If you search any photo repository for the term “social media,” you will find thousands of images of smiling people, of a carefree world in which communication between people has created a kind of media paradise, a happy society. The reality is somewhat different from that image, perhaps inherited from past times. The Internet has become an increasingly strange place for everyone. Finding what you want, despite the meteoric and apparent effectiveness of the search engine, is becoming more and more difficult. Divisive, hate speeches, polarization, scams, fake news and, now, fake photographs and videos that look real are beginning to turn the public arena into a place of distrust. How did we get here? It has a solution?
Six years ago, a report by the Royal Society for Public Health in the United Kingdom concluded that “social media is more addictive than tobacco and alcohol” and revealed that rates of anxiety and depression among young British people had increased by 70 % in the last 25 years. In the globalized world, the United Kingdom is not an island. The work, prepared by experts, related these problems to the use of these platforms, which they attributed to having created new cognitive biases that affect both young people and adults.
On social networks, the situation has worsened in recent months. X, the platform that one day was called Twitter, today offers chronological lines of messages full of irrelevant publications that turn machaconally around issues that, in many cases, are not the interest of the owner of an account. The algorithm takes us where it wants and Elon Musk is its shepherd.
Social networks have never been charities that responded to the interests of idealistic internet pioneers like the inventor of the web, Tim Berners-Lee, a supporter of a free space for communication. The platforms that communicate with us globally have behind them companies in the hands of shareholders – or an impulsive owner like Musk – who do not have among their objectives to connect people. Their legitimate goal is to make money. What can become illegitimate is the way in which it is achieved.
“We are at a point where the idealistic expectations of the beginning of social networks have been far removed. The expectation has been surpassed by reality and we have become aware of some of its negative effects,” says Ferran Lalueza, professor of Communication Sciences at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC).
Scandals for bad practices dot the history of Facebook, now within the Meta matrix. “We are in the hands – Lalueza notes – of a few people who do not act guided by the common interest and who do so out of the desire for profit, if not by instinct and whim.” As has happened with X, “algorithms and things as consolidated as the number of followers and interactions can change from one day to the next.” In this context, having payment accounts can make a difference.
Although they depend on private companies, which almost always act without control, their social reach is so widespread that part of the communication of public powers is linked to social networks. “When there is a disruptive technology that is not regulated, little by little we are looking for ways to put control on it,” explains Luis Miller, doctor in Sociology and senior scientist at the Institute of Policies and Public Goods of the CSIC, who observes that “ “This is not what is happening with the networks.”
“The states are in tow and use the networks like any other citizen,” he points out. As a result of the interaction that networks seek to obtain more data from each user to offer segmented advertising, polarization increases and an erroneous feeling of closeness is created between administration and citizens, although in the physical world the problems remain the same.
“This mistake – points out Josep Lluís Micó, professor of Journalism at the Ramon Llull University – has been made by almost everyone.” “Many companies and institutions have lightly indulged in promoting their communication through social networks and, when they adjust their algorithms, they run the risk of being irrelevant.” In any case, it must be noted that there are no companies or institutions that do not have a website that can cover some of the most basic needs.
Networks are now exploring new subscription paths. Musk has been desperately trying to get a critical mass of users to join his premium service for a year and has just announced two new payment methods while starting a new one-dollar annual payment experience in New Zealand and the Philippines, justified as a way to combat bots – accounts managed by software.
For its part, Meta now plans to charge its users in the European Union about 13 euros per month for using Facebook or Instagram, a formula with which it hopes – possibly wrongly – to circumvent the EU's imposition that the receipt of advertisements Personalized can only be optional.
If you pay, you avoid advertising. If not, they will track you in your digital life so that, with the data, they will sell you ads. Although this approach seems aimed at avoiding pressure from regulators, since subscriptions could not compensate for the high income they obtain from the advertising market.
Lalueza observes about social networks that, “if anything has been demonstrated during their short history, it is that they need regulation.” “Public administrations – he indicates – have begun to understand the need to regulate, although sometimes they fall short of exercising real control.” It must be considered that these platforms “are very powerful de facto powers and the Administration is in tow of reality.” “Understanding reality, there has been a certain carelessness and negligence when it comes to regulating and controlling.”
An idea that is raised in some forums is that administrations have some intervention mechanism, ruling out the fact that there are social networks created from the public sector.
Miller believes that “a public social network would generate a lot of rejection from people who, on the other hand, have no problem giving up all their data to certain private companies.” “The states – he emphasizes – have been very late. The way to approach a solution is more regulation than direct participation.” In any case, she believes that everything "looks bad" and points out that "we are far from being able to put a stop to the most negative effects" of social networks, such as their influence on the suicide rates of young women.
Micó notes that, in addition to administrative regulations, “it is important to enhance the self-awareness, responsibility, and maturity of citizens.” “If they deceive me once, it is the fault of the one who deceives me; If they cheat on me fifty times, it's my fault,” he concludes.
Although we drag the negative effects of the maximum profit business model and the addictive nature of networks, public control and user awareness are presented as urgent needs.
