11-04-2024, 02:18 PM
Is Social Media Actually "Media," Or Is It Something Else?
October 30, 2024
By placing search/social media in the bucket of newspapers, radio and TV networks, perhaps we've obscured their true nature as "Digital Marketing Mechanisms."
Language is a funny thing. If we don't have a word for something, in some way it doesn't exist. When we find a word in another language that describes this something, we borrow the word, for example schadenfreude from German and tsunami from Japanese.
If we use an existing word to describe something novel, we may mis-categorize it, in effect obscuring its true nature. For example, calling a whale a "fish" makes a certain kind of sense (an animal that lives in the sea), but it doesn't capture the fact that the whale is a mammal, not a fish.
Which brings us to social media, and the possibility that it isn't actually "media" at all, and we've obscured its true nature by mis-categorizing it as "media." This distinction isn't merely academic; it has significant real-world consequences.
Let's begin with the "media" that existed when the the US Constitution was drafted and ratified. "Media" wasn't a word in usage at the time, and what we understand today as "media" was understood as "the printed word" in newspapers, flyers, posters, periodicals and books. This is the origin of the Constitution's focus on "free speech" and the "free press": Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.
The two concepts are intimately bound. Free speech includes public gatherings and oratory as well as all printed words, but the printed word attracts most of the legal wrangling around the meaning and limits of "free speech," a topic I explored in A Contrarian Clarification of "Free Speech".
The point of my post was that the constitutional definition focused on the government's restriction of free speech, not the private suppression or censorship of "free speech." As I explained, a private enterprise such as a newspaper is not obligated to provide a platform for everyone who wishes to exercise their "right to free speech." The newspaper can print whatever "letters to the editor" or "commentary" its owners / managers choose.
Now we have many other forms of media: radio, films, television and now the Internet, with its vast array of "printed" word, audio and video content.
In what we might call traditional media, the owners / managers publish / post content generated by their staff or other professional content creators: journalists, talk-show hosts, filmmakers, etc.
Social media is something different: all its content is created by its users. Yes, social media platforms have news feeds from traditional media, but this is a sideline to their core model, which is in effect a global message board that is open to any registered user. Unlike a Web1.0 message board / forum, whose audience was limited to the membership of the board / forum, social media platforms offer each user who posts content a potentially global audience.
The potential to build an audience of hundreds, thousands or even millions is addictively attractive, and so social media platforms (and their cousin, search) have billions of users.
This is novel. Is it "media" or is it something else? As I noted in my previous post, "free speech" is muddied when it comes to search and social media, as the government is limited by the Constitution in its capacity to restrict what's posted on social media, but there are few (if any) Constitutional restrictions on what private enterprises can restrict on their media outlets / platforms / search results.
Next, let's consider the revenues and data collection of traditional media and social media. Traditional media was limited to display ads in print, and the equivalent broadcast ads on radio and TV. These forms of media did not have the capacity/tools to collect reams of data on every user, and then use this data to sell adverts that target specific audiences--for example, surfers who have traveled to Southeast Asia to surf.
The resort on the beach in Indonesia will have far better results from adverts targeting surfers who have already demonstrated a willingness and ability to travel to Southeast Asia to surf compared to a broadcast advert that may theoretically reach a million people, of whom only a tiny percentage will be a target audience for the resort. The resort's marketing will pay a hefty premium for this data-rich targeted advert capability.
Search is also novel. Is it "media" or something else? Search engines purport to crawl the entire Web and present the most relevant answers / results to one's query. But this too is a data-collection revenue-creation mechanism, for the auctioning of search results--pay the search company money, and your product / service will be placed at the top of the search results--is lucrative.
This ability to target the audience based on detailed data collected on their web activity increases the value of the resulting advertising greatly. Consider the scale of digital adverts: the top three US corporations (Alphabet/Google, Meta/Facebook and Amazon) collect $320 billion in digital advertising revenues:
https://www.oftwominds.com/photos2024/di...s10-24.png
Compare this to traditional-media newspaper revenues: circulation revenue is about $11 billion and newspaper adverts, print and digital, total around $5 billion, for a total of $16 billion, roughly 5% of search/social media advert revenue.
