We may have entered the next phase of social media evolution, in which the networks will have to change to meet the needs of the American market or dies.
One company has had enough of Facebook. CrossFit, the popular fitness and lifestyle program, terminated its relationship with Facebook and Instagram, citing security and privacy concerns.
CrossFit, Inc., which boasts 15,000 affiliates and millions of followers, said it was investigating alleged security problems and opposed what it called Facebook’s overwhelming influence on”the marketplace of public thought,” the fitness company said in a statement.”All activity on CrossFit, Inc.’s Facebook and Instagram accounts was suspended as of May 22, 2019, as CrossFit investigates the circumstances pertaining to Facebook’s deletion of the Banting7DayMealPlan and other well-known public complaints about the social-media company that may adversely impact the security and privacy of our global CrossFit community,” CrossFit said in a statement.
Facebook reloaded the group, but CrossFit couldn’t shake off what happened:
The group had 1.65 million users who post testimonials and shared information supporting low-carbohydrate, high-fat diets, the fitness company said.Even though the group has since been reinstated on the platform, “Facebook’s action should give any serious person reason to pause, especially those of us engaged in activities contrary to prevailing opinion,” CrossFit said.The fitness company said these actions are in line with its “tireless defense of its community against overreaching governments, malicious competitors, and corrupt academic organizations.”In addition, CrossFit, which is vocal about extolling the virtues of the brand and its contrarian identity, said it was investigating other allegations regarding the social media behemoth, including how the company “collects and aggregates user information and shares it with state and federal authorities, as well as security organizations from other countries,” and how the company “collaborates with government security agencies on massive citizen surveillance programs.”Lastly, CrossFit claimed that Facebook is “acting in the service of food and beverage industry interests by deleting the accounts of communities that have identified the corrupted nutritional science responsible for unchecked global chronic disease,” going so far as to write, “Facebook is thus complicit in the global chronic disease crisis.”
Beyond privacy concerns, social networks have strangled conservative content, especially on Facebook after Congress grilled CEO Mark Zuckerberg about posts on the platform during the 2016 election. Facebook has become so bad that co-founder Chris Hughes, who started the social media giant 15 years ago Zuckerberg, says it’s time to break up the company.
“Mark’s power is unprecedented and un-American,” Hughes wrote Thursday in an editorial in The New York Times. “It is time to break up Facebook.”His suggestion: Regulators should force Facebook to spin off Instagram and WhatsApp into separate businesses, and bar Facebook from acquisitions for several years.”Facebook would have a brief period to spin off the Instagram and WhatsApp businesses, and the three would become distinct companies, most likely publicly traded,” Hughes writes. “Facebook shareholders would initially hold stock in the new companies, although Mark and other executives would probably be required to divest their management shares.”
I couldn’t agree more. After Facebook temporarily banned several history-oriented websites, including my own, I concluded that the algorithms have significantly changed ahead of the 2020 election. I suspect there more changes will occur, likely to stymie President Donald Trump’s successful social media team from being as effective as they were in 2016.
I want to share with you a glimpse of life under Facebook’s rules for those who do not adhere to its train of thought. I administer a page that follows news related to Trump. Facebook’s band of social justice activists have now generated a “Group Quality” a menu option.
Facebook’s team then sends out warnings about memes, videos, or posts that it deems as “fake.” Even if that item is a satire piece..shared because it is a satire piece that everyone chuckled over.
The problem with this approach is that Facebook uses these “warnings” to threaten pages such as mine with limitations, restrictions on membership, and other penalties designed to prevent us from reaching new audiences or supporting the members we already have.
Terry Lee Ebert Mendozza, a founding member of Trumpettes USA, has found herself on the frontlines of this struggle.
Free speech according to Facebook, only belongs to far-left liberals. I would love to know whom (if ever anyone) on the left has been censored in this way.
I would argue that social media’s algorithms and rules are too secretive, too selective, and pose a danger to our democracy. And I do not buy the argument that “there are other options” either. The tech giants have used their enormous wealth to seal off effective competition.
Today’s social media platforms will have a significant influence in the 2020 election, at a level which is much more disturbing than anything from Russia or China. It has become apparent no conservative target is too small to contain and control.
Facebook, Twitter, and other “platforms” have long given-up the pretense of being anything other than a publisher and promoter of progressive content. I hope it is not too late to break up the monopolies, change the designations, and explore additional information sharing options before we vote in 2020.
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