Social Media Decline and The Return Of The Electric Speakeasy

Continuing the conversation about the criticism of Facebook, Twitter, and Google...

On our Facebook Group, I wrote; "I'm going to be weaning myself off of Facebook and will only be using social media to share, promote and invite people to our content elsewhere.

What I create on Facebook is making money for Facebook. And at any time they can remove it all of it on a whim. I'm taking my own advice... I'm going to rely on "free platforms" less and less..."

And a group member asked...

"You head of MeWe?"

Why yes... I have. I signed up and haven' been on much since. Why?

“MeWe” sin’t a solution to the real problem I have with all the social media platforms. It’s just starting the problem over again from scratch, resetting the clock back 10 years. Chances are that in 2028 we will be having the same conversation about that as we are having about “Facebook” now.

Let’s never forget that back in 2008 and earlier, many of the things Mark Beiderbecke swore he would never do he’s already done by now and profited handsomely for it.

Where's my cut, Beiderbecke?

The problem a lot of us creative people are having is that we’re spending way too much time creating content for these platforms and not our own. A minute or an hour posting something on Twitter or Facebook is a minute or hour that I’m not spending on The Fedora Chronicles or Metaphysical Connection. I’m helping to pull people into the social media black hole while pulling people away from my content that I’m hosting somewhere else.

MeWe is going to go down the same path as Facebook did. It's as inevitable as the sun rising tomorrow. One of the inherent problems with these “free platforms” again is how they always seem to become reliant on the revenue stream that comes with monetizing their user’s data and selling ads and commercial. To pay for storage and bandwidth, they must justify these ads and be selling the information or raw access to the data to corporations that need to remind their consumers – us – that we need to buy their products and services! Their luxury or high-performance cars and trucks earn’t going to buy themselves!

Men like Mark Beiderbecke rationalize selling access to our data to The NSA and companies like “Cambridge Analytical” because he wants to appear like he’s helping our country to “fight terrorism” and “change the political dialog in this country,” in short, he’s selling us out to fatten his own overseas bank accounts. He’s granting the clandestine organizations access to our data we’re providing to them for free [because we’re trying to stay connected to the people we love, stay connected to friends and family] because he wants to cooperate now rather than be regulated by them later.

It’s not just Mr. Beiderbecke, it’s the CEO and the boards on Google/YouTube, Twitter, and all the other owners and operators these free platforms. They figure out a way to exploit our private data and claim that they’re doing this to provide greater service to us, such as targeted marketing. We like having ads that cater to us that promote products that we want to buy, rather than see ads for things we’re not interested in or might reveal things about ourselves that we don’t want the rest of the world to know.

Everything they do is to maximize profits and their own power and influence over others.

Let’s not also forget that they feel that they claim to have a social responsibility to “change the dialog” in this country, they feel obligated to make people change the way they think on specific issues. Sounds good, so long as they want to change the way people think to my way of thinking on the issues that are important to me.

Scary, I just gave myself the chills. And not the good kind.

I will also add that new social media platforms still have the power to delete your content, without a hearing, a trial, or to have your case adjudicated, and there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it. Which is why, again, I am going back to using my own platforms more. Nobody is going to shut anything down on this site unless I have a good reason, as I explored in "Content Management."

The reason why I’ve started The Electric Speakeasy up anew should be clear by now, I see the demise of Facebook as something that’s now inevitable since I’ve seen a growing number of “Good-Bye, FB” posts each day. I also read this morning that people like Wil Wheaton are boycotting Twitter for just one day, if not longer, in protest some of Twitter’s policies. I suspect Twitter, Facebook, and all the other social media platforms are going to be mere places for people to announce what they’re doing on their own platforms. Something that I’m doing more and more of now. And these platforms are going to become more and more unpopular until they're gone. These plaforms are sinking ships, and The Electric Speakeasy is a mere lifeboat I made for us.

The Electric Speakeasy is now up and running for everyone to go to and enjoy. By the way, your data there is encrypted and even if I wanted to exploit and monetize it, I couldn’t. It’s not that I’m that stupid or lazy, it’s just that impossible by any means I know of.