Content Control on Social Media

“Social media was, in a sense, a way to bring the oral tradition to the written world: a living discourse of our personal histories as it happened, recorded in the way we chose suited the narrative best” (Friske, T. 2018.)

Despite still some truth in this quote, we are now discovering ways to mask our reality with what we want people to see.’

Our lives tend to be on constant revision now, as we only seem to post what we think the world wants to see. Since the launch of the new algorithms on social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, we find that our history is no longer linear. We only see posts from people that we may have recently engaged with, have more ‘likes’ or we are infiltrated with an ad tailored to our interests.

The content that we post is now controlled by the social media algorithms, strategically sharing our posts to those who engage with us more. This sometimes has negative affects some individuals professional jobs. For example, if an art page’s posts are only being viewed by 20% of their following, that is not very good for their business and their growth.

Secondly, companies are now exploiting this algorithm to reach consumers in very interesting ways. Celebrities with high following are being paid to promote certain products because more people will see these posts.

Content control is now an important factor in social media thanks to it’s new and constantly changing algorithms that share posts and ads relevant to you, as well as being used as a tool to promote products by companies.

Remediation:

Source: Friske, T. 2018. This Isn’t About Social Media. This is About Control. Medium. Access: https://medium.com/tootsuite/this-isnt-about-social-media-this-is-about-control-112dea8a21fd