Search/social media is free to users, but this "free access" is in effect a trade for the user data that generates a third of a trillion dollars in revenue. This "trade" also seems novel, both in form and in scale.
Would it be more accurate to describe search/social media platforms as Marketing Mechanisms that solicit user-created search/content to generate revenues rather than as "media" platforms?
The distinction is critical, for "free speech" is not a blanket carte blanche for marketing. If we remove search/social media from the category of "media" and create a new category Digital Marketing Mechanisms (DMM), then this new category necessarily requires a new regulatory structure and very different legal interpretations and protections of "free speech."
As we all know, it's very tempting for governments to "request" (or require) private-sector search/social media platforms restrict what's visible to the public to "approved" information. If a private-sector company restricts what it publishes at the "request" of the state, where are the Constitutional limits on state censorship? It seems they've been skirted by this "cooperation" of public / private power.
By placing search/social media in the bucket of newspapers, radio and TV networks, perhaps we've obscured their true nature as Digital Marketing Mechanisms, novel, complex devices more like a digital Antikythera Mechanism than an inert printed page protected as "free press."
https://www.oftwominds.com/blogoct24/soc...10-24.html
A Contrarian Clarification of "Free Speech"
October 25, 2024
A social media company has the right to decline publishing my opinion, but the government's ability to restrict what the social media company publishes is restricted by the First Amendment.
We all know what "free speech" means: it's our right to say whatever we want, whenever we want, wherever we want, as long as we're not libeling someone. Well, actually, no, that's not what "free speech" means. Here's the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
For an overview of the immense body of jurisprudence regarding the limits of "free speech," here's a good place to start: First Amendment Fundamental Freedoms Analysis and Interpretation of the U.S. Constitution.
In essence, the first amendment prohibits the federal government from "abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press," in other words, censorship. The Founders were seeking to limit the powers of the state to restrict pushback from the citizenry against state policies or decisions.
But this doesn't mean "everything is protected as 'free speech.'" For example, a drunk in a bar who shouts, "You're worthless, you suck!" at other patrons is not protected by the First Amendment.
"In Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, the Supreme Court unanimously sustained a conviction under a state law proscribing any 'offensive, derisive or annoying word addressed to any person in a public place'... 'the use in a public place of words likely to cause a breach of the peace,' words 'by their very utterance, inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. Accordingly, such utterances are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality.'"
Yet by some strange bewitchment, the "right" to shout "You're worthless, you suck!" online is now considered "protected" as "free speech." As the Court clearly stated, "free speech" is intended to protect an exposition of ideas as a step to truth, not content-free abuse.
The First Amendment does not obligate privately owned media to provide a forum for everyone to shout "You're worthless, you suck!" If the drunk wanders from the bar to the Heritage Foundation and demands they publish his "opinion," the Foundation is under no obligation to comply.
The newspaper is not obligated to print the drunk's "letter to the editor," nor is the radio station or TV network obligated to provide a forum for his "opinion."
On occasion a reader expresses discontent that I don't have a "comments forum" on my website, on the presumption that everyone paying to host a website is somehow obligated to also pay the expenses so everyone else can use their privately funded site as a public forum for their opinions.
What the First Amendment says is that government cannot restrict anyone from hosting a website, though what they post publicly is subject to Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire. Other cases reflect the Court's view that the issue with "free speech" is government actions that restrict free speech, not the right of privately owned enterprises to choose what they publish / post publicly.
My response to those expecting that a privately funded "forum" for their "opinion" is a "right": pay for your own server / website and then you can post whatever opinions you wish to. That's the limit of free speech: you're free to carry a sign in public places (with certain restrictions), publish your own newspaper, start your own website or media platform, or give speeches from soapboxes, but nothing obligates a media corporation to publish your "opinion" or provide an unrestricted forum for everyone's opinions.
