To Make the World a Better Place, We Should Pull the Plug on Social Media Unless They Follow Local Laws

The entire value of social media companies is you - the user. And the globe-trotting moguls who own these companies have gotten very rich at all of our expense.

For a long while, I’ve been very concerned about “social media” - its effects, the insane wealth of its owners, and what people can do in a new world where tech moguls have going out of their way to elect candidates they favour, in their own countries and around the world.

I genuinely want to address this to everyone. It doesn’t matter who you voted for, your age, religion, or where in the world you live.

All you have to do is check any news outlet and you will see something truly terrible happening in the world today. There is fear, anger, resentment, powerlessness.

I personally think it’s because the economy’s breaking down, and what we need is to get people some immediate financial relief. For everyone. (I’ve written about what we can and should do.)

But I really want to talk about social media and tech companies, because the amount of control over our lives these companies now exert, and the way they have limited our choices as human beings, is mind-boggling.

So, when we take a look at the last ten, or twenty, or 30 years, when we look at how people have lost good paying jobs, and local brick and mortar businesses have closed their doors. There are hundreds of millions of people whose lives aren’t getting better.

So, as we all lost wealth and income and jobs and businesses - who gained? Who became multi-billionaires? Big Tech. A lot of them are the richest people in the world. And why?

They are the true globalists - they don’t want to follow local laws. Bezos, Musk, Zuckerberg, These are companies, like Amazon, that  play a huge part in global trade and in job losses in America, Canada and Europe. All those job losses around the world from when China entered the WTO?

Tech companies, as well as Amazon all made a fortune. They could offshore production to China and India for manufacturing, coding. These tech companies, are the people who gained when the rest of us lost. Jobs.  Businesses.

They drove local stores out of business. They drive local media out of business.

Now, there’s supposed to a reason why all these deals are supposed to work, and why they actually don’t. All these deals, and companies, are supposed to make us all richer as a whole. But there’s no actual economic mechanism by which these billionaires actually transfer their wealth or income to the rest of us. They tell us we’re better off because imported stuff is cheaper - but all the stuff that really matters gets more expensive.

All of the value of these social media and tech companies is based on other people’s work. Almost all of the key technology at these companies was developed at public expense. And all of the stuff that makes social media worthwhile - call it “content” is valuable becaus you and other users are putting work into it. You spend time writing and posting, or making videos.

They say when something on the internet is free, it’s because the product is you.

And this is really important. For social media companies, the entire value in these companies is you.

The question is whether we are even users anymore, or whether we are just being used.

And the way these companies have built up their market power and control is by using our own phones and computers to watch and record everything we do, and then they start picking and choosing what we get to see.

These companies gradually build up a specific profile of you. As an individual. They know what makes you tick.

That makes then incredibly valuable to politicians and corporations. If politicians and government can capture these companies, it means that these social media companies can pick and choose what you see and what you don’t.

They have done this by systematically collecting information on you. All of your e-mails, messages, likes. Who you follow, who you block. They record your search terms. This is all supposed to be so that an “algorithm” will be more likely to show you information you’re interested in.

It’s also important because all of these companies also do work for governments. They sell their services to government. Amazon’s biggest source of revenue is not online sales: it is data centres.

And they create an experience that really is controlling you, and mired millions of people in low-paying jobs.

They’re using devices that we pay for to tell us what to do and think. They use it to organize and maniupulate and herd us. They use it to find differences and drive a wedge between people.

And again, this is not about partisanship in any way. It has happened to all of us. It is being deployed against all of us.

And I also know that whoever you are, you’ve learned things on the internet that changed your mind. It may have changed your political outlook.

You’ve read and seen things that have shocked you. You may have had an angry or hateful exchange with someone who made you feel terrible.

And part of this is because all of our interactions are happening through this medium. We have no choice but to interact with one another in this way - the way that is being framed and dictated for us.

It all runs on your information. Your life. Your work.

Everywhere you go, no matter where you go, they have created a toll booth where they get paid, no matter what. Because they have placed themselves between us and everything we want and need.

Not only that, but these global companies do not want to be subject to the laws of countries where they operate. They are private surveillance companies. They sell your information and profile to other companies, so they can craft information to manipulate you, too.

If you want to understand how careless they once were, in the early days of Facebook, one of the employee perks was that you could browse through people’s private information.

One of the fears, now, is that governments will use this information to go after people. It is already being used to manipulate people.

Now, one of the reasons these companies have been able to do all of this, is that in the U.S. Millennium Copyright act, that carves out a special exemption for tech companies that does not apply to other people or corporations.

This exemption means that companies are not liable for what is posted to their “platform,” and this means anything goes.

Material that would get private individuals and non-tech corporations sued or arrested for breaking long-standing laws around everything to just taking people’s work and not paying for it to criminal images of children being abused, to libel and life-destroying misinformation of ordinary, everyday people.

This is not a partisan issue of left, right or centre.

No matter who you are, somewhere on social media, someone is saying something untrue and destructive about whatever matters to you the most.

Anything can be uploaded, and is. If these social media sites are some kind of reflection of society, they are reflection of all of it, including real horrors. There are people who are paid to sort through all of the images that are uploaded, and they are beyond belief. The people who are paid to sort through them - often for a tiny sum - are traumatized by what they have seen.

I guarantee that no matter who you are or what you believe, that there is something you would find offensive, cruel and disgusting on these sites.

If they weren’t making money, it wouldn’t be there. And there are people who have to see all of this. They are scarred for life.

The last aspect of this is something we don’t even realize. That all this information is being shared, and gathered between companies - retailers, landlords - and they will dynamically change the service and price you pay.

Governments who are trying to regulate these companies are meeting stiff resistance.

The global owners of these global companies do not want to have to follow local laws.

This should be an absolutely basic aspect every single individual of all political stripes should be able to agree on - that when these companies break a country’s laws, they have to be held to account. You can’t have a huge company operating in your country where it doesn’t respect the law. This is not about left and right.

This is about the fundamental right of people in every sovereign nation to ensure that the laws of the land are enforced.

It has to be said that these companies are doing everything they can to make sure that they are the only companies in business - and that’s not good for consumers, or citizens.

Pulling the Plug

Right now, a lot of people feel helpless or that their lives are out of control - and tech oligarchs seem to have unlimited control.

The simplest thing is just to say “No.”

That’s why I think a campaign to pull the plug on social media that won’t follow local laws is achievable.

When you consider the value of what these companies deliver - the vast profits they earn, and the meagre or even negative contribution they give back to our lives - we have to consider just why we should continue supporting them with our free work and effort.

This is something that can be done on a grassroots basis. Organizations, individuals. Of course some people rely on these networks for communication.

This is important for individual rights around the world, no matter what country you live in. When individuals or corporations from other countries are visiting or operating, they are subject to local laws. This a fundamental principle of justice, that no one is above the law.

It’s also important, because it is a reminder. While tech magnates often believe in the grand myths of Ayn Rand, the reality is that when it comes to social media, all of the value lies with you.

And all you have to do is say no.

What do you think?

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