These concurrent social media shutdowns are foreshadowing the inevitable.

The time is 4:30 pm. In the comfort of my bedroom after a tedious day of college life, I am texting a friend on WhatsApp. Then, all of a sudden, the messages stop going, the replies stop coming.

Out of curiosity, I check my cellular data balance, but I see tons of gigabytes available. Perhaps it’s my iOS software that needs updating. Still, nothing is working.

I turn on my VPN and log on to Twitter which thankfully is still online, to learn the breaking news.

‘From WhatsApp to Facebook, down to Instagram, all online activities are frozen’.

This shutdown isn’t the first of its kind. However, it will be the first time catching me in a tight spot, and I hope it is the last.

I’ve never thought I could be so dependent on an app for bare human existence. It’s like time halted, and the rest of the world for those brief hours returned to the early ages where ravens and birds achieved distant communication.

These concurrent social media shutdowns are foreshadowing the inevitable. Pulse Nigeria

Whatsapp, Facebook, Instagram are social media apps with billions of users worldwide. So, when an outage of its services occurs, it’ll trigger panic that’ll seep through the masses. Like we see time and time, over and over again.

After this temporary shutdown occurs, the CEOs and their teams come out to give public apologies and justifications to the reasons behind it. But the truth behind these actions is more sinister than we can imagine.

What is this truth?; It’s all experimentation and conditioning for a time when social media being as powerful as it is, won’t be freely available to the masses and will be solely controlled by a limited group of higher elites.

The moment your mind grasps the idea of selected figures having complete control over the apps we rely daily upon, for businesses, relationships, activism, and most importantly, information. It is only fair to query what faction these major key players are pledged to. What agenda are they selling? What is their endgame?

Suppose a country is to use a bio-weapon against another. A series of trials is expected to be performed, first to confirm its vigor on its victims and their immunity to it.

The same is the case with these shutdowns. And so far, the global frenzy that sparked on Twitter and TikTok shows how subjugated and conditioned we are; Which is all the confirmation needed to carry out their next action.

Information is power. A day will come when the high elites will strip world citizens of this power to silence voices. With online radicalism and endless progressive and conservative conflicts, Big tech companies will support one group against the other! And they will achieve this by seizing the use of these platforms permanently.

Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook, TikTok, telegram, Snapchat, Clubhouse, Spaces, Signal, etc. All these platforms won’t be online forever. And we should be prepared.

The time is now 12:48 Am, October 5th 2021, with bated breaths, I turn on my cellular data, and I’m met with relief as a fleet of messages and notifications come in. Without delay, just like billions of others, I resume online activities. While we still can.

[Pulse Contributor Opinion]

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Israel Olorunnisola is a freelance creative. When he is not writing about Film, Music, TV or Pop culture he is telling stories on Wattpad.

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Pulse Contributors is an initiative to highlight diverse journalistic voices. Pulse Contributors do not represent the company Pulse and contribute on their own behalf.