In other words, a social media company has the right to decline publishing my opinion, but the government's ability to restrict what the social media company publishes is restricted by the First Amendment.
What obscures this distinction is the Big Tech platform's profit-driven fear of alienating the users they're trying to addict by clarifying what their "community standards" actually mean. It would be refreshing if social media / search platforms stated what they consider acceptable and unacceptable in clear, simple terms.
For example, "the owners and management of this site hold values generally described as (progressive, conservative, libertarian, etc.) and we have the right to decline to publish opinion and content that conflicts with our values." At least the political reality would be in plain sight rather than being cloaked by phony claims of neutrality.
It would be refreshing if a Big Tech corporation stated, "We retain the right to judge whether a comment or post offers an exposition of ideas as a step to truth or is content-free opinion of slight social value" instead of pandering to the claim that they're pursuing "free speech" rather than "free enterprise," an enterprise enriched by shouting "You're worthless, you suck!" as often as possible, to spur "engagement."
What the First Amendment clearly restricts is government censorship by proxy, that is, government "requesting" social media corporations limit what is posted based on standards selected not by the owners but by the government. I often complain about being shadow-banned, but what I'm complaining about is not the right of these platforms to refuse to publish my content; that is their right, just as it's my right to refuse to provide a public forum for everyone else to post their opinion.
What I object to is the mealy-mouthed, cowardly way the media giants hide their guidelines, out of fear of reducing their precious profits. But the First Amendment doesn't require media corporations to state their guidelines. Newspapers have the right to decline to publish opinions submitted by readers that the editors disagree with or don't want to promote, and there's no obligation for them to explain every refusal.
If we disagree with the media company's decision, then our "right to free speech" boils down to peaceful public protests or starting our own newspaper / website / platform / radio station / channel.
The concentration of media is another issue: there are negative social consequences of monopolies and cartels dominating media platforms. But that's a topic for a future essay.
https://www.oftwominds.com/photos2024/me...ation2.jpg
https://www.oftwominds.com/blogoct24/fre...10-24.html
October 30, 2024
By placing search/social media in the bucket of newspapers, radio and TV networks, perhaps we've obscured their true nature as "Digital Marketing Mechanisms."
Language is a funny thing. If we don't have a word for something, in some way it doesn't exist. When we find a word in another language that describes this something, we borrow the word, for example schadenfreude from German and tsunami from Japanese.
If we use an existing word to describe something novel, we may mis-categorize it, in effect obscuring its true nature. For example, calling a whale a "fish" makes a certain kind of sense (an animal that lives in the sea), but it doesn't capture the fact that the whale is a mammal, not a fish.
Which brings us to social media, and the possibility that it isn't actually "media" at all, and we've obscured its true nature by mis-categorizing it as "media." This distinction isn't merely academic; it has significant real-world consequences.
Let's begin with the "media" that existed when the the US Constitution was drafted and ratified. "Media" wasn't a word in usage at the time, and what we understand today as "media" was understood as "the printed word" in newspapers, flyers, posters, periodicals and books. This is the origin of the Constitution's focus on "free speech" and the "free press": Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.
The two concepts are intimately bound. Free speech includes public gatherings and oratory as well as all printed words, but the printed word attracts most of the legal wrangling around the meaning and limits of "free speech," a topic I explored in A Contrarian Clarification of "Free Speech".
The point of my post was that the constitutional definition focused on the government's restriction of free speech, not the private suppression or censorship of "free speech." As I explained, a private enterprise such as a newspaper is not obligated to provide a platform for everyone who wishes to exercise their "right to free speech." The newspaper can print whatever "letters to the editor" or "commentary" its owners / managers choose.
Now we have many other forms of media: radio, films, television and now the Internet, with its vast array of "printed" word, audio and video content.
In what we might call traditional media, the owners / managers publish / post content generated by their staff or other professional content creators: journalists, talk-show hosts, filmmakers, etc.
