The Feudal-age of Social Networks Is Over – Here’s What’s Next

There are over 3.484 billion active social media users on scores of social networks.

The major share of these users are active on Facebook as it has 2.3 billion users. It is the most popular social network, but there always seems to be some controversy around it. When it was launched the controversy surrounding it was on who owns it. But it seemed like it went past that and grew into a social network on which one could safely converse with their friends and family. But it hasn’t been so.

One of the factors that constantly puts Facebook amid controversies is that it tracks data. This data is then used by businesses on the social networks to advertise themselves. This tracking of data has sometimes lead to the endangerment of its users. An example is the year-long data breach which lasted from 2012 to 2013. This exposed the email addresses and phone number of 6 million of its users to unauthorized viewers.

When data breaches such as these occur Facebook usually makes an announcement and asks its users to reset their passwords, but several recent controversies have shown us that it isn’t always the case. A big example of this is the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

In 2015 it was reported that Cambridge Analytica a firm in the UK was harvesting data from Facebook and selling it to political organizations. These organizations then used the data to influence public opinion. Initially, Facebook refused to acknowledge these claims.

They only accepted the allegations when the whistleblower of the report, Chris Wylie, a former Cambridge Analytica employee, came out and informed people. Facebook confirmed the data of 87 million accounts had been compromised.

This wasn’t the only controversy surrounding Facebook in 2018, there were several. Here’s a list of all of them.

And Facebook isn’t the only network where these data breaches are rampant. They occur constantly across all the big networks. Quora had one recently where over 100 million users were compromised. One more network that has suffered recently is Google+.

Another problem with all the big social networks is that they don’t reward their creators. On all of these networks the only reward you are getting is the ‘dopamine hit’ you get from the likes and comments and other forms of engagement your content gets.

How all the top social networks take advantage and get creators to contribute more and more is explained clearly by the former president of Facebook, here. “The thought process that went into building these applications, Facebook being the first of them, … was all about: ‘How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?'” “And that means that we need to sort of give you a little dopamine hit every once in a while, because someone liked or commented on a photo or a post or whatever. And that’s going to get you to contribute more content, and that’s going to get you … more likes and comments.” “It’s a social-validation feedback loop … exactly the kind of thing that a hacker like myself would come up with, because you’re exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology.”

This ‘social-validation feedback loop’ gets users to contribute more and more content. This gets people to spend more time on the site and help Facebook make more money through ads. While the contributors aren’t properly rewarded for their hard work.

In fact, Facebook actually makes it even harder for them. They constantly change their algorithm to limit reach. When Facebook first started out the feed showed all the posts. But since then they have updated their algorithm several times to limit the reach of posts. At the moment the reach of posts from Facebook pages is at its lowest ever.

The reach of profiles is a little higher, but it is still limited. Not all your friends will see your posts.

This strategy to constantly restrict post exposure is done to get people to pay for ads. Every time Facebook reduces reach its stock price goes up.

All this points to the fact that Facebook doesn’t care about its users or creators. The only thing on their mind is to increase revenue for their own business.

Facebook has also gone as far as to lie to their creators to get them to create the exact content they want. It was recently discovered that they were overstating their video watching statistics to convince businesses to contribute more video content.

All these lies and deception will only lead to one thing. That is the downfall of Facebook and other social networks akin to it that profit from insecurely tracking data and not rewarding their creators. It probably won’t happen immediately as you won’t lose billions of active users overnight, but it will happen gradually.

This is when alternate social networks that don’t track user data and properly reward their creators will dominate. Two such networks you can checkout are Diaspora and Hyperspace.

Diaspora is a social network that doesn’t use your data to make money like most networks. It is a non-profit company and has more than 1 million users. Just like on Facebook you can use hashtags, mention others and even upload photos. There are no ads on this social network and your own your data.

You can also use a pen name if you don’t want to use your real one.

While Hyperspace is a social network that rewards its content creators with cryptocurrency. It provides its users with a Universal Basic Income which is a daily allocation of AMPs (their cryptocurrency). It is given to content creators depending on how many amplifications (engagement) the content gets.

