At the beginning of the Coronavirus outbreak social media was the only thing keeping me sane. From news articles to memes, it was my lifeline to the outside world. These memes, or viral videos like the Coffin Dance song, put into perspective the seriousness and dark humor that we could all relate to at the time. My phone was full of saved memes. The dark humor and satire was just what I needed. However, that was short lived as after a few weeks I started noticing a disturbing trend of garbage fake news articles and claims being named, many of them claiming that the coronavirus was fake. Every dispute I would engage in would just be replaced by another similar post on me feed..it was as if Facebook wanted me just to see these ignorant posts. It started making me feel incredibly depressed. My mind was running wild between depression and anger. Is this what everyone seriously thought? Or, was there something that was forcing me to just see more of what I hated?
Things got even worse on my Facebook feed during the Black Lives Matter movement. These were all the social problems boiling over that I’ve been addressing in my blogs and social media posts since I can remember. Once again, I found myself arguing with people on these social issues like never before. I wrote about these things since high school, and rarely ever did I get any negative response. Something (or some unseen factor rather) was emboldening these ignorant, uneducated, and borderline racist people to fight online. I couldn’t understand it. I used to have awesome discussions with people, debates that would actually change opinions. It was no more about listening to other people’s thoughts and opinions and thinking critically…it was solely the egoistic ‘I’m correct and screw everyone else’s opinion.’
Blocking people wasn’t enough. For every one person I blocked, mind you these were people I’ve known for years, three similar people would take their place. I was friends with a lot of highly educated people, and despite all their posting, they would get drowned out by the overwhelming amount of ignorant posts. It was a significant difference in the number of engagement and likes between educated scholarly articles being posted vs some viral conspiracy theory post. All the settings, blocking of posts didn’t make a difference in the world. Facebook wanted people to hate each other…that was the fuel it needed to survive.
Even Instagram had turned to monotonous crap-filled posting. In between the same cliche photographs and fight videos, I was getting bombarded with advertisements. I was no longer able to see my close friends photos anymore, but rather was just getting the same ‘popular’ people moving to the top of my feed. There was no chronological order, it was about popularity. I built a significant following, but it was nowhere enough to crack the algorithmic code.
There’d be times when I would mention something out loud and immediately after see advertisements for exactly what I was talking about. I thought at first the algorithms were anticipating my thoughts…but I started testing my conversations to see if they reflected the advertisements, and sure enough they did.
It was clear that the algorithms favored ‘brands’. You needed to follow a specific color scheme, with psychologically responsive themes (e.g., girls in bathing suits, sexy models, fights, outdoor travel landscapes, etc), in other words things you want to have or desire (women, vacation, cars, etc) that’s what the algorithms favor. They want to keep you depressed in every aspect in order to sell more ‘products or services’. There’s a threshold for keeping you depressed, these algorithms have been proven to keep you in this back and forth limbo between depression and excitement. For example, you seeing these people on vacations you will never be able to afford, or women you will never have, or whatever, it’s meant to keep you down. They soon work in advertisements to make you purchase things to fill that depressive emptiness. Because I mean, who isn’t happy shopping for crap?
The AI algorithms don’t care about you, they care about how easily you can be trained based on behavioral patterns. Similar to Pavlov’s dogs, once you’ve given up hope or seem to be losing attention, they need to bring you back by offering you temporary happy stimulation. This stimulation comes in the form of ‘likes’ or ‘thumbs up’, etc which has been proven activates a part of the brain, similar to sexual gratification. Tiny bits of dopamine get released every time you receive this positive feedback, which is meticulously calculated by the algorithms so as to not surpass that threshold.
How did we end up here? And how did it create so many assholes in the world? But so what, I’m being manipulated but I’m aware, so I won’t fall for it?!
The Beginning of the end
The Coronavirus outbreak proved just how stupid people could be. All the flaws in our society just became that much more difficult to ignore. The curtains fell and revealed a heap of shit. The constant rhetoric, blaming, and displacement of responsibility showed how everything really worked.
