The open web started dying over a decade ago with the dawn of the iPhone and with the advent of social media. Cheap devices coupled with platforms that use psychological manipulation to keep people addicted are pretty effective in drawing an audience.

The platforms also don't generate a profit or operate at a loss YouTube generated $15 billion last year[1], but Google/Alphabet never disclosed profitability and has only broken even in previous years[2]. Twitter also took over a decade before it even reported a profit[3]. These kinds of ventures would be choked out by competition and by a lack of investors normally. But monetary profits aren't the goal. It's all about control.

Take Facebook for instance. Over half of the US population has a Facebook account[4]. Facebook is also known to engage in psychological manipulation of its audience to determine reactions and behavior[5], even shadowbanning users and content that it disagrees with[6]. This is a great recipe for broadcasting whatever message the controllers of these platforms want and for reinforcing those beliefs with positive messaging. I won't even get into the political ramifications like with the Cambridge Analytica scandal[7] or that Facebook advertises using your name to your friends[8].

I'm trying to underline the point that Perez makes in the article. It's incredibly dangerous to trust these platforms with anything. They disguise their motives in corporate speak and platitudes while shutting out any dissenting voices. The solution is to get off of these platforms that stifle speech and thought. Otherwise, we're doomed to live in Edward Bernays' wet dream.

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/youtube-ad-revenue-15-billio... [2] https://www.businessinsider.com/youtube-still-doesnt-make-go... [3] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/07/technology/twitter-earnin... [4] https://www.statista.com/statistics/268136/top-15-countries-... (the US population is 328.2 million) [5] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jul/02/facebook-... [6] https://gizmodo.com/facebook-patents-shadowbanning-183641134... [7] https://www.businessinsider.com/cambridge-analytica-a-guide-... [8] https://www.facebook.com/help/214816128640041

comments