Very important points raised here.. It's been what I've been endlessly speaking on with my friends that thought of me as "beating a dead horse" for a long time now. The worst part about waking people up to the ills of modern social platforms is that each person has a dramatically different experience, and they never see the people who are struggling, they only see the success stories from people who far too often are getting all their ideas from the bottom, but paying to be on top.
Social media sites, just like reddit often expose ideas and content to larger audiences than typically what personalized web sites can do. That leads to rampant idea theft without credibility, and to diluted and convoluted messages. Online communication and effective problem resolution (climate crisis, protests, valid discourse) is now completely hobbled because these large platforms serve profit, but also allow large interests to out-voice even scholars and trained experts.
The entire "influencer" economy is based on people coming out of instant celebrity and then developing huge "influence" and it's totally screwing up positions of power and influence in real life because they suddenly get a large voice without proper experience and merits to their achievement.
It's created a monster machine where we're suddenly doing drastically harmful things because people want to make money rather than listening to people who have a proven track record of doing good things to create positive change. We need to stop rewarding cheap mediocrity, and to stop trying to insert wise words into forums known for mis-management and reckless disregard for human good. Real world problem solving cannot be conducted along side memes and veiled corporate advertisements with convoluted money making agendas charading as thoughtful trustworthiness.
The way to take back credibility is to withdraw completely from social media, only using social sites as a pointer back to official sources for trusted news and well curated personal web sites. This way, you can own (and potentially future-proof) your words and content once again. In running your own site, you can make backups, and better address plagiarism and idea theft -- which is very rampant online right now. I have hung onto my own personal sites for over 20 years now, I never felt that social platforms were reliable enough to give up my own personal domains and sites, and every day of frustration with sites like reddit just goes to confirm that idea.
It's not an argument to reinforce academic emphasis on who to listen to, it's the move necessary to bring back accountability and originality of thought that isn't subject to 20 silly made up rules about how, when, and what you can post on reddit, and you can't quite get downvoted into oblivion by someone who wants to paraphrase you and steal your ideals as quickly (provided your posts are dated, tagged, and credited properly). Take back ownership of your words, they never gave you much to begin with for sharing on their platforms anyway.
Social media sites, just like reddit often expose ideas and content to larger audiences than typically what personalized web sites can do. That leads to rampant idea theft without credibility, and to diluted and convoluted messages. Online communication and effective problem resolution (climate crisis, protests, valid discourse) is now completely hobbled because these large platforms serve profit, but also allow large interests to out-voice even scholars and trained experts.
The entire "influencer" economy is based on people coming out of instant celebrity and then developing huge "influence" and it's totally screwing up positions of power and influence in real life because they suddenly get a large voice without proper experience and merits to their achievement.
It's created a monster machine where we're suddenly doing drastically harmful things because people want to make money rather than listening to people who have a proven track record of doing good things to create positive change. We need to stop rewarding cheap mediocrity, and to stop trying to insert wise words into forums known for mis-management and reckless disregard for human good. Real world problem solving cannot be conducted along side memes and veiled corporate advertisements with convoluted money making agendas charading as thoughtful trustworthiness.
The way to take back credibility is to withdraw completely from social media, only using social sites as a pointer back to official sources for trusted news and well curated personal web sites. This way, you can own (and potentially future-proof) your words and content once again. In running your own site, you can make backups, and better address plagiarism and idea theft -- which is very rampant online right now. I have hung onto my own personal sites for over 20 years now, I never felt that social platforms were reliable enough to give up my own personal domains and sites, and every day of frustration with sites like reddit just goes to confirm that idea.
It's not an argument to reinforce academic emphasis on who to listen to, it's the move necessary to bring back accountability and originality of thought that isn't subject to 20 silly made up rules about how, when, and what you can post on reddit, and you can't quite get downvoted into oblivion by someone who wants to paraphrase you and steal your ideals as quickly (provided your posts are dated, tagged, and credited properly). Take back ownership of your words, they never gave you much to begin with for sharing on their platforms anyway.