‘Social media platforms are a capitalist enterprise’ | Photo credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto
“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinion, their life a mimicry, their passion a quote, ”said Oscar Wilde.
Since the beginning, social media platforms have pretended that they have ‘democratised’ self-expression. In important respects, this is true. Social media platforms have helped circumvent elitist and/or authoritarian gatekeeping and brought new voices into the public sphere. This has certainly had mixed effects on the public sector. However, the impact of social media on democratic discourse is a separate debate. The objective here is to dig deeper into the premise that social media platforms have democratized self-expression.
long form abbreviation
A review of the trajectory of self-expression on social media shows a trend towards increasing brevity and uniformity. The early days of online discourse centered around long text on blogs and message boards. It required individuals to think about the essence of what they wanted to say and then express it in their own words to communicate to their audience. Even if the material itself was nonsensical, it required conscious engagement, certainly from the author, but also from the reader, who would have to specifically seek out that particular material and read it in their own words. And will have to spend time answering that. With the advent of social media, long-form text has gone through a series of abbreviations, from posts to tweets to retweets, likes, memes, and emojis.
Now, one of the most surprising things about online communication is how little people speak. Speak in their own words ie. It is worth asking at what point in this trajectory does affiliation cease to be a form of self-expression, but rather a tool of collective homogeneity. It is not clear how anyone can find their voice, by repeatedly replacing their own words with those of another person (via retweets, likes and memes) or a corporation (via emoji). The question is also relevant because the time spent on these discrete engagements is too fleeting to allow for active participation. Does a retweet or like indicate 100% endorsement or merely fluid alignment with the “feeling” of the content? And, if we don’t take the time to reflect and express specifically what we feel, rather than simply repeating someone else’s, does that qualify as self-expression?
This question needs to be asked because social media tends to mold expression into its own format rather than vice versa. Retweets and likes are binary instruments that leave no room for personal nuance. Memes and emoji constrain expression to the selection at hand, shaping rather than facilitating self-expression. Are people really laughing until they are crying as the popular emoji (a smiley) suggests? And if not, does its use reflect self-expression or a device devised by an external platform? What about the ambiguity that gets injected into communication due to different interpretations for different emoji and memes by different individuals?
Social media also forces brevity – due to its format and larger ecosystem – which not only shows up in the form of typographical errors and bad grammar but also constrains the possibilities of what can be said. It limits rather than enhances the fullness of self-expression.
However, it is not just the structure of the social media platform that inhibits self-expression but also encourages it. An important emerging discussion focuses on how the incentives of social media shape discourse by privileging protest, sarcasm and outrage over dialogue and reason. This in turn leads individuals to become more hostile and defiant to the effect that the medium dictates the message. This influence of the medium on the message is also reflected in making virility the primary determinant of value rather than the substance of the message itself.
‘Producer Economy’
The ability of social media platforms to curtail expression is also playing into the so-called “creator economy”. To improve user engagement and engagement, social media platforms have started compensating users for original audiovisual content. While sites such as YouTube have allowed individuals to create their own video channels and share ad-revenue based on views, platforms have increasingly moved to shorter video formats ranging from 15 to 60 seconds. These videos are served algorithmically and there are many reports that confused creators are trying to hack the algorithms and make their content go viral. It’s unclear, in this mix of super short videos, preoccupation with algorithms, and directed viewership, whether the creator has or may have had a specific point of view and whether there’s much room for “self-expression.” In fact, a significant portion of the “content” is simply reductions of existing content.
With the emergence of generative AI such as ChatGPT and DAL-e for text and images respectively, there is a high likelihood that “self-expression” will be further reduced by making it easier to generate content without the need for the individual to apply himself. . any meaningful way.
The undeniable fact is that social media platforms are a capitalist enterprise. Even though capitalism seemingly thrives on increased user choice, standardization and mass production are natural consequences of capitalism. Social media platforms thus promote greater homogeneity and the mass production of ready-made expressions such as memes and emoji because they are interested in promoting engagement, not self-expression.
Ruchi Gupta is the Executive Director of Future of India Foundation