Forces of capital have always eyed common public spaces. Once a crowd collects around fresh thoughts and charismatic narrators, the corporates, forever seeking new consumers, muscle in. They cast a sharp eye on the delivery mechanism and get busy to monetise the space full of potential consumers. We saw it happen to the vernacular media in the 90s, when marketing executives suddenly realised that media consumers of vernacular print and TV formed a far greater and more gullible mass than the cosseted and fussy consumers of English media. And what’s more, these vernacular consumers, with new spending power, could lead them to emerging markets in small-town and rural India.So all major media houses brought in market-savvy managers who happily reduced editorial say to the minimum. Every TV screen was now split; each page, including the sacrosanct front page of dailies, was redesigned to help place prime advertising visuals at astronomical rates. And with that, news content yielded prime space to the market.Today the process is faster. The use of smartphones by the turn of the century has already created a consumer out of each citizen, who in turn has sired Gen Z, joined at the hip to their mobiles. This has changed communication entirely. From schoolchildren to elderly couples, people prefer to stay holed up in their bedrooms, using devices to talk to NRI progeny or connect with a shared social space via popular apps. The fabled Gen Z is now low-hanging fruit for the market and for politicians seeking their votes. Each, individually pursuing his or her private, monetised dream, surrenders happily to algorithms which race down the line and fill the coffers of mega-corporates and their personal “Apun tau Bhagwan hai!” dreams.Illustration: Pariplab ChakrabortyParental messages, school homework, WA messages, dropped pins, news alerts, reels, podcasts, Insta swaps are the new invisible school bags. They are infinitely heavier than their physical predecessors, since they weigh down young minds with an information flow they can barely handle. Yes, Australia is trying to break the vicious cycle and categorise separate algo time for adults and children, but with millions of very young, very smart hackers on the prowl on the Net, how long can their algo walls last?The new Indo-tech has altered the concept of privacy for our young totally. They are not available to families for old-style talking-tos, but behind their carefully locked doors their personal world is totally porous and visible. They are now the message. Had Marshall McLuhan considered this nightmare, in which a human is deemed as good or bad as their FB walls or Insta declare? Gen Z may be in school or may have dropped out, but they all congregate in algo commons, rapping, ‘acting out’, making reels with their gangs on highways and mountain peaks, demolishing reputations or creating the day’s icons.For adolescent girls, this also opens scary avenues for frantic socialising and forming questionable interpersonal relationships with faceless paedophile groups, which algos can enable, messing up precious personal lives and families. Gen Z, it appears, is fast losing pre-algo teenagers’ signature qualities: getting bored and relieving it through hectic physical activity, or just being alone with a good read; not being a target for some influencer’s idea of what they should be; being able, above all, to maintain an attention span unmediated by tech.The government’s whiz kids smirk at such Luddite worries. Our own political leadership is mostly a passionate defender of “high tech”, on par with their awe for religion and Gods. Hanuman, we were told recently, can be part of each gaming apparatus in the world, so also Ram and Krishna. Little reels of miniature cows being fed and Hanuman shaped as a kite flying high are all over the media commons.As a late entrant to the system of politically and commercially mediated images and messages in the media, like most of my colleagues I was still living in a slow-moving world where, unbacked by data at our fingertips, we were commissioning and chasing a good story, dodging competing players, occasionally killing large parts of it for lack of solid proof. The net result didn’t bring in piles of money, but it tested professional virtuosity and sense of self-worth among media practitioners, from sharp, careful readers and viewers who expected nothing less than hard news, not smart sound bites.Did you know that since 2023 the intersection of algorithms and privacy in India is governed by a new Digital Personal Data Protection Act? Go chase honest algos and they will confirm that the Act does not yet fully account for AI-specific challenges to come. In future, algos shaped by humans with old-style socio-political biases could well be used for credit scoring, hiring, and law enforcement practices and precedents. A future guided by devilishly crafted vague words like “reasonable security safeguards” might go on to enable governments to engage in mass data collection and surveillance practices violative of constitutional guarantees of individual privacy, while governmental data itself may remain exempt from public scrutiny via the Right to Information Act. In essence, if we do not watch out, we may end up living in a shell of democracy, with increased censorship and reduced governmental accountability.As for Gen Z, one wishes they did not exult over spectacular student-led velvet revolutions and sights of homes of deemed criminals being bulldozed. They must periodically step outside the algo commons on their own to gain a true sense of privacy: their own, and others’.Mrinal Pande is a writer and veteran journalist.Saakhi is a Sunday column from Mrinal Pande, in which she writes of what she sees and also participates in. That has been her burden to bear ever since she embarked on a life as a journalist, writer, editor, author and as chairperson of Prasar Bharti. Her journey of being a witness-participant continues.