Copy
Webdancers

MegaphoneIf you send a message and there’s no one there to read it, was it really sent?

One of the things that got me most excited about the internet and the web back in 1995 was its openness. The idea of a decentralized communications platform with a very low cost of entry opened up an almost limitless number of possibilities. Indeed, the internet has gone on to permanently change our culture, from the way we listen to music, to delivering news, to how we market our businesses.

In those early days, everyone was a publisher and we relied on the search engines to stitch everything together. Tools were primitive and User Experience (UX) hadn’t yet been applied to the web but everyone had a more or less equal shot at getting heard. WordPress, released in 2003, said that its mission was to “democratize publishing”.

Things are very different today, aren’t they? The meteoric growth of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, et. al., lured a lot of people into social media thinking that they would have the same freedom to publish their message that existed on their own websites. In 2018 it’s become clear that this is not the case nor, perhaps, should it be. These private publishing platforms have very different objectives and responsibilities than the people and organizations that use them. Josh Marshall, in his excellent editorial A Few Thoughts About Facebook Bans and Free Speech, argues that these platforms are just creating environments that are the most advantageous to their own business.

Each of these are perfectly reasonable. They’re private companies. They’re for profit. They have a right to set certain ground rules to ensure a certain atmosphere on their platform. They can impose terms of service that prevent people from undermining their business models. Viewed more generously, they can impose terms of service that create a specific atmosphere they want for their users. The point is that there’s nothing remotely like free speech on most of these platforms in the first place. The one place where this becomes an issue is where arguably political speech verges into hate speech or menace. InfoWars has no right to be on Facebook. This seems all pretty much obvious and largely uncontested, as far as it goes.

I believe that businesses and organizations need to turn back to platforms that allow actual free speech, even when that speech is completely non political. The most obvious of these are websites and email, which are controlled by the publisher and recipient, respectively. Again, Josh Marshall:

Here’s a different way to look at the question. Infowars has been booted off Facebook, Youtube and a bunch of other platforms. But right now you can go to the InfoWars website and watch their shows to your heart’s content. Shouldn’t that be enough? TPM built up an audience over the years simply by word of mouth and reputation. That’s still how we get the great majority of our readership. That should be more than enough. Not being on Facebook just means you don’t have access to their distribution networks.

Certainly, maintain your presence on social media. It will probably get to people you could not reach otherwise. Just be clear about how their environment will change the presentation of your message, even if it’s not blocked altogether.

Until next week.

Twitter
Twitter
Facebook
Facebook
Google Plus
Google Plus
LinkedIn
LinkedIn
Website
Website
Copyright © 2018 webdancers, All rights reserved.


forward to a friend

unsubscribe from this list    update subscription preferences 

Email Marketing Powered by Mailchimp