Every user who actively participates gets a daily allowance of AMPs. Even if you don’t create the content but help spread it you will be rewarded with AMPs. You will continue to receive the universal basic income everyday as long as you spend the AMPs you received earlier.

 

 

Another interesting alternative is Vero. It is an ad free network. It is also free of data mining and algorithms. It runs on a subscription based model where the users pay a fee. The initial plan was to keep it free to use for the 1st million users and then charge a fee. But since then they have extended the time and are currently still accepting new users for free. They recently hit 3 million users.
These are just a few alternate social networks that care about their users and creators. More social networks will continue to rise as the large social networks suffer more breaches and lose the trust of their users and hard-working creators. SOURCES – SocialMediaExaminer, Wikipedia, Business Insider, Axios, PC World, Statistica, Wearesocial, Reuters, Hyperspace, Diaspora, Washington Examiner, Vero Written By Brian Wang

13 thoughts on “The Feudal-age of Social Networks Is Over – Here’s What’s Next”

  1. From Wired: On January 24, the company (Facebook) said, the admins of the Tommy Robinson Facebook page received a written warning about the page’ content, which allegedly included videos of bullying, and posts that labelled Muslims “filthy scumbags” and called for their beheading. The company said that it had then “subsequently became aware” that Robinson had been participating in events with recognised hate groups and figures, such as Generation Identity, the Proud Boys, and Gavin McInnes.

  2. Definitely data-robberbarrons.

    Oil robberbarrons gave you something you really needed. Data robberbarrons milk you like a cow.

  3. Every day, my cats get really cranky around 7 PM until I placate them with cat treats, these little fishy cookies.

    Cats own the internet. Cats love cookies. Everybody loves cookies.

  4. The nonprofit one sounds nice. Very little evil ever comes out of Wikipedia, even if biased people sometimes contribute to articles. But Hyperspace sounds terrible. We shouldn’t be trying to generate and amplify virality. Social media should be a place for people to have real conversations, not a propaganda engine.

  5. I’m not sure what is worse, oil robberbarrons or data robberbarrons.

    Oh wait no I’m not, the data robberbarrons are ushering in a whole new age of AI based techno-feudalism.

    See how the robberbarrons and their psychophant ‘bloggers’ always lead off with feudalism and war are over? Hahahahahahahahahaha Most of California barely looks different than the cotton plantation states of the 1840s, except it’s Hollywood plantations, and Silicon Valley plantations, and Nappa Valley wine plantations, and 100+ millionaire politician plantations. Gotta pick that data.

    Silicon Valley is ushering in feudalism as fast as light can travel on a fiber optic cable. And DC is happy to suck at the teet, while screaming how jobs are fine and unemployment is magically fine while AI ramps up.

  6. What, no love for Mastadon (the distributed/federated twitter clone), or Manyverse (the scuttlebutt privacy protocol powered almost offline social network), or Cabal (similar to Manyverse, powered by DAT protocol)?

  7. in the 3rd world lots of the mobiles are feature phones without internet or that mobile internet is idiotic expensive.
    Yes the lower layers might be tcp-ip but the user don’t get any benefit.

    Now that the majority of humans has access to internet is idiotic mindbogglingly then you are 50. Starship, insanely cool but obvious stuff and 50 year late.
    Expect social changes to be way faster, this will hit in all directions.

    Exploiting this is the real game.
    Stuff like starlink are tools.

  8. You are sending us to cookie sites, well everybody needs to make money while attacking social media money making tactics…

  9. My problem with facebook, is their insistence on controlling who gets what information in countries that claim to practice free speech. People are deplatformed for making statements that annoy corporations, or governments.
    Tommy Robinson, the nom de plume of an independent British journalist, was deplatformed recently by FB after he posted a link to a documentary he produced that took issue with government policy/actions.

  10. How can there be 800 million more mobile users, than internet users? When you use a mobile device for voice communications, you almost always use the internet, even if you have an analog cellphone.
    The number of internet users should be greater by at least one, since I don’t own a mobile, but am a avid internet user.

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