Social media is something different: all its content is created by its users. Yes, social media platforms have news feeds from traditional media, but this is a sideline to their core model, which is in effect a global message board that is open to any registered user. Unlike a Web1.0 message board / forum, whose audience was limited to the membership of the board / forum, social media platforms offer each user who posts content a potentially global audience.
The potential to build an audience of hundreds, thousands or even millions is addictively attractive, and so social media platforms (and their cousin, search) have billions of users.
This is novel. Is it "media" or is it something else? As I noted in my previous post, "free speech" is muddied when it comes to search and social media, as the government is limited by the Constitution in its capacity to restrict what's posted on social media, but there are few (if any) Constitutional restrictions on what private enterprises can restrict on their media outlets / platforms / search results.
Next, let's consider the revenues and data collection of traditional media and social media. Traditional media was limited to display ads in print, and the equivalent broadcast ads on radio and TV. These forms of media did not have the capacity/tools to collect reams of data on every user, and then use this data to sell adverts that target specific audiences--for example, surfers who have traveled to Southeast Asia to surf.
The resort on the beach in Indonesia will have far better results from adverts targeting surfers who have already demonstrated a willingness and ability to travel to Southeast Asia to surf compared to a broadcast advert that may theoretically reach a million people, of whom only a tiny percentage will be a target audience for the resort. The resort's marketing will pay a hefty premium for this data-rich targeted advert capability.
Search is also novel. Is it "media" or something else? Search engines purport to crawl the entire Web and present the most relevant answers / results to one's query. But this too is a data-collection revenue-creation mechanism, for the auctioning of search results--pay the search company money, and your product / service will be placed at the top of the search results--is lucrative.
This ability to target the audience based on detailed data collected on their web activity increases the value of the resulting advertising greatly. Consider the scale of digital adverts: the top three US corporations (Alphabet/Google, Meta/Facebook and Amazon) collect $320 billion in digital advertising revenues:
https://www.oftwominds.com/photos2024/di...s10-24.png
Compare this to traditional-media newspaper revenues: circulation revenue is about $11 billion and newspaper adverts, print and digital, total around $5 billion, for a total of $16 billion, roughly 5% of search/social media advert revenue.
Search/social media is free to users, but this "free access" is in effect a trade for the user data that generates a third of a trillion dollars in revenue. This "trade" also seems novel, both in form and in scale.
Would it be more accurate to describe search/social media platforms as Marketing Mechanisms that solicit user-created search/content to generate revenues rather than as "media" platforms?
The distinction is critical, for "free speech" is not a blanket carte blanche for marketing. If we remove search/social media from the category of "media" and create a new category Digital Marketing Mechanisms (DMM), then this new category necessarily requires a new regulatory structure and very different legal interpretations and protections of "free speech."
As we all know, it's very tempting for governments to "request" (or require) private-sector search/social media platforms restrict what's visible to the public to "approved" information. If a private-sector company restricts what it publishes at the "request" of the state, where are the Constitutional limits on state censorship? It seems they've been skirted by this "cooperation" of public / private power.
By placing search/social media in the bucket of newspapers, radio and TV networks, perhaps we've obscured their true nature as Digital Marketing Mechanisms, novel, complex devices more like a digital Antikythera Mechanism than an inert printed page protected as "free press."
https://www.oftwominds.com/blogoct24/soc...10-24.html
A Contrarian Clarification of "Free Speech"
October 25, 2024
A social media company has the right to decline publishing my opinion, but the government's ability to restrict what the social media company publishes is restricted by the First Amendment.
We all know what "free speech" means: it's our right to say whatever we want, whenever we want, wherever we want, as long as we're not libeling someone. Well, actually, no, that's not what "free speech" means. Here's the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
For an overview of the immense body of jurisprudence regarding the limits of "free speech," here's a good place to start: First Amendment Fundamental Freedoms Analysis and Interpretation of the U.S. Constitution.
In essence, the first amendment prohibits the federal government from "abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press," in other words, censorship. The Founders were seeking to limit the powers of the state to restrict pushback from the citizenry against state policies or decisions.
