Life and the End of Social Media
Social Media as we have come to use the term -- especially the
"social" part -- is not only doomed, but well on the way sliding down
that Tom Lehrer-inspired razor blade to its blurry, but still
inevitable assimilation (yes, in this case resistance is indeed
futile) into a mired mess of Big Tech AI slop, misinformation,
disinformation, lies, subterfuge, crime and political chicanery of the
most dangerous and immoral sorts.
Attempts to return to anything like the "golden age" (the old-timers
fantasize with 20/20 rose-tinted hindsight of the "Eternal September"
that actually never was), are in the end a waste of time, energy, and
probably millions of cups of coffee. Whether those attempts are named
with bright primary colors or shaggy, extinct animals makes no real
difference -- the trajectory is immutable.
Social media is fundamentally a reflection of society, and you don't
need to be a sociologist to know that our societies -- around the
planet to one extent or another -- are deeply ill, suffused with
ignorance and religious intolerance and radicalism. There is little
hope of positive change in these regards -- the only real question is
how quickly the disease will fully metastasize.
To wit, these words of advice, as the largely forgotten Allan Sherman
once sang, "free advice and it's worth the price". Do not overwhelming
fret over X's growing evil or Bluesky's increasingly debilitating
amateurism. 100 years from now -- perhaps far sooner -- all of this
and all of us will -- at best -- be footnotes that few people ever
read, and fewer will really understand -- assuming that there are
still such documents in existence and people around to read them.
And if you were waiting for a "happy" ending, this is about the best I
can do. Take care. -L
- - -
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
[email protected] (https://www.vortex.com/lauren)
Lauren's Blog: https://lauren.vortex.com
Mastodon: https://mastodon.laurenweinstein.org/@lauren
Founder: Network Neutrality Squad: https://www.nnsquad.org
PRIVACY Forum: https://www.vortex.com/privacy-info
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility
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