This is part of the online version of Jamil Chad’s newsletter sent yesterday (3). In the full newsletter, for subscribers only, the columnist also reports on the movement at the UN caused by the investigation accusing China of possible crimes against humanity. Would you like to receive the full package with the main column and more information in your email next week? Click here.
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Dear Mark Zuckerberg,
I read an article in Spanish newspapers that broke my heart. Police found more than 20,000 envelopes in a former postman’s home that were never delivered. Electric bills, endless bills, and legal notices were there for the luck of those who didn’t get them. But those garbage bags also contained thousands of love letters, apologies, invitations to a new life, and sincere friendship statements.
None of them surrendered.
In fact, this letter to my correspondence partner, Juliana Monteiro, is part of a new book that we will be releasing next week: “Ao Brasil, com Amor” (Editora Autêntica).
I am sending these words to you now.
You know, I wondered how many suffocating relationships were in those filthy dust bags discovered by the police in that house. How many lovers packed their bags and left the city when they could not find an answer. In the face of silence, they changed their lives, their love.
The gentleman who committed the crime was duly charged. If a certain anguish came over my soul as I read the story, it was the accusation that made me think.
In the official document of the prosecutors, the criminal was condemned and detained for a barbaric crime: “disloyalty under the supervision of documents.” Disloyalty: How many crimes have been committed in your name.
It is not true that after devoting hours to a text, after searching for a paper, a stamp, an envelope, after searching for a mailbox with a beating heart, we surrender everything to chance. There is a trust agreement between the sender and the courier. It is true that there are rules, conventions, standards, a sophisticated shipping system and even an international organization based in the pulsating city of Bern.
But above all, it is an agreement of mutual trust.
This same relationship is what makes institutions look like money. Rules exist with central banks and an elaborate financial system. But that piece of paper has value because there is an agreement in society that saffron is accepted by everyone.
There is another deal in our lives: democracy. Yes, countries have an infrastructure to ensure that their constitutions, laws, courts and rules are followed and enforced. But once again, none of this would have been possible had it not been for a larger social pact.
But today it is under deep threat. In the false alliance between the disillusioned by the promise of a better life, the frustrated by capitalism, the privileged who refuse to give up their power, and charlatans of all kinds, the idea that there are alternative paths to a society is fostered.
Will they be willing to commit a massive fraud in elections? Were they ready for a break?
But, Mr. Zuckenberg, my impression is that the threat is much larger and system fraud is already happening on a large scale. The basis for the democracy deal and polls to work is that we all vote with full control of our conscience.
But what is the legitimacy of an electoral system if our choices have been hacked? What if our decisions are stolen?
It was looted without us knowing. Worse still, with our help. For almost two decades, we have handed over all of our data to a system that we have no control over and that we don’t even know how it works.
In recent years we have discovered that there are agreements between these platforms and intelligence services. We discovered contracts between these companies and the sale of our information that turned children into billionaires. You know what I’m talking about.
Once in London, Julian Assange met me at the Ecuadorian embassy, where he was fleeing the police. In a long conversation, he insisted that social media could be called “the greatest heist in history”. And with our complicity.
Of course, theft of all our data, our privacy, and perhaps our goals.
For networks that give us the virtual impression, we count how many children we have, what we buy, who we admire, who our lovers are, and we tell lies to protect a secret. We share our joys and sorrows.
You know more about me today than my mother. Deep down, you know me better than I do. You know where I propose to meet between my own home and the home of the person I’m in love with. He knows what I’m thinking on January 1, 2016, on a sleepless dawn, my first child’s birthday or any other date. It stores what words I put in a search engine and therefore what I think.
No totalitarian regime, with its vast network of spies and attempts to control, has ever dreamed of having such power over its population.
But this Mr. Zuckerbergis not just the story of our data being confiscated, turned into unimaginable fortunes. Deep down there is a battle for our consciences. In fact, it’s an all-out war. If I know the preferences of each, nothing will stop me from persuading them to consume certain products. And offer exactly what she thinks she needs.
Based on the preferences I know from that client, nothing will stop me from introducing that potential consumer to a new artist.
And nothing will stop me from ultimately steering the political or social debate in favor of a particular political movement. I can teach hatred, disgust, and contempt. I can build a legend.
Thus, informed voting will be threatened by a system that can create a parallel and displaced reality.
In the 21st century, our consciences are at the center of the debate. But here I turn to the questioning of historian Yuval Noah Harari. Would the democratic system collapse without control over our decisions? If my choice is no longer mine, what is the legitimacy of voting?
Will they find out about our future before we do? But if I know your future before you, maybe I can shape your destiny, I can always let you believe that it is your decisions.
In the Arab Spring, my cartoonist friend Patrick Chappatte scribbled down something that brought out much of the moment and our optimism about social media. He plotted a fictional meeting between Hosni Mubarak and other dictators in the region. You could see a crowd calling for democracy through the window where authoritarian leaders spoke. And one asked the others: How many enemies do you have on Facebook today?
Yes, it was still a moment of hope for social networks. Today, it is the same platforms that can overturn democracy without control. Is the deal broken? Did he even exist?
As I send this letter to you, I hope the post office will do its part. If someone is going to determine my destiny, let it be by breaking the door of my house, of my heart. And that my mental abilities are intact.
Democratic greetings.
jamil
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source: Noticias
