View: Internet platforms can’t be allowed to monetise hate

Netflix’s new documentary, ‘The Social Dilemma’, should be compulsory viewing for Indians. It helps explain the unprecedented spread of hate speech and communal falsehoods. It features executives and IT nerds from top internet companies — Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google, YouTube. They say they started by believing that the internet would be a great democratiser, providing voice and knowledge to millions lacking it. Alas, it is also producing terrible polarisation, lies and strife.

This is not because internet companies have bad people or evil intentions. The problem lies in their profit model. They offer great free services. Their profits come from advertising, often subliminal advertising. This means flashing messages for very brief periods below the normal human perception level, reaching the subconscious. Subliminal advertising has long been used by conventional advertisers too, highlighted in books like Vance Packard’s ‘The Hidden Persuaders’. But the smartphone has taken this psychological manipulation to new heights.