For anyone who follows my social media accounts, you may have noticed that I have been silent there for quite some time. As the years have gone by I have become increasingly unhappy with it. In the beginning I thought it was the greatest thing. it was a way to reach out into the world and meet new people, and I did,
I’m not going to say that social media used to have a golden age that was perfect but the tenor of it has changed dramatically. I has gone from what I once considered to be a net good to a net bad. It became increasingly unpleasant (to put it mildly) as bad actors hiding behind anonymity and enabled by lax and inconsistent application by the various companies of their own rules.
Corporate shills, I mean influencers, trolls, hate groups and propagandists have come to dominate the space. making it difficult to connect in any meaningful way with anyone. Obviously, none of this is new but it was predictable.
Anyone who has ever moderated a message board or comment section knows that community building is the most important part of making it successful. To that end, it is necessary to make sure that the worst elements are removed so that they don’t ruin the experience for everone. Like a party with one loud and obnoxious drunk. People find excuses to leave because it is just not worth putting up with.
That is pretty much where I am out now. I just don’t feel like it is worth my time to pick through mounds of bullshit to find a few tidbits of something interesting. Could the problems facing social media be fixed? Sure. Do I think that they are going to be. No.
Simply put, Facebook, Twitter, et al., make their money off of showing ads. The more people that view those ads, the more money that they make. This directly disincentivizes them to remove people from their platform for violating community guidlines because it affects their bottom line.
Sure people get bullied, harrassed, doxxed, and threatened but that’s a small price to pay when there is money to be made and they are more than willing to let you pay it.