I was browsing on a social media website today, and one person was outraged that 'over half of the posts have been removed'. That comment sparked me thinking about the ideas and parallels between 2021 and 1881. I know that seems like a very long time ago. I've thought for a long time about the ascendency of the cult of money and status happening within the confines of a revolution. In 1881 it was railroads. It seems antiquated today to talk about railroads as some miracle technology which transformed an economy, and became a culture in itself. In 1881 that's what railways were. In 2021, if I talk about technology, we all know I'm referring to electronic technology. It's a miracle that is transforming an economy, and it is certainly becoming a culture unto itself.
The Gilded Age (generally from 1881 - 1905) refers not only to the number of millionaires which arose during the period - many involved in owning or financing railroads, but also to the idea of gilt (a thin layer of gold) over the top of widespread grinding poverty, political corruption, labor unrest, and problems with ethnicity, race, and immigration. Building railroads and all the industries which fed them sparked innovation and invention in all areas of the economy as well as severely punishing other economical endeavors. Substitute the word 'technologies' for the word railroads in the previous sentence, and suddenly it's 140 years ago. This rather all sounds familiar, doesn't it? I wonder how our age will be designated by the historians?
So back to the outrage on the social media website. There seems to be some expectation the social media platforms are public forums. This is totally false. There is very little social media regulation. According to an article I read on a website called TechCrunch, there are four bodies of government which could possibly regulate social media: (1) The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) actually regulates communication, but has no authority over what is communicated. It's concerned with infrastructure. (2) State Legislatures are attempting social media regulation coming at it from the concerns over privacy and use of a person's data. California and Illinois have enacted laws aimed at regulating what's said over social media, and how the social media giants can use information. (3) Congress. Well, Congress is a day late and a dollar short. They dropped the ball when social media got rolling because Congress is filled with people who realized much too late the power of this new economy. Think old white/black/hispanic guys. Out of touch and out of date and so mired in gridlock, the tech giants are gleeful. (4) International law - social media doesn't stop at borders. However, the chaos of getting international regulations concerning privacy and metadata hammered out make a unified standard of regulation just about laughable.
Wake up! When you 'post', you do so at the sufferance of the company which owns your social media of choice. Facebook/Twitter/WhatsAp/NextDoor/YouTube/Tumblr/ WeChat/Pinterest/TikTok etc, etc, etc (and this list currently numbers in the hundreds) are all recognizable denizens of the social media world. These companies can use and remove anything on their websites at their sole discretion. (Google, in fact, owns this blog - since I use the app Blogger, which is their creation.) Screaming 'censorship' and 'privacy' and 'freedom of information' is hogwash because these mega companies are not really regulated by anyone. There's no oversight. There's no grievance process. Here we have freewheeling capitalism at both its best and its worst.
For many years, there have been rumblings and outright shouts about too much government. A significant number of citizens want less regulation and less oversight at every governmental level. Social media companies LOVE this. It makes the majority owners of these companies the most powerful people in the world. One thing I've always known: Rich people take care of themselves. They only think about the public good when forced to by responsible government.
2021 - Welcome to the New Gilded Age!
I think this slogan could definitely catch on. What do you think?
