Quiz Apps are back, and people are no smarter! 5 Truths.

How do I begin this without sounding like an absolute rude moron?

· I suppose I could sugar coat it and not call you an IDIOT!

· Or, I could pretend like you have lived under a rock for last 20 years and just came back to the real ‘civilization’ and hence you had no clue!

· Or, I can be really polite, and sit back and watch as you expose private data of everyone in your network (and yourself) and another few subversions of democracies and when it happens, I exclaim ‘HA, I knew it!’

Or, I could just be honest, direct and sensible about it and tell you that you are being an IDIOT. And no, it is not ‘I’ who is calling you an IDIOT. It is the data manipulating companies that are helping political masters, who are serving the rich capitalists take over the democracies and bring them down to the knees begging for mercy.

What am I on about?

Well. In last one week suddenly, I am seeing the return of so called ‘Quiz Apps’ that ask you absolute pointless things like ‘What kind of face do you have?’ and answers are like ‘Actor, Dancer or Welder’. Or, ‘What legacy would you leave behind?’ and fancy replies like ‘You will be creating history, or You will empower the world’ …oh I don’t know just some super lame answers which get you emotionally satisfied that suddenly you are some superstar leaving a billion dollar industry deprived of your talent, after you are gone.

I know, you are still reading and thinking, ‘Geez, why does he have to be so rude about it?’ — well here is why –

Truth Number One — These apps are asking you things you wouldn’t normally even tell your friends or family. They are very personal, and they are your internal thoughts. You are suddenly sharing your most personal and private feelings with a ‘data collection’ app about which you know NOTHING about.

Truth Number Two — It is okay to share personal feelings, it makes you human. But, would you share those feelings if you knew who is on the other side reading/listening to them and how will they use it to manipulate what happens to your future? Then how can you share it with an app that is there only to collect data! Data my friend is a goldmine for those who want to use it to manipulate, influence and control your buying, voting, thinking decisions.

Truth Number Three — Don’t tell me you have not heard of Cambridge Analytica and how they allegedly help hack the USA elections and apparently the BREXIT outcome for the UK. I say allegedly because it is still under investigation. But seriously dude, were you on a different planet, or galaxy to not know anything about it and still be on the Quiz Apps? REALLY NOW?

Truth Number Four — The time you are spending sharing the most intimate, intricate details of your heart to an absolute unknown, unreliable, untrustworthy entity — could have been well spent working on your passion, or relaxing with your friends, family, kids, pets or even just reading that book you have purchased but never found the time to read. What do you do? You choose to spend that time with a totally unreliable entity unloading your most private thoughts, without once stopping to think, ‘Who is getting all this info?’

Truth Number Five — These apps are FREE. They don’t have any ‘upgrade’ option for you to buy and get any premium service or customer care. Why are they free? What are they getting out of developing such an intelligent software and never getting paid for it? Do you know any brand, any company, any business that works day and night developing something to give it away for FREE and NEVER seek any benefits out of it? If you have, please tell me which planet is it on, because it sure isn’t on planet EARTH. The biggest, ugliest and scariest truth is these apps are HARVESTING your data, mining your thinking process and creating a pattern on how you make your simplest to most important life decisions. THEN, they are SELLING them to the HIGHEST BIDDER who can use this info to influence your decisions, tiniest to most crucial ones — with advertising, broadcasting the ‘tone’ you want to hear, and changing your mindset and ultimately decisions that will shape the future of your own life and that of coming generations.

You are giving away the freedom of thought, privacy and independent decision making for yourself and your future generations. You are risking democracies. You are risking human growth. You are risking the liberties and independence that has been achieved after a lot of sacrifices, struggle and tragedies.

And hence my friend, it is not ‘I’ but these Data Manipulators and their BUYERS who think, believe and KNOW that you are an IDIOT and are using all their chips on betting you will be fooled again, you will be robbed again and you will be left stunned again when something historically wrong happens and there is nothing you can do about it as you have no proof, no power and no options to re-negotiate your future.

Now, do I still sound RUDE to you?