Where did social media originate? Yes, the United States of America. Although, that should read the disunited states of America. Through social media America is exporting hate to the world. Its own special homegrown kind of hate and division. We are having discussions about banning social media for our kids because of the damage it is doing to them. If we were smart we would ban it per se for everybody. Spend a few minutes considering the pros and cons of this Internet borne home of gossip and misinformation.
Social Media Is The American Medium Of Hate
Yes, there have been instances of important information during natural disasters being disseminated via Facebook. Up against this are numerous examples of downright lies being spread by both malign and misinformed actors in a wide variety of circumstances. The platforms have been reluctant to fact check and police content. During the recent global pandemic we witnessed gross violations of policies in this regard for political purposes resulting in banning’s of account holders by Twitter and Facebook. Freedom of speech is given as reason enough for these folk to be able to do such stuff on social media. Elon Musk bought Twitter and turned it into X, apparently for this very reason.
Hate Speech Free To Spread Lies & Disinformation
Now, we have rampant disinformation and hate speech enjoying an unchecked express ride on X. Social media is opinion masquerading as news, in many instances. The digital medium itself lends weight to gossip and unsubstantiated stuff. Algorithms favour click bait content designed to outrage viewers over factuality. Fake news is spread by both haters and manipulators. Most viewers have no idea of the source of the tweet, post, or video and whether it is genuine or a bot. The recently exposed Russian funding of alt-right pro Trump videos is testament to this. Americans will do anything for money.
The Russian state wants a Putin loving Trump back in the White House, as kleptocrats flock together for exponentially more grift and graft.
What Is Social Media American Style?
What is social media? Ostensibly, a platform like Facebook was based on the school yearbook prevalent in American schools. It contained photos and information about individuals in that class and year, as a record for posterity. Digitally morph that into Facebook and it became a way to find friends online and map lives for general comment. Generations of us have come along in the 21C looking into screens, as some electronic mirror/ record of our existence. This largely unregulated space provides proof of life without the perquisite standards of factuality demanded by the old paper records kept by the state. Computers are essentially about record keeping and filing. Social media is full of fake identities and unreal digital records of lives.
No Identity Checks Necessary
Yuval Harari makes a cogent point when he emphasises that the blatant proliferation of fake human identities online are incredibly damaging to our societies. He suggests that we make it a serious crime to counterfeit human identities, as we do for counterfeiting money. The fraudulent behaviour widely occurring across social media and other digital mediums sees scams costing tens of billions of dollars annually. Our banks wont guarantee the safety of our funds anymore, as they have moved out of the security business and into the transactional convenience game. They take a cut or a fee from every movement of currency, whether it be by you or a scammer.
If you or I are fooled into transferring large amounts of our money into a fraudulent account, more fool us and the financial institution will not bear any responsibility.
Unverified Free For All For Frauds
If you read stuff online and don’t bother checking it for its veracity, well that says something about who you are. If you don’t bother tracing the source of the material and don’t understand that everyone has an agenda, well the truth of the matter may well allude you. Social media is a free for all, where the actual identities of correspondents are hidden. You might be following a bot, a machine. You may well be arguing with a non-human entity. The algorithms are designed to get us all riled up, so that we stay on the platform. Americans engineered social media and have been fine tuning it ever since. There is no definitive agreement on who was first in this space.
“When did social media start gaining momentum? The early 2000s witnessed an exponential rise in the usage of these platforms. SixDegrees’ revolutionary model was the catalyst, setting the stage for the advent of giants like Facebook and X.”
Billions of people use social media globally and it has generated some positive outcomes but like all things it is on a continuum. Back in its home, America, the negatives are clearly outweighing what positives remain. Kids growing into adults with their noses stuck in their phone screens and developing a crick in their necks from constantly looking down. Lives without meaning unless they are posted online with digital facsimiles posing as happiness. Cyber bullying preying upon teenagers and young adults. Sex and pornography blurring into the same thing in the minds of many of the generations infected by the compulsion to interact with social media. Peer group pressure feeds the social media disease. Our modern cultures are defined by these devices and their software. Our brains are being manipulated by the constant use and engagement with social media. We don’t have the data yet to see what the longer term ramifications of this will be.
Trump The Social Media President
Donald Trump became the ‘social media President’. His posts on Twitter and later Truth Social became a direct conduit between President and the American people. The fact that Trump is a compulsive liar and arch manipulator of misinformation makes him the perfect ambassador for this fraudulent communication network. Giving the allusion of cutting through the bullshit via this medium has served Trump well. His narrative of being an anti-politician and a champion of the people has fitted in well with the laconic confines of X and Truth Social formats.
Trump’s messaging via social media is far more effective politically than his rambling incoherent rally speeches. Lying online is easier because body language largely cannot give you away. Although, Trump must be considered one of the greatest liars ever in American history.
