Left meta style social media a month ago
Quite often, or rather always we forget what the internet really was for. It was created to make communication easy, widely accessible, and to store data and knowledge. It was opened to the public with good intentions (or at least it was advertised that way), to find knowledge there which was previously only available in libraries or lexicons.
Now, all of this is available at home, the knowledge is in our hands, and how do we use it? Numbed by useless and absolutely none educational data that we share with each other. What would the people think, who once thought it would be a good idea to let people have all the knowledge in their room? Would they be thrilled for us to be able to hold it in our hands yet choosing not to even use it?
It is scary how our preferences changed as social media and algorithmic feeding entered our lives without our consent.
One day I signed up on Facebook in 2009. Nobody else had signed up yet who I personally knew. I found it in an online game. It was advertised on banners. The name caught my eyes. A book that has all the faces in it that you know. The idea of social media seemed so good. Having a profile somewhere, and finding childhood friends. Adding them one by one as they are discovering this shared space. Seeing photos of their dinner, seeing photos of their Christmas tree, dog, family, holiday. Light-hearted ordinary things, blurred photos that an old digital camera makes.
We are losing the ability to express ourselves. Facebook wasn’t as expressive as Myspace was, but it was functional. It was easy to find people without getting their link. It was a way to connect with people, who already left your lives. It was for easy and convenient messaging, group activities, sharing our photos so everyone can see the freshly uploaded stuff.
Then one day it changed, it started watching us, our activities, our clicks, interests. It used the data to "improve". It started showing interesting content, true crime for me. Old houses, beautiful nature. And less and less of my people. The people I really knew, and the people that got me to stay on this website. The GIST of the whole thing.
And as days melted into years, I stopped seeing their precious post. I see none of them at all. But I also stopped seeing convenient Chinese household items, slow living vlogs, true crime and nature. And now all that flows into my vision is politics. Propaganda or fake news by people who aren't even journalists and have no insight really. Where are the funny pranks I tended to kinda not like...? Where is everything that convinced me to fill out a form, to give it my real name and data. And when did it start being a spy? Since when are we the product instead of the customer? Because when I registered, it wasn't on the table. All it was is connection, and I had no choice to opt out right on time. But even if I had... would I have changed anything?
Back then, it was everything. You've lost touch with all your friends if you did not own a profile on Facebook.
And it is still the case.
In fact, my own mum is always and only reaching out to me through that place. All our calls, and messages are stored there. And while I'm trying to distance myself, I know it wouldn’t be absolute. I can't just get my stuff and leave, because everyone I know, is there. They will be looking for me there if they even remember to check on me.
However, as the short form contents came into fashion to ruin our attention span and our will to care, time passes with watching few second videos at a time, and people don't feel like they forgot about something... and that something is the sole purpose of them being on the app. Friends, Family, Connection.
It's scary how easily the community detached themselves believing it is still connection, because "my friends saw my story"... They saw it, and they scrolled through it without even caring.
It's not 2009. It's not like getting a like on your dinner means someone smiled at your silly post that doesn't matter.
Now, we can't even stop being online. Our soul is sold to a frightening new power that is much closer to a dystopian reality than a healthy community.
People pass moral judgement, comment, tend to know everything and understand everything. Form hardened opinion on each other over normal things. Problem that should not be the problem at all emerge and cause friction. Meanwhile.... aren't we getting further and further from the reality of being human?
I moved away from Facebook and other social media platforms more or less. I use the messenger where my friends are. But some of them are already on a different messaging app. As I moved toward building an RSS feed that feeds my brain exactly what I want to be fed with.
I went around to check out news portals. And Some bigger magazines asked; Do you allow cookies?
And immediately said no as always. And some of them then, offered me to sign up for a monthly fee, so I don't have to expose my browser data, instead they'll own my name, bank data, and other personal bits. Oh yes, and my money.
I'm also concerned about the subscription plans on originally free websites like YouTube. You can pay a small or not-so-small monthly fee and they take the ads off. You can subscribe to Spotify to listen to music you used to own. You can watch movies on Netflix if you paid a monthly fee, anime on a different website, read manga on another. Subscribe to listen audiobook and create another subscription if you want to read books for less money or for free. Which is not actually free, because you already paid your monthly plan, silly!
These platforms contain limited files, not all. They support browsing not intentional searching. If I wanted to watch the original Friday the 13th movie, I could not find it. So you have to subscribe to a lot of different websites, they’re all taking your money and knowing your data.
While Netflix and Spotify are openly subscription only websites, new alternatives sneaking in offering free experience if you watch their ads, then slowly taking away the free plan if they pulled enough people in.
Now, you can pay to get a verified badge on Instagram. Why... does it make a difference?
The hard truth is.
We are entering an area where internet won't be a free playground anymore. I mean, it never was, you ever paid for the service. But imagine each website you visit pulling off a monthly fee.
We need to preserve the internet. Not just the content. The structure is even more important. The way things supposed to work. Pay only for what you are going to get, nothing more. And don't think you own the books you've paid for on amazon. They can edit it after you paid for the version that was already online and you never know what changed.
And that opens a different discussion about reality and the unknown fact of; Who has access to our perception of reality?