Gad Zooks! Or should I say Gad Zusk as the unholy alliance of Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg join forces to manipulate information to their own ends. The new media barons appear to be social media barons, and this is dangerous, because they have a far larger reach than what we perceive. To a certain extent, you could say, “hey-ho, if I’ve got nothing to hide, I have nothing to fear”, but it’s not as simple as that. It’s about our civil liberties of privacy, outlined in the UK’s Human Rights Act of 1998.
Now when this legislation was drafted, AI was merely being talked about in science-fictional terminology. We were also conditioned to believe that AI was a cute and comfortable thing, with the launch of the Furby. Whilst not AI implicitly, it learnt our language and had to listen to know what to say next. AI on social media has a similar concern. Today, as well as supporting Donald John Trump more wholeheartedly than he has previously, Mark Zuckerberg also took a step into the post-truth world, when he sacked its fact-checkers in favour of community notes
Whilst the great and the good have largely made a move to Bluesky as a social media platform, with the CEO Jay Lantian Graber insisting that it’s a more democratic arena than its competitors, there is a risk of echo-chamber politics. This is largely harmless when you are in a fairly democratically stable position, but when we have the chief troll who is one step away from despot soon to become leader of the free world and this time unhampered by congress, Houston, we have a big problem. And while the great and the good are on Bluesky, on X we have the vagabonds and highwaymen of the internet, those that wouldn’t appear out of place in media outlets sponsored by political parties and therefore with clear biases.
The arenas of X and Facebook that used to be democratic places for sensible people to commune and join groups with people who shared likeminded views, are now becoming echo-chambers for only one side. Your nan’s homemade pie is no longer the concern of the CEO of Facebook, because what does Zuck earn from that? It’s far easier to go political and then it is a question of finding the reactionary base. What is a more emotional belief? There is nothing wholly insensible about conservatism as an ideology, but there is a problem with conservatism, nationalism and patriotism combined, because it becomes a melted immovable sludge that renders some implausibly awful policies.
As an example of this, we have the latest clause that Meta removed from its terms and conditions. This clause means that I could refer to my mum, my female colleagues and my female friends as a household object with no consequences. This is quite literally objectification and yet we are somewhat beholden to these media mutants, as per there terms and conditions, we technically own all of the content. Let’s cut to the crux: “Facebook can use the photos and videos you post in any way without paying you”. This is the problem. We as users are powerless. So what’s the alternative.
Well, they’ve been around for a lot longer than we think. Bluesky is probably the most zeitgeisty but other alternatives, similar to Facebook are Mastodon and Diaspora. Mastodon was founded in 2016 and Diaspora was founded in 2010, so they are established platforms, and ones where we own the content we post fully. As well as this, we don’t have to kowtow to our billionaire overlords on these programmes. I’m coming very close to realising that Facebook, much like X is not the right place for me, but my relationship with Facebook as a programme goes back much further than my relationship with Twitter/X. It was there when I first learnt to ride a bike- yes I was a late learner, through my awkward teenage years, for fledgling political debates with randomers online. As a result to an extent, it’s a part of me. It’s not that easy to separate from this. I’ve also got a lot of contacts on Facebook and I don’t know whether I’d see these people on the other side. They’re not friends per se but they are people of interest, and who I like seeing on my feeds. Rubbernecking is part of the social media lifestyle. It will take a time to adapt, but we need to find a way to extricate ourselves from this bile eventually. Let’s take the first steps now.
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