Page 61 - AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report

profitability and professed “platform neutrality”. Surveys show that use of Social Media platforms would drop if users had to pay for access – or they would migrate to other free services. Face- book recently bought its own high-profile ads to detail how it is “protecting our community from election interference” – a clear response to calls for them to control their media.
Conclusions
Today’s Social Media platforms hold a dominant position enabling them to further exploit data economy in the data-driven society, creating new business opportunities based on Big Social Data collection and processing, Artificial Intel- ligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) tech- niques in combination with Internet of Things (IoT). Some fundamental aspects that should be addressed have already been identified:
• Transparency, Trust, Privacy and Personal Data protection
• Illegal Content, Fake accounts and Fake information
• User lock-in situations due to a market dominated by a few big platforms providers
• Huge volumes of exclusive Big Social Data accumulated and used as the raw material for Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning could provide an insuperable competitive advantage over new entrants.
Research and further analysis should be focused on new tools, business and cooperation models, education, policy and regulation instruments (e.g. Data Portability) in order to avoid situations where innovation and competition are under- mined.
In 2018, some of the expected trends include an increased use of chat-bots, a growing focus on sharing highly engaging content and a greater
push for mobile. Influencer marketing through Social Media platforms will become more difficult, particularly on Instagram. As more
and more users buy likes and followers, it will become more challenging to figure out which accounts are legitimate and which ones are not. We’ll see more attention focused on fake ac- counts, starting with Twitter, but moving toward Facebook as well. Platforms will try to allow only verified users. Teenagers will therefore move away from the platform because of this, just as they did with Instagram.
In 2018, some of the expected trends include an increased use of chat-bots, a growing focus on sharing highly engaging content and a greater push for mobile.
Within a few years, Social Media as we know it today will probably no longer exist, but the companies that are doing Social Media business could radically change. The time-sharing battle between those who want to attract you to their platform as long as possible will change. Every- thing will be inside the same platform. There will be no monopoly of the kind Facebook enjoys today but probably an oligopoly of five to six companies.
We will continue to provide photos, videos, opinions, itineries of car journeys, and a variety of information about our lives in a searchable database: we will be completely transparent, and with a Digital Identity that is not hackable. Obviously, a better privacy system will have to
AC/E DIGITAL CULTURE ANNUAL REPORT 2018
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Digital Trends in Culture