Lately, a new icon suddenly appeared on my WhatsApp home screen.
No announcement. No explicit consent. Just… there.
An AI assistant from Meta Platforms.
It looks harmless: an extra button, a smart helper.
But it points to something much bigger: data farming.
Data farming isn’t just about collecting information.
It’s about turning our conversations, searches, preferences, and behaviors into commodities.
Not once.
Continuously.
And usually quietly.
We live in a time where:
– features are added “automatically”
– opting out is often harder than opting in
– updates happen server-side, outside your personal settings
– AI tools appear without clear explanations of what is actually being stored
That’s not a conspiracy theory.
That’s the business model.
Platforms like WhatsApp and LinkedIn don’t primarily exist to help us — they exist to collect, analyze, and monetize data.
The real question isn’t:
“Is AI useful?”
The real question is:
who owns the context of your life?
Privacy isn’t a luxury.
It’s autonomy.
And autonomy rarely disappears with a bang.
It fades through small icons.
Through defaults.
Through silent updates.
My personal rule is simple:
If something appears without my explicit consent,
then it doesn’t belong to me.
Maybe it’s time we all take a closer look at what we use “for free” —
and what we quietly give in return.
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