🧠 You’re Not the User—You’re the Product

How AI Monetizes Filipino Attention Without Consent

📱 The Illusion of Free

Facebook is free. TikTok is free. YouTube is free. But if you’re not paying for the product, you are the product.

Every scroll, like, comment, and pause is tracked. Not just to “improve your experience,” but to train AI, sell ads, and shape behavior. And in the Philippines, where digital literacy is low and attention is cheap, the extraction is brutal.

🛢️ Data Is the New Oil. Attention Is Gold.

Your behavior fuels billion-dollar systems. Your attention is mined, refined, and sold—often without your knowledge, and never with your consent.

🔗 Read more:Data Is the New Oil in the AI EraWho’s Paying for Your Attention in the AI Era

AI doesn’t just learn from you. It profits off you. And the more passive you are, the more valuable you become—to someone else.

🇵🇭 Filipino Attention: Undervalued, Overexploited

Here’s how it plays out:

• Your TikTok likes train recommendation engines that sell products you’ll never afford.
• Your Facebook comments feed sentiment analysis tools are used by politicians and brands.
• Your YouTube watch history helps optimize ads for foreign companies.
• Your silence—yes, even what you don’t click—teaches AI what not to show you.

And yet, you earn nothing. No royalties. No ownership. No control.

🧒 Too Cryptic? Explain Like I’m 12

Imagine you’re playing a game. Every move you make helps someone else win. You don’t get coins. You don’t get credit. You just keep playing—while they get rich.

That’s what happens when you use social media without knowing how it works. You’re not the player. You’re the fuel.

🧠 How to Reclaim Your Digital Agency

You don’t need to quit social media. You need to use it strategically.

Goal	Strategy	Tool
Be searchable (not invisible)	Post with keywords AI can index	ChatGPT + Canva for SEO carousels
Protect your content	Watermark, license, and archive	Glaze, Creative Commons, Notion
Track your footprint	See where your data shows up	Google Alerts, HaveIBeenTrained.com
Monetize your attention	Turn insights into assets	Create templates, guides, or zines
Educate others	Share explainers, not just memes	AIWhyLive.com + Explain Like I’m 12

🧭 Final Word: From Product to Architect

AI isn’t evil. But it’s designed to extract value from whoever stays passive.

You don’t need to be loud. You need to be intentional.

Because in the age of AI, attention is currency—and agency is wealth.

🪞 Know That You Know… That You Are the Product

Once you see it, you can’t unsee it. Your clicks, your silence, your “epal” moments—they’re all monetized.

🧠 Epals are products, too. They package public service like a brand—funded by our taxes, sold back to us for votes.

Epals don’t serve—they advertise. Your taxes fund their photo ops. Your votes seal the deal. Public service isn’t a favor. When politicians brand basic duties as heroism, they turn governance into a product—and voters into customers.

Knowing that you are a product is just the first step in fighting today’s algorithmic tyrants. Read: Epal in the Age of AI

The question isn’t whether you’re being used. It’s whether you’ll stay usable—or become undeniable.

🧒 Too Cryptic? Explain Like I’m 12

Imagine you’re watching TikTok. You think you’re just having fun. But every like, scroll, and pause teaches a robot how to sell things, change your mood, and even predict your next move.

You’re not just using the app. The app is using you.

It’s like being in a game where someone else gets the coins—and you don’t even know you’re playing.

This article says:

Wake up. Learn the rules. Use AI to build your own system—not be someone else’s fuel.