Social Media Companies Need to Be Accountable and Better Contributors to Society

 "No, Facebook and the other big tech companies are, plainly, tearing the social fabric to threads, and pulling people apart." Justin E.H. Smith, The Internet Is Not What You Think It Is, A History, A Philosophy, A Warning

Though Facebook and other social media companies have boasted about connecting people together, they have, in fact, been "pulling people apart." Social media as it is currently constructed, does not connect people or bring them together; it separates, divides, and polarizes. Its promotion of the sensational, the most engagement-causing content has created a machine that values nonsense, gossip, and the most outrageous over what is true.

In addition to being a misinformation propagator and spreader, it values the self-absorbed, self promoter regardless of the true worth or value of the content these "so-called influencers" spread. X, formally Twitter, is a bullsplat amplification platform that effectively spreads nonsense far and wide. Facebook facilitates and algorithmically groups people in homogenous worlds where users can escape any views or perspectives that diverge from their own small worlds. Tik Tok provides users with endless hours of nonsense in video format. Social media as a whole doesn't deserve the pedestal on which our culture has placed it, nor the amount of energy educational leaders have devoted to it.

What is even more tragic is that educators and educational leaders have accepted uncritically what the social media companies have said about the necessity and inevitability of their products. The whole social media promotion industry of social media gurus and so-called communication specialists have convinced both educational institutions and companies that they "need to be be on social media and participate or suffer irrelevance." Anyone questioning this social media dogma is branded a heretic and as being anti-tech or anti-progress. 

But it is time to begin questioning the place of all these social media platforms in our culture and society. It is also time to push for regulations of these platforms and to hold them accountable for the damage they do. We need to stop these companies from "tearing our social fabric to threads... pulling people apart" and demand that they be better contributors to society.