Social media in the dark art of necromancy

In memoriam

I have lost friends and lost relations, but I am keenly aware of their impact on my life and the blessing it has been to know them who I would no more see. Their sojourn on this mortal coil will, however, endure in the memories we recall and the fondness we shared.

Invariably, much as I love my dearly departed, I neither want to be terrorised or terrified of the moments that I remember them, I do not want to be haunted by a Casper personality nor by a poltergeist, I want to choose my own moments of reminiscing and remembrance, through the active choices that I make.

The rampage of algorithms

Unfortunately, there is a menace that has taken this out of my hands, a system completely oblivious of my situation and ignorant of its data pool, the annoying algorithms of social media websites that intrude on my tranquility with advert, notice and information in their inordinate quest for profits that would hopefully to accrue them from networking me to any random contact.

That random contact has by happenstance been one of my departed people. From as far back as before I joined Facebook, I received an invitation from Chris, my lover, but I was not interested in Facebook at that time, then Chris died in October 2009. Soon after that, I did join Facebook and a few months later, Facebook had trawled my address book and up came an invitation from the Great Beyond, Chris inviting me to connect with him on Facebook.

In that is some comfort though

It was a bit distressing, but in another way, the Facebook profiles of my dead friends now serve as an online tombstone memorial that I visit at certain times to leave a thought or pay a tribute, but I choose the time and the place of making that contribution.

I remember doing a spring cleaning of my mobile phone years ago and deleting numbers from my phone just because I knew those numbers would no more have a familiar voice answering back if I called.

Blog - Thought Picnic: Deleted but not forgotten

Utterly dumb algorithms

We are told it is algorithms that make social media the potent socialising force it is for us today and the money-spinner for the owners; methods and ideas codified to determine my persuasions, my interests, my desires, my wants and my needs. If I were susceptible to the machinations of these sites, I would be persuaded to part with much more than I can afford in personal information and means, that is not to say that I have not been fooled before.

What I cannot understand is how these self-same intelligent algorithms have the nous to sell, but very little capacity to think. For instance, if a social media account has not been active for a while, it should not suddenly gain autonomy to interact with others, rather the algorithms should either contact the principals of those accounts or hibernate such accounts until the owners reactivate them with some input.

I do not, however, advocate a deletion of these dormant accounts because they serve some purpose as I have highlighted before. Though there might be a cynical gene in the algorithms that thinks to contact a network of contacts associated with the dormant account might prompt the receivers of the notices to nudge their dormant friends back to life on social media. The thought of resurrecting the long dead and buried through a social media nudge is scary enough.

The new online seances

Nowhere has this algorithmic menace become an apathetic atrocity than on the professional networking site of LinkedIn. We expect that LinkedIn is better suited to professional interaction until it begins to feel that each time I log on, I am being unwittingly invited to an online séance where I am inadvertently about to communicate with the dead on my professional network. There are too many examples to mention, some make me gasp and others leave me distraught, it shall pass.

However, this afternoon, I was shaken to the core when an email arrived from LinkedIn with a message of congratulations “You’ve got the most profile views out of anyone Oluwafeyikewa Akintayo knows.” Yippee! I should have said and everyone laughed when I told them my sister had viewed my profile the most of all profiles she might have networked with until I told them I lost my sister 7 months ago tomorrow.

There is no more to be said apart from the fact that I captured the screen and sent it to LinkedIn on Twitter and that upset me a bit until I regained my composure and continued with work. I do not want to be haunted by social media, that is not too much to ask any social platform to guard against.

Death absolves Enwerem for Senate Valediction

Party for the dead

The Nigerian Congress is preparing for a knees-up as they “mourn” the passing of Senator Evan Enwerem who at one time was the first Senate President in the third republic who got impeached for all sorts of irregularities in 1999.

The National Assembly last year approved disbursements for former senior officers of the nation and that law expressly forbade impeached officers from making claims in that regard.

This law would have been enacted after extensive debate and consideration as this was 7 years after that impeachment. The matter surely must have come up for them to have added the exclusion clause.

So, how on the death of the impeached Ex-Senate President, the chamber that sits two electoral terms after his can vacate the impeachment escapes me and what new evidence would have been provided to now exculpate the man from the charges that he was indicted for?

One could say that there is an element of necrophilia in the Nigerian psyche; the dead have to be celebrated if not worshipped. In the case of the Senate a valedictory session is to be held in honour of the Senate President who was impeached and in order not to have derisive headlines reading along those lines due process calls for the impeachment to be vacated.

Uncomfortable precedent

This sets an uncomfortable precedent, as the debate highlights that the impeachment was simply high-politicking rather than a substantive misdemeanour issue, it also means that occasion rather than new evidence and fact can overturn verdicts on the whim.

Whilst the man was alive, if he could muster such an emotion, he would have lived in the shame of having been removed from office ignominiously.

The interesting part to this is the family felt that some sort of honour was served in engaging the Senate at the death of the man so that all courtesies and privileges can be accorded the “now not” impeached Senate President.

So far, I have seen nothing of honourable note from either of the houses that make up the National Assembly apart from hedonistic tendencies that seek avenues for jollity rather than attending to the serious business of Nigerian leadership.

By an overwhelming acclaim, the news piece reads, I suppose one can expect much clamour from a den of thieves.

References

Senate Vacates Enwerem’s Impeachment – DisDayn

Senate Vacates Enwerem’s Impeachment - Vanguard

Vacating a judgement