Time To Learn (Or Relearn) How To Communicate Without Big Social Media?

In the wake of the events in Washington, D. C. this week there seems to be a crackdown on social media. It appears that a significant number of users are being removed from Big Social Media platforms. Parler, reports that their app has been removed from the Google App Store and that they are under pressure from Apple to change their free-speech policy or face removal from the Apple App Store.

Whatever one makes of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or Parler, they are widely used across the globe. There are doubtless younger users who do not remember a time when social media did not exist but there was such a time. Before Big Social Media we hosted our own content and we subscribed to each other’s blogs. Facebook made it easier to make a page and to reach readers. Twitter came along and became a giant comment box (combox). It offered convenience and in turn, Big Social Media  used algorithms to customize what users see and they became expert at providing dopamine spikes to users. Yes, they are pushers and we are addicts. We click and they sell our information to marketers. It is an unhealthy relationship.

Big Social Media is composed of private companies and thus they may do as they will but it is an open question whether they may cooperate with one another to silence voices of which they disapprove without transgressing the law. That is a question for legislatures, courts, and lawyers to decide. The only thing we users can do is to deprive them of eyeballs (views) and clicks. These private companies, like the Robber Barons at the turn of the 20th century, have become very wealthy and influential, as illustrated by the number of Silicon Valley executives who have positions in the incoming Biden Administration.

Stella Morabito has been warning readers for some time about the social consequences of allowing political and Big Social Media elites to set Americans against one another. She is right.

Whatever happens with Big Social Media, the Heidelblog will carry on, Dv. It is easy to subscribe via email. Use the Heidelscribe box on the home page. Before Big Social Media we used to use aggregators to subscribe to websites. It is easy to subscribe to the Heidelblog via WordPress or in any blogreader or in most email programs. Last night I fired up the old RSS program, Vienna, and it still works. The Heidelblog RSS (subscription) address is https://Heidelblog.net/feed

©R. Scott Clark. All Rights Reserved.

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8 comments

  1. I seem to remember there was a similar issue with the railroad’s and other private companies providing what became essential modes of transportation changing from private institutions to public utilities to prevent things like this. Turning Twitter or FB into a public utility may be an option, but who is to say that can’t be biased as well.

    • I doubt that making them state/public utilities would help but I agree that there are some analogies between the sect. 230 protections BSM received and the way the railroads were blessed by special protections.

  2. I just closed my Twitter feed last night. This was my second go-round and I used it almost exclusively to follow company stocks. Almost everything corporate America posts has to do with their community/social involvement and the greatness of their employees for engaging in the issues du jour.

    The most beneficial aspect of Twitter for me was the ability to hear directly from the President and his spokeswoman. Otherwise, I never read anything consequential from Twitter. I’ve always been much better served by websites such as “The Heidelblog,” “Old Life,” “Yahoo Finance,” etc.

    I am going to miss clicking on all the clever gizmos and gadgets and seeing the myriad of exercise and weight loss promos. Perhaps Dr. Clark can periodically post a workout video followed by a cooking class to fill that void? Instead of “Desert Island Books” he can host “Desert Island Diets” and have the WSC staff testify about their high fitness levels despite all of the CA lockdowns!

  3. I majored in liberal arts in the 90’s. Even then liberalism wasn’t deemed a rigid leftist ideal, but rather a classical outlook on all truth in all of life. The liberalism of today makes American Fundamentalism seem broad and welcoming.

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