Social Media Rant

Creepily, Facebook just asked me if I think they’re making the world a better place. So I opted to go full rant in my response, and let it all hang out. Not because they’ll give a shit, but catharsis maybe?

I’m unsure what social media platforms are supposed to be at this stage. As a medium to interact and engage with friends, facebook isn’t that great anymore. As such it’s now more of a platform to market oneself and one’s products. However, in this regard Facebook has failed somewhat too, with the prioritization of big business and big budgets. It is no longer as effective as a small entrepreneur to market products, as big business can essentially always pay more for their products to bombard customers in every corner of the web.

This was not the case before, where small entrepreneurs used to stand a chance of having their products appear equally next to big business if people liked the product. This in essence defeats the previous open opportunity the internet and social media used to represent. It is all but monopolized now.

Monopolies breed inefficiency, laxity, and cut out innovation in favour of their own products and services, which often times are archaic, overpriced, and make use of excess slave labour. This is one way Facebook may not be making the world a better place.

Secondly, Facebook’s algorithms seem to place quantity over quality. Therefore, poorly researched and written fake news articles are more likely to become popular, despite them not even being factual. This may be a technical programming issue, however many minority activist, and intellectual groups view this as an active assault on intellectualism and minority views, with Facebook curating information in favour of privilege (again, returning to point one where he/she who pays most, appears most) .Thus Facebook could be seen to be promoting non-intellectualism, and poor quality literature.

On the plus side, Facebook is a great place to network with those in your field if you’re an introvert. Similarly, with some meticulous curating, socializing can be bearable on Facebook, and keep one in contact with those who are far away. Also, with much sifting and effort, one can occasionally use Facebook to find, and/or organize events, but the above caveats still apply.