Page 79 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 10

COMMUNITY

it searchable, analyzable and mon- sites, government portals, education things in life such as spending huge
etizeable by themselves and any platforms and on and on and on. sums of money to develop harmful
other willing takers. Information. The truth is, your control is gov- GMO crops to withstand deadly
The most valuable resource of our erned by the myriad clauses and poisonous chemicals – instead of
day. It can tell you who people are, convoluted statements in those finding natural ways to help insects
where they are, where they spend annoying Terms and Conditions and get their nutrition elsewhere and
their time and money, how they policies that you click assent to with- protect food crops using means that
think, whether they are responding out paying much attention to. Which do not cause chronic illnesses like
to news stories and other external get updated periodically based on cancer. Like spending huge amounts
influences and in what ways they changing trends, legal issues or of money creating golden rice in
are doing so. It can tell you who specific agendas that are facing the a lab so as to introduce carotenes
their friends are, who is in their tech world or that the tech world is into a diet, instead of just planting
inner circles and who is not. Except trying to force on you daily. You are pumpkin and carrots. This disas-
for those who have learnt how to not in control. And in 2700 agoniz- trous trend in poor thinking – even
carefully navigate this realm, it can ing seconds, over 7 billion people while heavily papered with multi-
be used to anticipate future choices were given a much-needed reminder ple university degrees – causes the
and behavior in unsettling ways and of this through Google’s temporary world to tend towards activities and
be used to manipulate and influence demise. behaviors that are more detrimental
decision making quite effectively. than they are a blessing or healing.
Consider this: Just like every other Ever think what would happen if And Afrikans and their govern-
thing that you do online, every this became permanent? If suddenly ments have blindly danced to the
response to the 45-minute down- Google and other services like it tune of the world’s self-deception,
time is being recorded, tallied and vanished from cyberspace taking all foolishly embracing trends and tech-
analyzed and added to a massive your valuable data with them. Are nologies that are now killing her.
database on human behavior in this you prepared for such a situation?
worrisome digital age that the world Or what if, like has been foretold, Convenience, speed, efficiency,
has embraced so blindly; including the entire internet is switched off cost-effectiveness and profit are the
the contents of this article. Accord- for one hour and then switched altars at which the world has sacri-
ing to Quora, 2006 figures show that back on and the requirement for ficed its freedom and while people
“the Google search crawler handles you to access your accounts again is move about with an illusion that
850 TB of data raw from the web, to do something that you ordinarily they have liberty, in truth the world
while Google Analytics uses 220. wouldn’t do? What if all your linked around them is closing in to cut off
Google Earth uses 70.5 TB for both government networks were shut every possible angle of free will and
its map imagery and index data...” down suddenly and then restarted choice that it can. Between big tech
The author says that this is closely with new conditions required of censorship, big media censorship
guarded information. One can only you to access them, like signing over and the propaganda that the two
imagine what the behemoth has your land, or force vaccinating your entities support in either govern-
managed to do in the 14 years since. child? What if these internet ser- ment or private sector sponsored
And that’s just Google. Every online vices are switched off and switched moves or both – you’re running
service that one gives their data to, on again carrying within them some out of space to live in, but you may
paid or free, secure or not, does its hidden bots and code that are detri- not be aware of it yet. That’s why
own storage and analytics for its mental to you? Gathering even more December 14th 2020 was such an
own purposes and you have to know data on your life than they previ- important day. It came as a slap in
how easy it is for an administrator in ously did – and there is nothing you the face to wake the world up out
Google, Facebook, Twitter, WeChat, can do about it? Like the man who of its crazy tech-infused stupor and
Whatsapp, Telegram, LinkedIn, sat in the dark in his toddler’s room, bring it back to its senses; kind of
YouTube, TikTok, you name it… rethinking many things, are you will- like suddenly waking up and real-
to flip a switch and disable your ing to contemplate such a possibility izing that your house is on fire and
account, and instantly cut off your and its effects on your life and your you have but moments to escape.
access to Giga or Terabytes of your family? Do you like what you see?
most valuable data and connections
to whatever you have integrated This world is classically notorious
your accounts with. Including job for over-complicating the simplest

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