It feels like every time I speak to someone, they tell me they’re stepping away from social media. The reasons? It’s not bringing them joy or connection anymore, so why stay around? They are finding posts kitschy, tedious, egotistical, or downright boring. AI isn’t helping either, because it’s just adding more meaningless content into feeds and people have had enough.
It begs the question; can we save social media? Should we?
My passion for social media has always been tied to this simple fact – social media was the democratization of information, which meant a handful of rich publishers didn’t own the information airwaves anymore, and we could have our own voice, our own ability to influence and be part of the discourse.
But in the last 10 years it’s all gone downhill. It started with us raging at each other, which helped the technology companies work out this is where money could be made, and then traditional media, who didn’t know how to make money anymore in a social world, jumped into clickbait too, as it’s the only way they could work out how to make money.
The result? There is no safe place to go anymore, no place for easy access to solid information, and here we are in a giant shit show. When we started raging at each other it was small, but now, negative emotions are the driving force online.
No wonder good people are saying enough of that. Perhaps it’s a good thing, an end to the chapter where humanity failed completely? A global ‘Townsquare’ is obviously not in our interest. But is that the correct way to look at it?
As we watch it’s death spiral, with algorithms in control, we are left with a machine driving the social discourse, not in our favour. The most ironic bit, with AI now firmly in the mix, the very companies who own social media and drove it into the slop it is today, are also the same companies behind AI – does that alarm you? It alarms me and we are embracing it and them wholeheartedly.
Why? We’re not all stupid, are we?
We continue to give these men more power and control over our lives, and the very benefit I used to sing from the rafters – the democratization of information – has been completely eradicated, with the Techbros fully in control of our information, and therefore our lives. They have no editorial guardrails they must abide by either, so profit is all that drives them. And we happily go along….
To understand this situation in much more depth, please read this article, Welcome to slop world: how the hostile internet is driving us crazy – it’s bang on!
There are a lot of take-aways from this article – “Today’s internet isn’t really designed for us, but rather to elicit certain responses from us, responses which are hostile to human flourishing.”
And another: “To be online today means navigating an environment whose design feels adversarial, manipulative; it means wading through toxic slop to get to the thing you want. It’s a recipe for cynicism, discontent and dysfunction, wholly in conflict with the democratising impulses that supposedly drove the internet’s development.”
Hint, that’s not a good evolution for us.
BTW if you’re not already, follow Carole Cadwalladr – she’s fighting for all of us, but we have to get behind her and support her: Springtime for Hitler – by Carole Cadwalladr.
Let’s get serious about AI in this mix
Expanding on the AI topic, this article in Fast Company got my attention too – If you use AI to write me that note, don’t expect me to read it. I know a lot of people completely agree with this, but like I’ve been for the last decade – a lonely voice calling on leaders to be social leaders, participating with integrity, as part of the giving economy, serving their audience versus their own egos – I wonder if they feel like anyone is listening now?
AI written content feels off. It’s not the em-dashes everyone is talking about (I have friends who actually use them, I don’t, because I’m too lazy to find and insert them, so if they appear, it’s Microsoft editing it in), no for me it’s the rhythm of the content. Two sentences per paragraph, the exact same length, and the same for the next para and the next. I can read it, but it doesn’t transform into information that lands in my brain. It’s the weirdest thing.
I like this description when using AI to write your post for LinkedIn, “it’s like a steak transformed into mechanically processed meat.”
Captures it, right?
But it’s the bigger story of you write a post with AI help, the person responds to you with AI help, and on it goes… Think of all the energy and water being used to achieve absolutely nothing and who is learning anything here? Who’s using their brains?
I deeply believe, if you don’t create something, you don’t know it. Are we all just going to leave the door open to have even less brain power than we have today? It’s bizarre to me.
The writer concludes – “the truth, however, is if something isn’t worth you writing it, there’s about no way in hell it’s worth me reading it.” Amen!
The problem now is volume! Everyone can achieve so much more, that means even more nonsense on social media, and we were already swamped before AI. Don’t you love how technology makes our lives better?
Let’s get onto bot farms!
This article: Bot farms invade social media to hijack popular sentiment is also in Fast Company. We are in Bot farm hell, where “you can numb the brain into believing just about anything.” Oh isn’t that excellent news? Bloody hell.
This is how it works – “Bot farm amplification is being used to make ideas on social media seem more popular than they really are. A bot farm consists of hundreds and thousands of smartphones controlled by one computer. In data-center-like facilities, racks of phones use fake social media accounts and mobile apps to share and engage. The bot farm broadcasts coordinated likes, comments, and shares to make it seem as if a lot of people are excited or upset about something like a volatile stock, a global travesty, or celebrity gossip—even though they’re not.”
So, what can we do about it? Well, obviously awareness is half the battle, but again, see those algorithms responding to the noise created by the Bots – there’s a clue there. Algorithms are a HUGE issue that must be addressed.
But there’s another key point here: “Social media algorithms are not evolving quickly enough to outperform bots and AI,” so it’s not just the algorithms that are at issue here.
And that’s a problem we need to solve, and fast, because how we ‘feel’ is not knowledge, and it’s a path to chaos, truly. We’re already well and truly on this path – how do we know if anything is true anymore! We don’t trust anything, especially the institutions and that is not a healthy place for any society to be in.
I’m sure you’re reading this article and thinking, what the hell should we do now?
We’ve got to fight the techbros
First up, knowledge is king, so let’s not allow our communications platforms to continue to be co-opted by those who seek to divide us. Let’s seriously fight this – it’s urgent. There are many people around the world hooked into ideas that originated with these lies.
To get them back to reality, they need to understand they are being played. That’s already a tough ask for people firmly anchored in opinions, because the original lie resonated with a belief, and now it’s been proven – because the Bots said so!
We have a lot of work to do there. Many will never admit that they have been played. It would be too shameful, so we need to tread carefully here, or large groups of people will become even more firmly entrenched in unhealthy positions.
Focus on who you know
As individuals, we change how we participate on social media and the best place to start is by focusing on our connections closer to home. Honestly, ask yourself – if you don’t know someone, why are you listening to them? Why are you letting them bother you? That’s really key.
I see all sorts of nonsense, but if I don’t know them, I don’t care what they think. I sometimes even look at their profiles – very few followers, poorly written profiles (if there’s anything at all), etc… Classic examples of Bots and trolls.
Who I DO listen to is the people I know. Especially those who I know work hard to learn before sharing, they are always worth paying attention to. Just start there, your algorithms will adjust quickly too.
Resist emotional manipulation
Another area to focus is paying attention to your emotions. If you’re constantly in an unhealthy, highly negative emotive state when you’re on social media, remember the algorithms, the bots, and the Techbros have you exactly where they want you. Time to decide if you want to stay there. None of us should be in such highly emotive states! It’s not healthy.
This situation is only going to get worse, check out this story: Stolen voices: Russia-aligned operation manipulates audio and images to impersonate experts – ISD.
Nate Hagen’s latest Frankly also hones in on our social connections. Let’s get more local, more meaningful.
Conclusion
It’s a messy world out there, but something’s got to give. We either let everything collapse around us – or we start to get a handle on the situation we’re in and collectively come together to force the changes necessary to get us back to some level of normality.
Business and governments are not going to help us out here. They’ve had plenty of opportunities and the Techbros are out of control, leading us into places we don’t want to go. Time to step up and do the job for them?
We have more power than we give ourselves credit for. Time to use it. Apathy is dangerous, action is the only way! Join the fight.
Cheers
Andrea
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