Democrats and Republicans alike were at fault. Greed was the only motivation. Essential works were thrown to the wolves, along with the blatant disregard for the children and elderly. We saw people protesting throughout the United States demanding churches and schools reopen as thousands of people were dying. The cognitive dissonance in millions of Americans was becoming more and more skewed from reality. As religious fanatics held on to their anti-abortion beliefs they could care less about those dying in the streets. Social Media posts fueled these skewed ideas into a warped understanding of their reality and in the end Social Media became that echo chamber re-resonating their own delusions.
On the news you could see interviews of privileged Americans wanting to reopen up everything quickly, not understanding the gravity of the situation, they could care less about facts. The reality was that the virus exploited the systemic racism that was always present and made it come forward. These privileged rich communities were not the ones being affected by this outbreak but rather, the working class minorities both African-American and hispanic populations who could not afford to work from home. Minorities were the ones dying. But yet, it was evident that this didn’t matter to many of these people making the conscious choice to keep spreading the virus.
These racial injustices were cracks in American society that boiled over after the killing of George Floyd. Once again, Social Media used these emotionally charged images of his death to fuel both extremes. Memes and posts blaming the victim for his own death were perpetuated to the extreme. And those, like myself, who had always known about these injustices were catered to through memes and posts regarding the fight against the system. This radicalized people into two categories. There was no more middle ground. It seemed like the armchair critics on the right began clashing with actual activists who came out in protests during the Black Live Matters protests across the United States. But the question remains, is Social Media that powerful to transform an armchair critic sitting at home reading these hateful threads into going out and actually trying to kill others?
Social Media was the vehicle behind many of these violent acts in the past, such as with the Gilroy Garlic Festival massacre (which I was so close in attending), in which the ‘lone gunman’ discussed his hatred towards the “hordes of mestizos” living in the Santa Clara Valley. These extreme ideals, such as with White Supremacy, thrive in the Social Media world. It’s what emotionally charges people into false narratives of superiority and the fear behind being eradicated by minorities. We keep ignoring these extremist ideologies because they have infiltrated literally everything within American society. Racist rants by the president trickle down and reinforce that same anger and ideas throughout all branches of government, down to even police workers. So it’s not a surprise that these murders continue of black and brown minorities.
This systemic racism itself has become trivialized and the polarization continues. For example, In Brazil, after Dilma Rousseff, Brazil’s first female president, was accused of accepting bribes, the elitist ‘white’ evangelical class took to social media by storm. The accusations were frivolous at best, but she was guilty before she even was able to defend herself. Rousseff was no saint either, pushing several projects that were criticized and protested by both indigenous and environmental groups. The country of Brazil was doing well economically, however, social media pushed the notion of lazy people collecting government ‘handouts’ which led to discrimination against not just minorities but the lower-class in general. Operation Car Wash, a hypothetical conspiracy scheme with only speculative evidence, was enough to change the entire consciousness of the Brazilian people. As a result, in leaked audio showed that it was fabricated only to get people out of being investigated themselves!
The Algorithms
The algorithms were designed to help the spread of content in meaningful ways, however, once the behavioral aspect to marketing became intertwined the beast was born. These algorithms were originally used in online gambling websites, implemented to create addicts and to keep people coming back for more. These algorithms then began to spread into Social Media as a means of keeping people addicted to media content. These ignorant middle-aged, upper-middle-class Caucasian coders began incorporating a lot of their unconscious biases into the programs itself which affect people in many aspect of their lives. These algorithms track your every move into a centralized data analysis center…and can be used against you in the future. For example, these all factor into other confidential AI programs that approve loans, etc. Minorities are especially in these cases are greatly discriminated against within these algorithms, because they don’t fit the mold of what qualities a person is supposed to have.
Imagine the people who write these codes and all their personal biases being incorporated into their algorithms.
