The problem with social media is that it is multinational, often privately-owned corporations with profit being the main objective.
These are companies that were started by socially awkward young nerds, computer geniuses with clever ideas that now determine the global discourse and map the narrative.
Facebook, for example, was started as a silly website that rated university girls on a one to 10 scale, but is now in the powerful position to influence elections, topple governments and install new leaders.
All of this, using secret algorithms written by young geeks with little to no understanding of the lives of the people whose futures they literally hold at their fingertips; nor does it appear that they much care. And why should they?
They are living super comfortable lives in the safety of a democracy, without any experience of the impact their keyboard decisions have on vulnerable lives.
And while their moderation may mitigate the problem somewhat, it is only truly effective in regions using the world’s most spoken languages, like English.
In places like Myanmar, it is part of the tribalism problem, becoming a megaphone of discord, rather than being part of the solution.
Why this rant, you may ask? Well, it’s because I have been monitoring the reported chaos at Twitter since Elon Musk took over, making him the platform’s dictator in chief.
And I don’t use the word “dictator” lightly or for dramatic effect.
Musk has fired some of the company’s most morally astute gatekeepers, whose job it was to guard against dangerous propaganda, racism, xenophobia, prejudice and a whole range of social evils.
And those who weren’t fired, left of their own accord when the battle ahead looked all but lost.
It has now become clear that while Twitter users have increased since the takeover, it has also become a much darker and ugly place.
This begs the question: who are the people using Twitter these days?
A large proportion must obviously be those who subscribe to those ugly philosophies and who want to participate.
The implication is therefore that Musk is happy to earn money from being the emissary of humanity’s ugliness. It is the nature of capitalism to not care about the plight of ordinary people. The difference is, now it is on a global scale.
I can appreciate that Mark Zuckerberg couldn’t possibly have known what Facebook was going to become when he started it, or how it would be used. But it is still little consolation, because now that he has witnessed the impact of his creation, he is marching full-steam ahead with its successor in the form of a virtual reality metaverse.
Heaven knows what unknown new geopolitical and social dangers it will bring along with it.
What I do know is that, once we saw its potential impact on society, social media should never have been allowed to become what it has – a weapon of mass anything that the users with the most reach decides.
Currently the world’s information is owned by a handful of global companies – Twitter, Google (owner of YouTube), Meta (owner of Facebook and Instagram) and TikTok.
And that means a few very privileged people are deciding what conversations are being had in homes and offices around the world.
Had we known and recognised the signs, and had we had leaders with foresight, then we would have ensured that regional, NPO versions of those companies were set up locally.
Companies like Twitter should be localised to every region and should never have been for profit.
It’s part of the reason that I was again impressed by Jimmy Wales, the head of Wikipedia.
Firstly, the online encyclopaedia which he founded has become what is arguably history’s greatest repository of knowledge.
Most importantly, it is run as an NPO foundation by a small dedicated staff and volunteers through annual donations drives.
Asked by Musk for a price, Wales made it categorically clear that Wikipedia is not for sale.
I think he understands that Wikipedia will simply become another money-making tool for a capitalist like Elon, and that users would have to deal with advertisements and maybe even pay-walls or bias algorithms for some of the knowledge-projects that Wikipedia gets involved in.
If only we had known, then we could’ve insisted that all social media adopt the same business model.
breinou@gmail.com