Social Media

After watching a debate on DR (think BBC, just smaller and with weird noises in Danish), I have been thinking on my stance on Social Media.

Are they dangerous?

Yes, in their current form as massive algorithmic nightmarish behemoths, absolutely. Turns out that without regulation and curtailing, rich people think they can get away with anything - and do. When everything is turned into payment-for-eyeballs, things end up fucked.

Are they good?

Yes. In the debate above, there were arguments that biologically, mentally and psychologically, humans crave social interaction, face-to-face. I believe that to be true. But. That misses a huge caveat - it is not a given that all humans have access to -healthy- interaction, face-to-face for a multitude of reasons. The victim of bullies are unlikely to find happiness in social interactions at school. People with niche interests in small town society will have a very small pool of possibility to be verified as the valid human beings they are. And that is before even touching those that are challenged with handicaps, be they mental or physical or vilified/marginalized groups (think queer people).

Simply being validated can give people (such as myself, who is a nerdy white-ass middleaged Gen-X’er) the courage to seek these healthy physical interactions and thus, massively increase their quality of life.

I’d wager, the internet and social media has done a lot for the visibility (and grudgingly wider acceptance) of queer people. Minority perspectives and even main-stream perspectives can sometimes be brought to town in a way that traditional media are (for bizarre reasons) incapable of. Finding out that there is a massive amount of people just like you, just in tiny pockets across the land mass you designate as your country is empowering - suddenly you are not a handful of nerds, but thousands with a shared voice that will be able to be heard.

In my view, social media vs. physical interactions in meatspace are not either-or - they are very much ‘por que no los dos?’ (Spanish for: ‘Why not both’). Getting 50% of the possible outcome of being socially (digitally) validated must be better than 0% when physical interactions are not an option.

What’s wrong with them?

Ads. Simply put, the business model of (most) social media is based on advertising and it creates all the wrong incentives. The companies behind the largest social media capitalize on their users spending time on their platforms. The longer the user is on the platform, the more money the company makes. We are allowing them to experiment on the users worse than any guinea pig with (unsurprising) terrible effects.

What should we do about them?

We curtail them. Through legislation, rules and heavy overview of their business practises. We disallow ’the feed’ - any kind of feed that will have you see a) promoted or b) otherwise unsolicited content will not be allowed. Think of it this way: We remove the gamification of the social part. Unless you specifically decide to follow Andrew Tate, you are not shown content from Andrew Tate.

And if a given platform is available in a language, it will be mandatory to have a set amount of -educated- moderators with that native language per thousand users if you are a for-profit organization. Oh, and we disallow ads.

Isn’t that a little harsh?

Maybe. But I’m willing to take that risk.

But how will the world function without these global platforms?

Well. Easily. Governments are free to create their own sites. The Danish government could open a Mastodon/Diaspora instance tomorrow and give all politicians, political parties and civic organizations an account there. There are no good excuses anymore - we have the technology. Create that Townhall for your specific country that isn’t reliant on the whims of some faraway billionaire.