The hashtags, memes and tests that populate the Internet have a very positive social function: they motivate cohesion and interaction. And there is no doubt that much of our sociability has been transported to digital environments, so, through games like the #TenYearsChallenge, we can learn more about our friends or even ourselves, in a creative and stimulating way.
But every time we do that, Facebook knows more about us…
The #TenYearsChallenge, for those who have not seen it on their networks, is a challenge that consists of uploading a photo from 2009 next to another from 2019, and sharing them. It’s just an innocent game, right?
The founder of KO Insights, Kate O’Neill, raised an interesting probability on her Twitter, which makes us think that the #TenYearsChallenge may be more than a virtual game:
Me 10 years ago: probably would have played along with the profile picture aging meme going around on Facebook and Instagram
Me now: ponders how all this data could be mined to train facial recognition algorithms on age progression and age — Kate O’Neill (@kateo) January 12, 2019
Me 10 years ago: I probably would have played with the meme that is being shared on Facebook and Instagram. Me now: I ponder how all this information could be used to create facial recognition, age progression, and age recognition algorithms.
Many responded to the tweet, emphasizing that the photos are already available on Facebook anyway. However, O’Neill delves into the matter in an article for Wired, giving solid arguments that undoubtedly support his suspicion:
Imagine that you want to create a facial recognition algorithm with characteristics related to age and, more specifically, about age progression (for example, how people are likely to look as they age). Ideally, you would want a large, rigorous dataset with images from many people. It would be helpful if you knew that they were taken over a fixed number of years, for example 10 years.
What O’Neill proposes, although it is not proven in the specific case of the #TenYearsChallenge, makes a lot of sense.
Because also, who is the one who starts the memes or the games of the moment? And more importantly, why? Sometimes they are things that emerge from the digital community itself, in a creatively spontaneous way. But in most cases, we have no idea of its origin.
For Facebook and other tech industries, having our data arranged chronologically can be very useful. And also for marketers, who can leverage data to guess trends: how much can people’s consumption and habits change in a given period of time? It is not at all crazy to think this, nor is it “conspiratorial”: after all, we already know how Google tracks our information, then selling it to merchants, and we also know that Facebook has given access to our data to various political entities during the elections. elections, as was revealed during the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
So, although the #TenYearsChallenge is not necessarily a piece of malicious digital engineering, Kate O’Neill’s makes us reflect on the importance of taking care of our information, of thinking before sharing and of being more diligent and sophisticated when using everything. type of technology.
Because making the Internet a democratic space, for the expansion of individual and collective consciousness, depends largely on us.