You Shouldn’t Have

Now that the social media sector is clearly deteriorating, it is time to reflect on how we got here. If these type of websites are ever going to be valued again, we all need to figure out if $1,000,000,000,000 is actually too high of a value. We also need to figure out how to have social media websites allow the publication of child pornography, torture films, bootlegged media, etc. In order to do that, it would support society to think of social media in different ways than social media companies tell you to.

It Is What It Is

Facebook is not a “marketplace for all ideas.” Snapchat is not a “camera” company. Twitter is not “what’s happening.” None of these places exist for the benefit of humanity. They exist to place advertisements next to published content from anybody. Anybody who makes any number of free accounts using a valid email address & password – without even so much as age verification. These companies moderate content, making them publishers, yet they hide behind Section 230 somehow.

One way to look at these places is that they are digital shopping malls. You enter their digital doors and are flooded with advertisers attempting to get you to enter their shop. Thousands of people of all ages walk all around you. You can window shop, eavesdrop, and even get into fights with random people if you’re that kind of person. However, even at the worst shopping malls in the country, you will never accidentally stumble onto an advertisement for child pornography. It just can’t possibly happen.

But on Facebook? Twitter? Snapchat? These things are rampant. Children are preyed upon by adults running Catfish accounts and employees at social media companies have been caught using fake accounts to psychologically torture people. That’s because the people who run social media companies have largely been software programmers, or otherwise sociopathic intelligences. They have no interest in people, have no capacity to empathize or understand other people, and it shows in their work products.

Real Invention Is Hard To Come By

Here’s the other thing, which I know is a gut-punch to a lot of cult followers of people like Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, Elon Musk, Evan Spiegel, and the rest of them…the “technology” they have is nothing special at all. They are poorly curated blogs mostly. It should have been obvious to people that something bad was going to happen the second Facebook started expanding beyond college campuses long before they went public. Instead of following people through grad school into the professional sector, beating LinkedIn in the long run, Zuckerberg decided to go after…high school & middle school students. Not the elderly. Not parents of young children. But minors. With no restrictions or safeguards.

If social media is supposed to be a shopping experience, why not have Simon Properties or another management company that deals with malls handle it? Or is social media supposed to be some kind of all-ages amusement park geared towards children? Then Disney or another theme park company should be doing this. If social media is meant to be adult, dealing with grownup issues, it needs to be clearly marketed to adults, and not children. It needs to make it as difficult to get into for a minor as a bar is.

I mean Walmart or Target have enough different branded merchandise that they could create a certain type of social media platform millions of people might actually use.

If social media is about the purity of communication, then Comcast, Verizon, or T-Mobile could address it because they already provided millions of people the internet itself and some give you an email address which would be verified by your bill, for example. That would eliminate the need for any private social media company to charge you an unnecessary $7.99 or whatever for a blue badge. That doesn’t even verify you as a person. As if the IRS is going to take your blue check as verification of your actual identity.

Meta verse Reality? Meta Lost.

The truth is people don’t have any faith, loyalty, or allegiance to a website domain. They go where their friends are, where their family is, or where they think they’re supposed to go. Most people are looking to get back to living life in the real world, not staying holed up in a headset with Zuckerberg’s legless ass. If you are a major brand advertiser reading this, don’t give another website any more of your money until you can prove to yourself that you can’t give your own customers a good enough reason to talk to you.

Do you worry about seeing “hate speech” advertised at the local mall? I hope not. Are you afraid that somebody is going to be antisemitic in the coupon book from the regional newspaper? C’mon, man. I mean it’s actually really easy to avoid having these kinds of things surround you on your own website.

It is laughable that a person like Elon Musk is even pretending that an advertising book website is a place to debate the freedom of speech. People forget too easily that the freedom of speech is a God-given right not something a corporation gives you. At best, it’s something the government honors and our courts respect. But Elon Musk cannot grant nor take away your right to speak anywhere at all.

We know Kanye West, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and the other social media founders are the wrong people to run these companies. Because we are too focused on the cult of the founder, since that’s how the financial scam portion of those businesses works. In reality we need to think about a larger company whose system can be bigger than any single individual.

These Times They Are A Changin’…Back To The Way Things Worked Before

That is why businesses like Disney, Comcast, or some other such business that already deals with people of all ages safely every day – should be running social media. That’s who should have done it in the first place. That is, if it’s even valuable at all. It isn’t necessary for advertisers. No consumer needs it either. For now it’s empty, and meaningless. Valueless.

But if anybody in the future wants to make a website where people can talk about things and be advertised to, there are dozens of better candidates and virtually none of their headquarters is anywhere near Silicon Valley. Stop thinking about things on their terms. Start thinking about them in real terms.