10 Things You Might Not Know About Social Media

1. Sponsored content is not always sponsored

That #ad you saw an influencer post on Instagram about a new pair of boots may not actually be sponsored. There has been a rising trend among social media influencers to make fake sponsored content posts that were not contracted by brands. This presents the illusion that the influencer has more clout than they actually have, and is a technique for securing more paid advertising in the future. The reasoning behind it is if a company sees what they think is another brand paying for the influencer’s services, there is a better chance the influencer can secure more sponsorship. This topic was explored in Taylor Lorenz’s essay, “Rising Instagram Stars are Posting Fake Sponsored Content” in The Atlantic.

2. Fake news isn’t a new concept

Despite what former President Donald Trump may claim, he did not come up with the concept of fake news. In fact, the concept has been around for more than 50 years and has been perfected in the social media age by Russia. As the New York Times documented with its video Operation Infektion, fake news is slowly and methodically infecting the world. It plays the long game by wrapping one big lie around elements of truth, and then allowing that to circulate over months and even years. In the 1980s, a lie made up by the KGB about AIDS being invented in a lab in the United States even made its way onto the nightly news with Dan Rather. The advent of social media has supercharged this process, with Russian bots spreading fake news about everything from the Black Lives Matter protests to the Jan. 6 riot.

3. Facebook doesn’t have your best interest in mind

OK, so this may not come as much of a surprise, but the degree of some of the company’s morally crooked decisions may. Thanks to whistleblower Frances Haugen, a lot of the company’s seedy decisions have come to light. One of which is how the company silenced victims of genocide in Myanmar. On Feb. 5, 2019, Facebook banned four Ethnic Armed Organizations (EAOs) while in open conflict with the Myanmar military (Tatmadaw), who at the same time was being prosecuted for genocide. The EAOs were posting to Facebook pictures of what the Tatmadaw were doing to the people of Myanmar, but these violated the platform’s policies on graphic images. Facebook’s lack of representation in the region and black-and-white interpretation of its own rules quelled the ability of the EAOs to connect with national and international stakeholders, consequently silencing the victims of genocide. The company also is woefully understaffed with respect to content moderators who speak the language and, more importantly, understand the many cultural context clues

4. Human bots are swaying public opinion

Most people have heard of bots on social media. Bots are software algorithms that can be programmed to do a task. They became synonymous with fake accounts on platforms like Facebook and Twitter, but over time they became easy to identify. This meant they could be ignored by users or purged by platforms, thus preventing them from their goal of swaying public opinion. Now, however, there are armies of people paid to act like bots online — referred to as trolls or decks. As many as 30,000 people operating millions of accounts can get a topic trending in an hour. Interestingly enough, Mexico was used as a testing ground for these methods that are now becoming more popular in the U.S. and Russia.

5. Companies are exploiting you for free labor

People are encouraged to share their data through self-tracking platforms that put a premium on likes and followers, standout performance or gamification. This creates a form of digital colonialism in which companies then profit off of this information. This views data as a byproduct of people’s lives that cannot be owned, much like the air people exhale. Big Data justifies its actions by framing the work people do to create posts or disseminate other personal information as “just sharing.” This personal information is viewed as a raw material that is readily available and potentially valuable. Corporations such as Google, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent claim they are the only ones capable of processing such data and thus can make society a better place through this process — much like how those who perpetrated colonialism in the historical sense claimed it was a “civilization” project.

6. Social media is designed to infiltrate our brains

Social media has been very cleverly engineered to attack specific shortcomings in our minds. The human brain has its limitations and social media platforms know this. Social media uses persuasive technology to make everything seem urgent while encouraging empty searching. It forces multitasking, preys on our fears and anxieties, encourages constant social comparisons and reinforces confirmation bias. None of this is by accident; there are specific receptors in our brains that make us susceptible to distraction from triggers, like red dots, notifications or vibrations. The smartphone revolution has made it so we’re always a push notification away from getting sucked down a sponsored content rabbit hole.

7. The algorithms that power social media can have the same biases as the people who design them

Algorithmic bias can take many forms. It can be data that reflects existing biases; unbalanced classes in training data; data that doesn’t capture the right value; data amplified by a feedback loop; and data that is maliciously attacked or manipulated. Algorithms are only as strong as the data training it. If an algorithm only has a limited amount of data to work off, it can produce inaccurate results. The same is true if the information is biased. An example of this has been seen in facial recognition technology being biased toward people of color. Because of design flaws in training the algorithm, there have been instances where the software doesn’t recognize people of color as easily as it does white people.

8. Micro-celebrities are making an impact on YouTube

Micro-celebrities are social media users that present themselves as public personas to be consumed by audiences, which they regard as their fans. The term can refer to not just the person themself, but also the way they gather influence and position their status. The concept is adopted from celebrity culture, albeit with less resources and privileges, as well as a niche audience. Micro-celebrities are making inroads on political channels that are positioning them as more credible than mainstream media. They do this by stressing relatability, authenticity and accountability in claiming that the mainstream media silences opposing opinions and sensationalizes the news.

9. Identity propaganda is being used to erode the power of politicians

Identity propaganda are narratives that strategically target and exploint identity-based differences along the lines of already existing power structures to maintain hegemonic social orders. This is done through othering, essentializing and authenticating narratives. Othering narratives alienate and marginalize non-dominant groups, while essentializing narratives create generalizing tropes of marginalized groups. Authenticating narratives, meanwhile, call out people to prove their claims to be part of a certain group. This was seen during the 2020 presidential election with Kamala Harris, the first African-American and Asian-American vice president.

10. Influencers are finding new ways to monetize themselves

Digital content creators are coming up with new revenue streams by monetizing every aspect of their lives. For example, on an app called NewNew, fans can vote in polls to control some of the everyday decisions of the influencer. This can include what kind of clothes they should wear or where they should go, creating a real-life choose-you-own adventure game. Another new platform, PearPop, allows fans to pay for interactions with influencers. For example, for $250, TikTok star Griffin Johnson will comment on your video. Then there are nonfungible tokens (NFTs), items of digital art and media that are exclusively online. Even though there is nothing physically owned, the market for them is quickly growing.