But this doesn't mean "everything is protected as 'free speech.'" For example, a drunk in a bar who shouts, "You're worthless, you suck!" at other patrons is not protected by the First Amendment.
"In Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, the Supreme Court unanimously sustained a conviction under a state law proscribing any 'offensive, derisive or annoying word addressed to any person in a public place'... 'the use in a public place of words likely to cause a breach of the peace,' words 'by their very utterance, inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. Accordingly, such utterances are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality.'"
Yet by some strange bewitchment, the "right" to shout "You're worthless, you suck!" online is now considered "protected" as "free speech." As the Court clearly stated, "free speech" is intended to protect an exposition of ideas as a step to truth, not content-free abuse.
The First Amendment does not obligate privately owned media to provide a forum for everyone to shout "You're worthless, you suck!" If the drunk wanders from the bar to the Heritage Foundation and demands they publish his "opinion," the Foundation is under no obligation to comply.
The newspaper is not obligated to print the drunk's "letter to the editor," nor is the radio station or TV network obligated to provide a forum for his "opinion."
On occasion a reader expresses discontent that I don't have a "comments forum" on my website, on the presumption that everyone paying to host a website is somehow obligated to also pay the expenses so everyone else can use their privately funded site as a public forum for their opinions.
What the First Amendment says is that government cannot restrict anyone from hosting a website, though what they post publicly is subject to Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire. Other cases reflect the Court's view that the issue with "free speech" is government actions that restrict free speech, not the right of privately owned enterprises to choose what they publish / post publicly.
My response to those expecting that a privately funded "forum" for their "opinion" is a "right": pay for your own server / website and then you can post whatever opinions you wish to. That's the limit of free speech: you're free to carry a sign in public places (with certain restrictions), publish your own newspaper, start your own website or media platform, or give speeches from soapboxes, but nothing obligates a media corporation to publish your "opinion" or provide an unrestricted forum for everyone's opinions.
In other words, a social media company has the right to decline publishing my opinion, but the government's ability to restrict what the social media company publishes is restricted by the First Amendment.
What obscures this distinction is the Big Tech platform's profit-driven fear of alienating the users they're trying to addict by clarifying what their "community standards" actually mean. It would be refreshing if social media / search platforms stated what they consider acceptable and unacceptable in clear, simple terms.
For example, "the owners and management of this site hold values generally described as (progressive, conservative, libertarian, etc.) and we have the right to decline to publish opinion and content that conflicts with our values." At least the political reality would be in plain sight rather than being cloaked by phony claims of neutrality.
It would be refreshing if a Big Tech corporation stated, "We retain the right to judge whether a comment or post offers an exposition of ideas as a step to truth or is content-free opinion of slight social value" instead of pandering to the claim that they're pursuing "free speech" rather than "free enterprise," an enterprise enriched by shouting "You're worthless, you suck!" as often as possible, to spur "engagement."
What the First Amendment clearly restricts is government censorship by proxy, that is, government "requesting" social media corporations limit what is posted based on standards selected not by the owners but by the government. I often complain about being shadow-banned, but what I'm complaining about is not the right of these platforms to refuse to publish my content; that is their right, just as it's my right to refuse to provide a public forum for everyone else to post their opinion.
What I object to is the mealy-mouthed, cowardly way the media giants hide their guidelines, out of fear of reducing their precious profits. But the First Amendment doesn't require media corporations to state their guidelines. Newspapers have the right to decline to publish opinions submitted by readers that the editors disagree with or don't want to promote, and there's no obligation for them to explain every refusal.
If we disagree with the media company's decision, then our "right to free speech" boils down to peaceful public protests or starting our own newspaper / website / platform / radio station / channel.
The concentration of media is another issue: there are negative social consequences of monopolies and cartels dominating media platforms. But that's a topic for a future essay.
https://www.oftwominds.com/photos2024/me...ation2.jpg
https://www.oftwominds.com/blogoct24/fre...10-24.html
