Dave The Web Guy
More Grumbling Over Social Media Demonization
03/10/2024
I will never understand why politicians and the mainstream media are so "activated" by the potential ill effects of social media. I believe it's a war on people freely talking to each other.
When I'm given to contemplate I cynically cling to my abstract ideas of conspiracies against free speech (countries and authoritarian societies like China prove the raw dynamic exists - it's just a matter of shoe horning the same drive in a liberal democracy), or offended institutions not getting their cut of the dole from the big tech companies that build these communication platforms.
The mainstream media meanwhile wants a diminished landscape of people who are able to compete effectively against their profit making process and controls, giving it the driving incentive of rebuilding its relevance. If social media is killing or sexualizing the children, spreading misinformation, undermining democracy (ironic claim), or depressing everyone - it's better to delete your feed and turn on the one-way influencing box of TV once again where a relatively few drive cultural narrative.
Well, something along those lines. It's not like I'm sitting in the room with the Illuminati while they work the whiteboard over these matters to say exactly.
But the truly maddening thing is that all of these charges would be lodged against the Internet and world wide web directly had social media platforms never become a thing. Can you imagine the constant crowing about how depressed teens are because they surf the web or exchange simple email?
Taking all the best intentions for what they claim to be, where were all these movements and grandstanding speeches as television, movies, and consumer advertising, tweaked and engineered with as much expertise as anything TikTok or Instagram have applied, were force paraded through children's minds for decades and decades? Regulating mass commercial brainwashing does have its appeal if we are all suddenly "waking up" to how industry attempts to program us, after all.
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By Dave for Personal Blog.
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