The Panopticon Artists

How Social Media Swindles its Users

The Structure of a Swindle

“Something for something”

In Arthur Leff’s Swindling and Selling, Leff observes that swindlers and conmen never claim to offer their targets “something for nothing.” Such gratuitous offers are hardly believable to the target, especially coming from strangers. Offering up something for nothing arouses suspicion: the target will wonder what’s in it for the offeror. To succeed, the swindler must explain why he will also benefit from the proposed transaction, thereby rendering the offer more credible to the target. Thus, a convincing swindle almost always takes the form of a deal: “something for something.” [1]

Social Media's Methods

The Conventional Theory and its Limitations

A common refrain about the swindling exploits of social media companies is, “if you’re not paying for it, you’re the product.” In so far as this rallying cry condemns the deceptive and dehumanizing nature of the social media business, I am in complete agreement with its message. We have all read extensively about how social media companies commodify their users by spying on them, selling their attention, and manipulating their behavior. However, I think the expression “if you’re not paying for it, you’re the product” can be misleading for two important reasons.

First, the expression suggests that there is something inherently questionable about anything that is distributed for free. The logic of the slogan is that if you’re not paying money for something, and it’s valuable, you must be paying for it in some other way, because you could never get something for nothing. Moreover, the free product or service you use must be part of some kind of scheme to derive value from you, because no one would ever provide a product or service without expecting value in return. These rationales reflect the common folk-economic wisdom that you can never get something for nothing (a belief Arthur Leff refers to as the social equivalent of the first law of thermodynamics). [2]

Second, I think the expression in question suggests a misleading and potentially harmful explanation of our decline into technological dystopia. The story is that we leap at the chance to use social media because it is free and we don’t realize that we have to give up anything in exchange for it. We don’t realize we are giving up anything for it because we don’t realize we are, in fact, the product. Hence, the need for a maxim to enlighten us about how free services inevitably commodify us. It is important to note that, in this contrived story, what leads to our ultimate demise is failing to understand that we can never get something in return for nothing.

Toward a New Theory

Thus, the popular “if you’re not paying for it, you’re the product” mantra appeals to the common belief that you can never get something for nothing. This mantra embodies a theory about the nature of the social media swindle, which posits that valuable services can never really be free, but that ignorant social media users fall for the false promise of costless goods without awareness of the non-monetary price they are paying.

My contention is that this theory is completely backwards. We need only refer back to Arthur Leff for an explanation as to why. According to Leff, the belief that you can’t get something for nothing is ubiquitous. As a result, straightforwardly gratuitous offers make for bad cons. Most people are too shrewd to be lured by such a conspicuous gimmick. It is therefore doubtful that the thrust of the social media swindle is giving out services for free. If there really is a swindle at play here, we cannot accept a theory of it that depends on consumers’ oblivious acceptance of anything offered for free.

Perhaps, then, users know that the social media companies have something to gain from them, but have nonetheless been swindled into thinking they are getting a good deal. Under this theory, it is easier to understand why people still use social media, and why so many flock to new forms of social media, no matter how widely publicized and grave the misdeeds of these companies are. Even if users realize that they are commodified and manipulated, and that social media companies profit from them, many maintain a sense that the convenience and benefits of the services they receive are worth the tradeoff.

Thus, perhaps the real con is not that social media companies lured users in with free services. Rather, the con consists of convincing users that trading in their data, privacy, and autonomy for a Facebook page is a good deal.

The Fruits of the Swindle

The Purpose of a Perfect Despotism

What is the end result of this swindle?

Consider Facebook, which surveils its users on an unprecedented scale. It trains its machine learning algorithms with the data it harvests from us, so that it can manipulate our emotions and behavior in precise and subtle ways. It has studied and exploited our psychological vulnerabilities, to the point where many of us can’t put our phones down to sleep. It has embedded itself into our social fabric and sown fear and discord into our politics. Within the trenches of Silicon Valley, the science of a “perfect despotism” has been invented—and to what end?

Apparently, to bring us targeted ads. Advertising revenue, after all, is the lifeblood of social media companies.

Conclusion

Thus, the immense apparatus of mass surveillance and human experimentation that social media has brought to bear on the world is mobilized for no higher or lower purpose than this: increasing the efficacy of advertising. Social media is not just a con—it is a panopticon.

[1]Leff, Arthur A. Swindling and Selling. Collier Macmillan, 1977.

[2] Id.