In the days surrounding the TikTok ban, you may have noticed influencers and economists alike throwing around the phrase, “Data is the new oil.” Now, even though the TikTok ban lasted a whopping 24 hours (but that’s another article), the sentiment behind that phrase still rings true. But what does it mean?
Well, it means exactly what it says: Data is the new oil. Oil, the resource that the United States and other powerful nations across the world have started wars over, is being usurped by data. What data, you might ask? Yours, mine, your next-door neighbor’s, literally everyone’s. Data is the new oil in the attention economy of the 2020s.
To explain the importance of data accrual, I like to use the terms inorganic relatability and organic relatability (coined by me, I think). Organic relatability is liking someone’s content because you know them in real life. You’re organically related to friends, family, etcetera, etcetera. On the other hand, inorganic relatability is liking someone’s content because an algorithm told you to. For me, this would be like Emma Chamberlain or Quen Blackwell. I didn’t find their content on my own; the “Recommended” page on YouTube thought I would like their videos, and it was right! This distinction is the reason for TikTok’s massive success both as a social media platform and as a mechanism for potential revenue. The TikTok “For You” page’s algorithm is eerily accurate. It knows what type of videos you want to watch, when you want to watch them, and sometimes, even why. It does this through complex data analysis. TikTok, obviously, doesn’t share its algorithm, and no one else really knows the exact mechanism – if they did, Zuckerberg would’ve made them a billionaire by now – but it’s definitely working.
The issue with TikTok is it works almost too well. An algorithm that can make you laugh, cry and laugh again within three scrolls is one that can also get you to “ooh,” “ahh,” and open your wallet at will. An algorithm that can show you @kamalahq (RIP) videos that you interact with and share is one that will convince you that the current election map is a red mirage. And that’s just within the scope of TikTok as an innocent platform, ignoring the implications of, oh, I don’t know, millions of dollars of brand/political influence. Cambridge Analytica showed us that when it comes to user data on social media, privacy is lowkey irrelevant and the highest bidder wins. This issue will only continue to grow as we as a society lean more and more into generative AI and machine learning, both of which require huge amounts of data to function. Amazon and Twitter (it will never be X; I literally don’t care) have already outlined plans to utilize customer data, voluntarily and otherwise, to train large language models.
I’m not a social media puritan or a politician or anything like that. My TikTok brain-rot time before bed is a sacred part of my routine. I’m simply writing this piece to get you thinking. So, next time you doom-scroll TikTok or ask ChatGPT a question, keep in the back of your mind that if you’re not being sold a product, maybe you’re the product.