due process.
For most of the past hundred years, as the information revolution has matured, the news that we have viewed at a local, National and International level has been groomed and nurtured by a select few. Journalist desks and news agencies around the globe have diminished, increasingly replaced by a storm of “alternative news”. Information is power, a power that is now firmly in the hands of the Mob, led by emotion, and generations misdeeds by “The Man”.
News Flash! We are all now “The Man”, as one voice, challenging established truths and processes shrouded in secrecy. In the new world, there is no secrecy or privacy, and the Mob is not pleased with what has come to light. Any can of worms may be ripped open by forced transparency and unabated testimony by the wronged or abused.
The World Wide Web, filled with user-generated content, has shifted the paradigm and allowed those with no voice prior, to have a massive impact on previously sheltered actions, travesties, abrogations of Justice, and general wrongdoing. The internet has brought a voice to the powerless and a spotlight to Injustice. The traditional due process baseline, highlighted by “innocent until proven guilty”, has faded to the power of transparency and unabated information sharing.
The issue at hand is the historically incorrect execution of Justice by the mob. In this new paradigm of Justice, in which only an accusation must be made, a complete dismissal of due process is the result.
Accusations of sexual misconduct, abuse, or harassment can undo Decades of good work, with no historical due process or privacy of information to protect the identity of the accuser and the accused. This transparency based Revolution has brought forth tipping points in unforeseen environments. The problems that we are dealing with through transparency driven change is not new, “fixes” have been attempted before, with regard to demands for change, with little or no lasting impact.
In 2018 we are dealing with the same racism issues that were supposedly remediated by the abolition of Jim Crow and the true enforcement of equal rights legislation resulting in an unbiased approach to all Americans - despite their race, Creed or color. We all know this is not true, racism still lives in America, as it has for hundreds of years. Will this new “transparency change engine” have the social equity and power to change the racism landscape in the US?
Decades upon Decades of Casting Couch activity in Hollywood has come to a crashing end, spurred by the horrible corporate based actions of Harvey Weinstein and his ilk. Will the transparency change engine allow for long-term changes in the basic structures in Hollywood to be remade?
Our electorate and the voting patterns of United States citizens, British citizens, and other countries have changed greatly in the last few years. Will these new agents of transparency base change in our Electorate be the wave of elected representatives that get it right?
The workplace is a mess! Misogyny, gender bias, unequal pay - all embodied in the good old boys club mentality that has dominated boardrooms for hundreds of years - may be on the verge of change as well.
In the old days of print, before the digital information age, there was a saying: “Good news does not sell newspapers”. It would appear the result of vastly larger amounts of “news” has only resulted in an onslaught of more bad news, and the mob is not happy about the headlines.
