Data Genocide: Are Minority Opinions Being Murdered Online?

Abstract

With the advent of the internet in 1983, many people believed it offered the chance for humanity to evolve as a civilization, no longer needing to resort to war, genocide, and violence as a way for power and control. The internet brought freedom, a new way of communication, sharing information, connecting people globally, and moving data. Few at the time likely anticipated that it would quickly become a digital wild west where laws were scarce and the ability to manipulate, influence, control, and ultimately dominate would become powerful forces of change impacting society well beyond the digital realm. From its early days to today an unimaginable amount of data and information has been created containing secrets and indications of every participant in this arena. The rights of the individual to own their data were seemingly lost to the legal constructs of internet companies through crafty terms of service, license agreements, and sophisticated collection mechanisms. Tech giants like Facebook, Amazon, Alphabet, Netflix, and Google, known as the FAANG’s, are examples of those that collect untold amounts of information on every user of their services. While they are not alone in their pursuit of data, they are clear examples of successful companies who recognized this unclaimed territory and quickly took advantage to create their own empires. Today, they have built something that we could have never imagined existing back in 1983—a digital empire where we can instantly connect with each other across the globe, quickly access extraordinary amounts of information, and conveniently complete many tasks for ourselves. While this all seems like pleasantries, what lies underneath is a group of Big Tech companies clawing their way to the top and destroying new competitors in their path for means of power and control. The benefits we “receive” are a facade for their true motivation of gaining total power and control of many forms of information. Voices have been silenced for expressing their beliefs, for sharing opposing opinions to the common narrative, and becoming competitive threats. Meanwhile, we continue to scroll, click, upload, and share our lives and information again and again. What is worse, is how easy it is for them to do it in the absence of strong oversite and accountability. Rather, society at large has let them self-govern and freely push forward their own agendas. These tech giants are now making up the rules as they go, while we, as a world, have ignored the signs and warnings from countless scholars on the dangers of self-regulation and feigned moral authority. What we are experiencing now is a threat to everyone’s free speech, individual rights over their data, online identity, and as this paper will set forth, perhaps even our digital lives if not, in certain circumstances, our physical lives as well; something everybody should be worried about.