I'm thinking back to when smartphones first took off in popularity, and for all the concerns about privacy, and the ways to preserve it, it amounted to an empty assurance that it would be respected. So, invasion of privacy was always the goal. But it wasn't just about privacy, but convenience and features and improving products and services - to that end privacy was afforded to the promise of future improvements, and it was to be gathered anomynously.
So gathering information was easy. And as we are afforded freedoms, what concern is it of anyone what our online habits are? If anything, it would as well, only be beneficial in the future.
So, on that side of things, all is shared, cooperative, and privacy isn't too big an issue, because it is for a higher purpose, and with the permissiveness freedoms allow, who is to judge another for their online habits? And isn't it been all along by these big social media / tech companies to do as we have been all along: gathering, sharing, engaging in social activities?
So, information gathering was not a problem. So we have to ask: to what end were these companies invested? I think the internet was a new frontier and all embraced it, but following its success came the colonizers who seek to exploit. So social media is established and through private companies the masses migrated to their juristictions - it is free after all. Popularity is emphasised, with monetization the carrot to which the masses flock, and a little portable mass-media appliance in everyones pocket to afford them a dream of being a part of it all - it has been always a social incentive, to that end they place restrictions. But as well, they turn our propensities around into anti-social activities, turn cooperation into antagonism, make tolerance a travesty, ect., because with the internet, we cooperated and networked to the point where the establishment was undermined and their power impotent.
So, data collecting isn't the goal. Reserving it to themselves is. But it can't happen overnight. And in this process of reversal, it is revolutionary, so it is a all-in kind of proposition. And so you have blackmail, scandals, powerplays, ect. because automation left us to fight over its control. And so data isn't the real goal, it is our character, integrity, our nature they must mute. And so they attempt to trick the senses with false flags, staged shows, phoney perceptions, all manner of falsehood in an attempt to overthrow our decency. It is largely hidden from view, but you can see by all the lunacy what is in play. It is a parasitic, predacious, goal that isn't comprehesible to the host, but easy identified just the same. And though it is aggressive and pernicious, that is its nature. So, when it comes to tech supremacy, the parasites are always trying to co-opt it, but it isn't in their nature to rule. And so it is in futility they attack aspects of our nature, but never successful - physically, or virtually. Theirs is never to reign, but to steer.
So, it is self-serving fanfare that people in power use to exhibit some sort of worth and virtue. And is often the case they will play both sides to do so. And the notion that because they have vast amounts of data, they are more powerful, it would be to make improvements; but as a means to tyrannize us it isn't about information, but our character - our nature.
And they can't just blurt out: 'Ha-ha! you, you, and you!.... we know what you've said or done! Pay us or we will reveal it to everyone!' or 'Silence you! You are one to talk!'. They can't just come out and make claims - admitting that their data collection is invasive. They must imply. Use innuendo. And they pepper the social media with political correctness so that even if you don't have a spot on your character - that is itself a crime. So, between blackmail and crime by association, a atmosphere of suspicion is created, stiffling the very things the internet was created to allow.
So data plays a minor role. It is a means to employ psychological attacks on the general public. Make data collection a tyrannical theme, even as it is used cooperatively and for the widespread benefit of all, so that it falls into restricted use. They report on their actions as if it were not theirs, then use it as a excuse to limit it to themselves. Its twisted.