The most dangerous mythology of social media is that it’s an unalloyed good for all people to be allowed to…

The most dangerous mythology of social media is that it’s an unalloyed good for all people to be allowed to express their views on all topics, in public spaces. Mythologies about democracy make this one very popular. /1

Like generations of development of institutional hierarchies of expertise mean nothing, and instead we need to sweep all that away and make every voice equivalent. My favourite analogy is passengers on a commercial airliner drawing straws for who’s going to fly the plane. /2

It’s not even true ON social media, which reproduces the hierarchical structure that its libertarian fans apparently despise. The vast majority of people are not read or listened to, influencers with big followings dominate the conversations. /3

What makes that dangerous is that these platform hierarchies have no necessary relationship to existing hierarchies of expertise at all. Complete bullshit can be and often is the winning narrative, attracting the most likes and followers. Fact-checking and contempt moderation? /4

Added to platforms after the fact, and treating society’s flow of expertise as a flow of information only, minus all of the social relationships that both produce and regulate expertise outside the platforms. It’s meaningless PR, toothless and now openly shut down. /5

Knowledge and expertise are SOCIAL. All of society is social. If you strip mine the ‘content’ and make the platforms the new social arrangement of this content, the platform owners basically own your societies. It’s that serious. /6

I know plenty think this ‘freedom’ is also the freedom to mobilise activism for good too. I call BS on that. There’s no trend towards good causes winning anywhere, through social media. Conversation is not a political force. And it’s not what happens on the platforms anyway. /7

Again, the platforms are intrinsically hierarchical, dominated by influencers and their followers. That’s what social groups always do. There is no such thing as ‘the people’, there are always status hierarchies. I prefer hierarchies based on generations of knowledge. /8

Social media is destroying those, from the inside out. It’s like social heroin, the platforms target our social behaviour, and because societies are 100% social (it’s in the name), they tap into our deepest desires and passions. We can’t disengage. /9

And others point out the way they find information and friendships and support on the platforms. All true. But think about why they had to go there, to find those things. Those are the things the politics of our time took AWAY from them first. /10

The funders of that politics (really just more social status hierarchies) created these platforms to mop up the millions isolated by the fracturing of societies. It’s their way to monetise the wreckage their own policies create. As a thought experiment, try imagining this. /11

The plug pulled on all of these platforms, overnight. People would need to seek out information and expertise from existing institutions again. They would need to re-build social connection with people, outside these platforms. Seems (rapid) progress, to me. /end