Facebook is one of the dominant organization in the social media platform and has been on the receiving end from proponents of the human rights who accuse it of infringement of privacy. However, Facebook has been successful in surveillance of its users and monetization of their data through advertisements. Facebook has ads that are targeted to users based on their profile information, location, and demographic. While opening an account, the users describe their profile, which is used to identify their location during surveillance. Users posts pictures and stories are describing their bad and good moments for everyone to see. The organization surveys and captures the moments, which are collected for interpretation. Interpretation of the data gives an impression of what an individual likes or prefers, hence forming the basis of the right ads to be displayed on his/her page or timeline. The dominance of Facebook in data harvest is underlined by its use of subsidiaries, WhatsApp, and Instagram that provides an avenue to collect more personal data.
Instagram is depicted as an American photo and video sharing social platform that was created launched in October 2010 but currently owned by Facebook. Two years after its launch, Facebook acquired the company for $1.0 billion in the year 2012. It is an acquisition that has led to an appreciation of the company’s worth, is approximated to be $100 billion, or 20% of facebook’s total market. After the acquisition, Instagram relied on Facebook for its success, but the emergence of the digital data economy has led Facebook to depend on Instagram for its advertising market and longevity. Instagram’s audience is young compared to facebook’s, which gives it an edge from a marketer’s perspective. Instagram plays a key role in the collection of personal data of individuals that might not be on Facebook or WhatsApp. Data gleaned from Instagram is used for targeting advertisements on Facebook and vice versa.
The majority of the Instagram users are not aware of the Facebook under-dealings. The users view the services provided are an escape from Facebook, but the reality is that Facebook is the one in control and capitalizes on user’s ignorance to collect data that is later used for advertisements. In the year 2013, facebook initiated ads testing on Instagram with a small group of major brands that comprised Burberry, Macy’s, and Ben & Jerry’s. Instagram announced that the ads would seem organic and non-invasive by stating that they aimed to make any advertisement users aw feel as natural to Instagram as the photos and videos many do enjoy. Later, Facebook shows it as a money machine and introduced it as an optional placement within the ads manager platform in the year 2015. By the year 2016, facebook had placed over half a million active advertisers on Instagram, and after one year, the number of ads amounted up to more than two million. The total figure of ads is anticipated to grow nearly double by the year 2021.
The fact is that the ads are targeted to different users based on their distinct profile and preferences that are analyzed and interpreted after harvesting personal data. Even while more than thirty percent of Americans use Instagram, the majority are not aware that Facebook owns it. The problems absorbed by Facebook are Instagram’s problems too, but the users are left complaining about Instagram and praising Facebook. With Instagram knowing everything about its users, Facebook gets an opportunity to use the data for ad targeting. At their headquarters, there is a large screen that displays graphs in a grid, depicting everything that is controlled and measured by Facebook.
WhatsApp is another subsidiary of Facebook that has facilitated the organization in harvesting personal data. It is an American platform that is used for messaging by allowing users to send text and voice messages, voice and video calls, and share documents, locations, and other media. WhatsApp was acquired in 2014, and after six months, the shares of Facebook increased by approximately $10. Whatsapp becomes one of the biggest acquisitions by Facebook, as it is almost twenty times larger than Instagram acquisition. The user growth exhibited by WhatsApp is one of the reasons that it was bought by was its growth, which has seen it garner more than a billion users. Whatsapp has been instrumental in facebook’s digital data monetarization by fueling its growth in developing markets where internet connectivity is sparse, but where WhatsApp’s use is predominant.
Whatsapp plays a critical role in global areas that are significant to facebook’s growth. For an individual to have an account, one must provide personal information that is later used by Facebook to formulate ads and target the users. The standard information needed is one’s name and phone number, while other details may include one’s address and email. With such information necessary for one to use the platform, Facebook has an already set of data that is guaranteed to collect from users. WhatsApp also vacuums up data about the device that its users are using, such as the battery level, the model, version, and operating system. Other information includes signal strength and an IP address. Facebook accesses the details through surveillance and uses them to target users with ads. With WhatsApp being part of the Facebook family, data is shared between the SMS app and its parent company.