Essay:What is "Social Media"?

Some terms and abbreviations before we begin:
 * "Real Society" ; here abbreviated RLSY. The physical community in which people live. Humans have evolved by living in practically effective, advantageous groups. People may be members of society while also resenting aspects of the membership.
 * "Social Media" ; here abbreviated SLMA. A business model in which Internet/WWW applications are provided to enable customers ("users") to exchange messages, pictures, and other information. The cost of the infrastructure is paid by the provider's use of participants' data for profit in the Advertising/Tracking Industry.
 * "Social Trust" : the practical, direct confidence in the co-operative value of members in a community.

Humans are "social" to the extent that they participate in groups and broader society for direct, practical advantage. This does not mean that the participants accept all the rules of society. They usually accept those rules that bring the most benefit and do not lead to loss, harm, or ostracism. When participants don't like certain rules, they usually find a way to maintain silent opposition, as adherents of religious groups who don't like certain rules or dogmas (sometimes called "reformers" in religious circles).

In "Real Society" (RLSY), the individual is directly responsible for the consequences of his or her words and actions.

In RLSY, one's speech and actions have practical consequences. To this extent, RLSY does not offer "free speech" and rarely has, whether in the family unit, the small tribe, or the larger community. One is careful and restrained for practical reasons. But this care and restraint does not, of course, imply agreement or acquiescence.

Such agreement cannot be assumed. But, like the rules of automobilists and traffic, certain agreements are practically required.

What we call "Social Media" (SLMA) is a business. It is "community" without evolutionary restraints on the individual's behaviour or practical concerns about proximity to those affected. SLMA is not in any way part of the justice system of a country, nor representative of "free speech" or the rights of citizenship. However, laws may have an effect on what SLMA participants say or do, just as citizens may face the consequences of their actions in RLSY. Corporations providing SLMA may tolerate egregiously bad behaviour as long as their are no legal consequences to the corporation itself. In fact, some egregiously bad behaviour may be tolerated by a corporation if the behaviour increases revenue and reputational importance.

Although participants may have positive experiences using SLMA, the latter differs from RLSY in offering little positive balance to negative or destructive ideas:


 * advertising algorithms and profits determine what information SLMA participants see
 * resentments (especially irrational resentments) may be expressed repeatedly without forcing engagement in balanced, healthy discussion
 * destructive behaviour is difficult to restrain
 * strong incentives to maintain loyalty to a corporate "brand" and irrational opinions and bigotry may affect practical, constructive engagement in one's community

The "Incel movement", to mention one notable example of coalescing extreme ideas, had its start in 1997 through one person's use of the Internet/WWW to express dissatisfaction and resentment.

In SLMA, the moderation of participants' communications becomes a difficult/taxing problem with legal complications because SLMA offers no effective means to educate effectively, enforce social trust, or to punish destructive behaviour. Some countries have laws against destructive behaviour in SLMA but their effectiveness depends on enforcement.

In RLSY, destructive behaviour cannot (usually) scale enough to exhaust the cohesive forces of RLSY and cause social collapse. For example, a bully may eventually receive a black eye or be apprehended. Bad behaviour in automobile traffic, such as running through red lights, usually has a directly harmful effect on the driver and other drivers.

There are laws about peoples' behaviour in SLMA and the European Union has established laws governing the collection and use of participants' data. Several international corporations have been fined heavily for non-compliance with the GDPR. Other Western economies have considered adopting such laws, but SLMA corporations oppose regulation of their revenue and profits. Corporations fight legislation by influencing politicians through lobbying and by influencing consumers.

In a community, a person who is cruel or reckless may suffer in reputation and lose the advantages offered by the group. A person who commits a crime may be punished. Social Trust is valuable to an individual. Money by itself is not really an effective trust mechanism, but gains some social credibility by association with Social Trust. In sum, social reputation is valuable to both the individual and to corporations. The latter employ all means at their disposal to protect their reputation. But corporations are uncontrollable elements in society: they avoid the consequences of their actions by applying monetary pressure on government and funding policies and laws that favour the SLMA business model.

Social Media is a business; without coercion from RLSY, the SLMA business is not committed to protecting data, creating community, or supporting healthy, educational discourse and the principles of civilisation. Corporations seek to maximise profit while minimising harm to their reputation. Corporations are interested in maintaining a market for their products.

Social Media is not Journalism. Journalism as a profession has principles, although journalistic integrity like any domain of human activity requires transparency and scrutiny to maintain its Social Trust. The collapse of journalism as a business is beyond the scope of this essay. But the SLMA corporations have largely supplanted the "old" economy of journalism.

People with strongly-held, irrational opinions and resentments will find satisfaction in using SLMA to voice their ideas without any opposition or (in the best of possible responses) rebuttal from more considered and better-informed citizens or sources. Corporations will be reluctant to stifle activity that attracts revenue and increases profit. Real Society will seek to apply practical laws to maintain peace, order, and good government.

The manifestations of fervid resentment by participants in "Social Media" may be real points of view about Real Society, but they do not represent the collapse of civil society. SLMA may have influence within its own sphere of activity, but a collapse of Real Society will likely only happen if a majority of participants in the real community no longer see significant advantage in remaining in the group and in civil society.