The Monster That Is Facebook: A Cultural Self Reflection Of Modern Day Media
You look at your newsfeed and don't see anything that interests you. Then you hit refresh, still nothing. Then you hit refresh again, still nothing. Then, you think: Okay, I'm done with this, but without a second thought you hit refresh again....
The first time I told a friend they were addicted to Facebook it was a joke. Funny, as I write this, my spell check alerted me that I spelled "facebook" wrong because I didn't capitalize the F. I think that's indicative of what this social media platform has become in our society.
"Lowercase f" facebook:
I'll make the history lesson brief because we all remember MySpace. But when Facebook was in it's infancy, it was designed for college students to interact with each other. We've all seen the film, The Social Network, where a fictional Mark Zuckerberg, acknowledges Facebook as an over glorified hot or not website to help awkward kids find dates. However it grew and, like most monsters in infancy, we did not know what it was growing into.
"Capital F" facebook:
Now, a decade later, Facebook has become the online social registry for the United States of America (and many other countries as well), in a way many other social platforms do not. The combination of the the policies they put in place, and the expectations the users have, make Facebook the foundation of many peoples internet experiences. It started gradually. Most every other social platform, save LinkedIn, allows you to make an alias. In fact, there was a time when many Facebook accounts were aliases as well. Then Facebook instituted a policy which eliminated anonymity, and forced you to acknowledge who you were. A seemingly insignificant policy to those of us who were being authentic, but a major point of unstated trust between the user and the platform. Because the contract then goes, if we are going to be our authentic self, then in turn, we expect you to be authentic too Facebook.
And the love affair continued: We would post our personal experiences, and Facebook would extract the data, and give our friends access. We interact with our friends posts, and Facebook would extract the data from our interactions. We share and like information, they extract the data from our interactions.
And thus Facebook became three experiences:
1. The experience of creating a social persona and online identity, that mind you, we had no idea we were creating. The, the Facebook API started, (Application program interface, An API specifies how software components should interact and APIs are used when programming graphical user interface (GUI) components.), allowing us to log in to other platforms using our Facebook account. This in turn first dramatically increased the importance of our Facebook account by extending the same persona across the internet.
2. The experience of interacting with our friends and their unmitigated thoughts. How many times have you seen a friend, or someone you thought was a friend, express an opinion on Facebook and be mortified. What? You think that? You support this issue, or that candidate, or this blather of ignorance, and have the nerve to spill it into the public sphere? Overnight our, Facebook pages, became a place of backseat activism. As more videos, memes, pictures, and articles, started showing up in our News Feed, individuals started blurring the lines between consumers of the press and pseudo members.
3. The experience of interacting with the platform. More than several times I've logged into Facebook just to realize I can't find the button to get to my pictures. I was horrified when they first introduced facial recognition software. I was confused when I started getting notifications about my Uncle's high score in Candy Crush. I was relieved when my application forced me to evaluate my privacy settings, and more concerned still when the application started reminding me of posts I had made in the past, urging me to reconnect with people I purposefully cut out of my life.
Regardless of whether we meant to or not, we all signed up to participate in this major online democratic experiment. Large companies, small business and individuals started buying advertising space to reach they're network. Non Profits started making pages to get the word out about their causes. Everyone was fighting to get a piece of your newsfeed.
Well, recently, the legitimacy of your News Feed has been called into question. Facebook has become a powerhouse of human interaction. Under the guise of being neutral it has stepped in to become one of the largest "curators of content". But that was never the original contract. We didn't sign up to have our content curated. This started as a way for awkward kids to find dates, and for individuals separated by hundred of miles to stay in touch with their friends.
At some point it just became too much data. Facebook has over 100 million users generating original content, not to mention everyone was reposting the same cat videos. So, in order to "help" us, and themselves, Facebook started curating content.
They claim they use an Algorithm that understands our tastes, and curates data according to how popular posts are, almost like how Buzzfeed uses upvotes and downvotes. However, recently a few disgruntled former employees released to the press that the content curation process, for what was of national prominence, was either arbitrarily curated by whoever was on staff or, made by executive agenda.
So what?
Studies have shown that Social Media interaction can effect the real world. Really? Yes! (Read this article on voter turn out). The Millennial generation has turned to the internet to get news, because we grew up seeing how blatantly typical news outlets pushed their agendas. Facebook, which expressly is not a politically affiliated news outlet, became a great way to get news because it was just being passed along by our friends. It was digital word of mouth. Once the platform steps in to curate it, it's no longer person to person interaction. It's person to platform to person interaction, and that added tier is dangerous. Especially if they are lying, and saying they are neutral.
This is a tipping point. Honestly, it's what every conspiracy theorist has been dreading about social media. The day when the platform turns on us. The day when we unsuspectingly are manipulated by over exposure to ideas that are not our own. So is Donald Trump despised or is Facebook manipulating me? Is Bernie Sanders revered by young economically concerned voters or is Facebook manipulating me? Does everyone love cat videos or is Facebook manipulating me?
In the end, I know I'm of sound mind and can make my own decisions. However, it's not so much the answer to the question, but the fact that I even have to ask.
So what's it going to be Facebook...are you a neutral platform, or are do you have an agenda?
Dusha Holmes II Digital Media Minister
