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+title: It's not Social Media - It's Marketing Media
+date: June 28, 2021 18:27
+---
+<p>
+Richard Stallman has said that social media sites don't have users &mdash; they have
+<em>useds</em>. The primary reason for sites like Facebook to exist is to
+generate revenue for the company (obviously), and they do so by using their
+webpage as a terminal for advertisements. To maximize revenues, users (useds)
+are incentivized and otherwise manipulated to stay online, giving as much
+eyeball time to the ads as possible.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Much has been said about how social media companies achieve this maximization
+from a psychological point of view. Dopamine-inducing "likes", targeting users
+with news/messages that will cause strong emotions (such as anger) to keep them
+engaged, things like that. But what is the real technical innovation that
+has made social media so irreplaceable in many people's lives, even those that
+are rational enough that those previously mentioned "incentives" are negatives
+for their lives?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The basic functionality that a social media platform like Facebook offers its
+users is a non-intrusive broadcast to all your friends and family.  Now, the
+"broadcast to all your friends and family" is supposedly the "social" part of
+social media. But what do I mean by "non-intrusive"? I mean that, on Facebook,
+your life updates don't necessitate a reply, don't start personal conversations
+(at best, just a stream of "Congratulations!" or "Thoughts and prayers..."
+comments), and it's not rude to just completely ignore them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Before, to announce a new baby or invite friends to party, you had to manage
+your own contacts list.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+You would send postcards from vacation to a few select people, now you just post
+the best pictures you got taken of yourself to Facebook, maybe with a witty
+caption, and the best one of them all might even be worthy of Instagram.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Instead of discussing clever and/or silly ideas with your buds and a beer in
+hand, you post them on Twitter, hoping for retweets and likes rather than a
+conversation partner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So while social media has made all sorts of social interactions much more time
+and energy efficient than phone calls, email, snail mail, and real life
+conversations, it also has replaced all these social interactions with much less
+social alternatives. Additionally, we have to realize that most of the content
+on "social" media isn't even social &mdash; it's marketing!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Any platform that allows non-personal broadcast &mdash; like Facebook pages or
+any account on a asymmetrical follow platforms (Instagram, Twitter) &mdash;
+becomes a marketing platform rather than a social platform. Even without the
+concept of promoted posts, Instagram has influencers and paid posts. Twitter is
+all about thought leaders preaching their takes, politicians jumping at each
+other's throats, and celebrities gossiping out in the open. TikTok perfected the
+promotion algorithms to launch the careers of thousands of self-made 5-second
+comedians and snake-oil salesmen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Perfecting the promotion algorithm" is something you do to build an advertising
+platform, not a human social network.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Stop calling it social media. It's marketing media.
+</p>