They want to control your emotions on every level. Who wants to look up depressing articles like this anyways? We all want to be numb and remain ignorant, even then people defend these Social Media companies. It’s been proven that the more depressed you are, the more likely you are to buy online. Each like is carefully calculated to keep you depressed.
Even in writing this article, I know nobody will probably read this and as a result, I’m rather sure I’m going to get flagged by an algorithm because I monetize this website to help pay for it. So, I will probably lose money in writing this. Instagram and TikTok influencers share US road trip plans as the world literally falls apart due to climate change. They travel only for the likes. The more exotic, the more likes. But in the end places like Machu Picchu receive most tourists who travel there given the amount of likes they will receive. Ignorant of the local culture, history and everything else for that matter.
Trivialization of Facts and History
As violence ignites across social media the echo chamber resonates. Violence becomes justified among its closed network of like-minded fiends. It’s no longer just the media outputting dangerous ideas but the social media itself is amplifying these notions and ultimately influencing those public figures or worse, those who create the news. It then becomes a cycle of which there is no out of.
Furthermore, we see the underplaying of history and the trivialization of facts. People do not want face their ancestors injustices. Rather than take down monuments to despicable people (like in Mexico or other Latin American countries), they are told lies and reinforced with notions that would challenge would be critics. This trivialized of history distorts our history and perpetuates the illusion of superiority.
As we’ve seen in the past with the radicalization of terrorist organizations through propaganda videos, we now see social media as the driving force for ‘sounds bites’ or the minimization of complex thought. Everything is propaganda.
A recipe for disaster…
Propaganda compounded with radicalization and mass unemployment due to the upcoming recession is a recipe for social unrest. The problem isn’t so much the advocacy for basic social and human rights, but by the way the opposition twists these ideas as threatening their way of life. The status quo fears nothing more than the progress of people and will use every tactic to radicalize the weak minded. CNN and Fox News are what pushes reinforces the propaganda, but social media is what takes it to the next level.
Social Media undermines democracy, and as a result freewill becomes tethered to this machine that only benefits one side. These fractures within the United States were always present, being held on by thin pieces of tape. But Social Media turned these small sidewalk fractures into the size of the Grand Canyon. Compiled on top of these extreme ideas are the aspects of mental illness we do not want to face. Politicians need these ignorant people who suffer from mental illnesses to vote for them because they are the most vocal. Since the closing of mental facilities during the Reagan years people suffering from mental illness have been greatly neglected and resources are much more limited.
Social Media is the worst kind of popularity contest and thrives off clique ideas. As the saying goes, “Fear Sells” and Social Media is no different and markets to the off-brand paranoid conspiracy theorist. It’s that fear that people become addicted to…
What we can do?
Kropotkin’s idea of a reciprocal society needs to be brought to the forefront. His ideas were deemed controversial from the start, but if you study ancient societies that take care of each other you see a stark contrast to Darwin and his notion of ‘survival of the fittest’. It’s unfortunate that we place such a large emphasis on the idea of selfishness, egotism, and survival of the fittest…these notions ultimately have led to our downfall. Even as we live through a pandemic, climate change, and yet another recession, we see how these dangerous ideas hurt us all. It’s been compiled from trivializing basic science to the false notion of what ‘freedom’ means that has caused the ‘virus of the mind’ to outbreak with no end in sight. Just like during the pandemic when people refused to wear masks because it interferes with their ‘freedom’ or refusing to social distance because they don’t understand the consequences of the coronavirus. A false sense of freedom and individuality has embolden the most ignorant leading to both social and environmental problems to spiral out of control.
In this day and age, there is no more accountability. Ethics has been thrown out the window. The algorithms thrives on polarization, its sole purpose is to draw your attention, no matter how negative the subject may be. The more you look down at your phone, the more they take away from life. Each minute is another penny in their pocket. You are the product.
So what can we do? Put your phone down and read a book. Educate yourself, and go out and change the world before it’s too late.