The Amplification Of Lies & Gossip
America is exporting hate to the world through its invention and marketing of social media. Big Tech in the US is largely unregulated and has grown into a trillion dollar behemoth. Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and the many other manifestations of it have the ability to control our thinking. We use their devices unceasingly and the software they hold engages with us 24/7. Social media is all about group think in its ability to influence users and sections of our societies to vote certain ways. Why do you think the Russians, Chinese and Iranians have been hell bent on sewing discord and division in the American political sphere. Democracy appears to have a vulnerability here, especially for those viewing it from authoritarian states. Brexit was directly influenced by Russian meddling in the social media arena around that vote. Hillary Clinton was defeated by Trump in the 2016 presidential race and again Russian influence was identified in the social media space by the FBI. The polarization vehemently present in the US is spreading across the globe via social media. You can see it in Britain and Europe and in Australia. Sections of populations being siloed in their views about increasingly emotive topics like the Israel Hamas conflict. Politicians on the right and left drumming up support on the back of their stances on issues like this. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has been coopted by political groups for their own benefit. The centre has, seemingly, been deserted for extremist positions on either side of this. The way social media works, as a networking tool, has to be a big part of why this is occurring globally.
It could be the existential danger of our time that we are not seeing, joining climate change as one of the four apocalyptic horsemen.
Media Must Be Regulated
Media has long been recognised over the years as requiring regulation. The unfettered reign of social media is an anomaly. The printing press ramped up civil unrest, hate and violence for centuries following its invention in the 15C. It is estimated that a third of Europe’s population died in the resulting wars and conflicts.
“German goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg is credited with inventing the printing press around 1436, although he was far from the first to automate the book-printing process. Woodblock printing in China dates back to the 9th century and Korean bookmakers were printing with moveable metal type a century before Gutenberg.”
Thus, we can see that information technology is no benign thing. Governments brought in strict laws around who could own and operate newspapers, radio and TV networks. Various laws in different countries defined what could be printed, broadcast, and disseminated. In America, they got around the freedom of speech laws in the Constitution by making everything top secret at the source. Government agencies declared documents sealed under national security laws heading off any debate about freedom of speech. This is one of the reasons why Americans are so god damned suspicious and paranoid about conspiracies because they have so much information denied to them. Land of the free is a load of poppycock really. Social media gives them free access to a veritable sewer full of fictions, exaggerations, lies, and distortions.
Nothing is top secret on X, Facebook, Tik Tok or Truth Social, as there is never anything worth hiding there.
Billionaires & Social Media
Elon Musk is a billionaire running a social media platform and this is dangerous thing. Musk has around 200 million followers on X himself. Zuckerberg is another billionaire with both Facebook and Instagram at his disposal for influencing hundreds of millions of people. The old media is in its death throws, with newspapers and broadcast TV shrinking in influence rapidly. The Rupert Murdochs’ are a dying species despite the loudness of Fox News and Sky News Australia. Rabid right wing diatribes fill their air waves with no journalism to be found only opinion. American hate is more than hot air and is something that international governments would do well to recognise before it is too late. Before their citizens are infected beyond redemption.
American political violence is the natural progression of that hate and segregated polarization. Seeing fellow and sister human beings as ‘the other’ rather than having a shared universal identity is a forerunner to violence.
The oligarchs have got so big, so wealthy, that governments are pitiful in comparison in many instances. Tax cuts for corporations and the super wealthy have seen their incomes treble of late since the Trump tax cuts of 2017. Competition from sectors has disappeared and these rentier oligarchies extract billions from endless fees, subscriptions and charges. Big Tech has seen countless mergers and acquisitions resulting in giant multinationals minimising their taxation in boltholes like Ireland. Super Pacs define the political space in the US with the top 1% of the wealthy spending billions on electing politicians and parties. The American people have been shunted to the back of the bus and are treated like third class citizens in determining who runs the country. Democracy has been bought off by the super wealthy. 333 million people and just a tiny percentage get to call the shots and determine policy. Of course they are going to look after their own interests to the detriment of ordinary working Americans. It seems like many Americans are like children in that they are happily distracted by the circus and the BS of Trump. Hating immigrants, hating coloured folk, hating LGBTQI people, hating non-Christians, and hating women who don’t kiss ass as a matter of course.
Through social media America is exporting hate to the world. It is an American invention and it is still being refined according to their social engineering skills. We have embraced it via our love of technology. We love our smart phones and they are connected to social media network platforms. Many of us live in big cities and deal with loneliness in these modern urban settings. Some of us keep the home fires burning by our engagement with social media. Trolling or being trolled online. Stoking hate as a consolation for the omission of love in our lives, perhaps. Somehow we have lost the ability to interact in the flesh and have a good natured debate. The anonymity of online forums appeals to many to vent and say stuff we wouldn’t have the guts to say in person. The public good has shrunk and we have seen the rise of an overwhelming concern for self-aggrandisement. People bang on about civil rights but rarely mention civil duties. The Americanisation of the world continues apace. Perhaps, the iPhone should have come with a warning about this.
Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of America Matters: Pre-apocalyptic Posts & Essays in the Shadow of Trump.
©HouseTherapy
