Facebook Ban Proves The Medium Really Is The Message
– By Ed Kociela –
Social media, that fickle, wicked siren wooed by wannabes and street hustlers, dealt another losing hand to POTUS former the other day when Facebook announced that the next time he could post on the platform would be in January 2023 at the earliest.
I am sure that when Mark Zuckerberg came up with the idea of a cyber platform where his college buddies could hang out all those years ago the thought of how powerful, how influential, how complicated it would all be never crossed his mind.
I’m sure he never considered 1st Amendment issues or the monetary growth until, well friends of friends of friends wanted in on the then cyber underground where the young could gather in a world of their own. And, I am sure he had no clue as to how any lives he would touch on a daily basis.
Of course, that was when TheFacebook launched on Feb. 4, 2004 and had an audience limited to the Harvard campus. Today? Facebook can claim nearly 3 billion active users each month. Chances are you landed here, as a matter of fact, by clicking on a Facebook link, or the last time you visited with grandma was probably via a Facebook chat or messenger vid.
I’m sure he never envisioned two presidential candidates extensively using and manipulating it to win the Oval Office and I guarantee that he never dreamed of kicking a sitting president off of the platform. But, they did and he did. If nothing else, it brings clarity to the prescience of Marshall McLuhan and his brilliant observation that “The medium is the message.”
It wasn’t as universally understandable back when McLuhan coined the phrase in 1964, but it has become undeniably clear that in the exploding world of communications, the means by which a message is conveyed should be examined far more than the message itself, critical advice, especially with the proliferation of false-flag, click-bait media developed specifically to agitate, whether turned from the left or right.
There is much to criticize about Facebook, mostly related to its inconsistent policies. But, you cannot put the rap there when it comes to political bias. Facebook has been fairly lenient, allowing political content over the years that has been specious at best. What got POTUS former kicked off had nothing to do with politics or the Big Lie, it had to do with encouraging violent and unlawful acts. Facebook’s decision was not based in liberal or conservative ideology, it was made in the interest of decency, and for that, the penultimate social platform, as well as Twitter and YouTube, which also banned the guy, should be applauded. There are those, of course, who get all red in the face, barking about censorship and a violation of the 1st Amendment. The simple fact that they do not comprehend is that the marvelous 1st Amendment does not apply in this situation. This is Mark Zuckerberg’s baby and if he decides one day to only allow posts and comments about unicorns and calico kittens, it is his right. Likewise, if he decided to throw full support behind a certain candidate, regardless of party affiliation, that is also his right. The only time the 1st Amendment comes into the picture is when the government intervenes.
Even then, the public ultimately decides.
That’s what is also a double dagger for POTUS former these days. After he was kicked to the curb by Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube he set out on his own, offering up a blogsite. It was an utter failure, forced to shut down after only 29 days for lack of interest. The numbers just weren’t there. The MAGAs did not flock to the blog as predicted for his screeds and it got to be way too expensive to maintain, which is also why you will, most likely, never see a social media platform created by POTUS former. He just doesn’t have the cash, allies, or acumen to start one up and if he tried to purchase an existing platform, the price would immediately jump into the stratosphere and empty his wallet.
Still, the field is growing.
You have your top five sites – Facebook, YouTube, What’sApp, Facebook Messenger, and Instagram – that are pretty firmly entrenched, but there are also a ton of newcomers flexing plenty of muscle like TikTok, Reddit, Pinterest, Twitter, and a ton of others finding their niche in cyber space and you can believe the marketeers, analysts, and scholars are scrubbing the numbers daily to learn how to profit from use of those sites. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/21-most-popular-social-media-095917059.html It’s a science these days and the formula for success is a moving target with a narrowing bullseye. The old standards of circulation numbers has been replaced by clicks and clever, attention-getting headlines have been replaced by clever, attention-getting SEOs and hashtags. Everything is local and nothing is local. The second this column posts, it is as accessible in St. George, Queensland, Australia as it is in St. George, Utah, USA. The Independent? Is it the one published in London or Southern Utah? The world of communications, which McLuhan wrote about so precisely, has become that large and become that small. That’s why the medium becomes important, why it should be studied as deeply as the message because of the context, the culture, the purpose.
We are all small players in this world of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and the rest of them, but we are also a part of those worlds, which underscores how important it is that the medium itself, and how it conducts itself, should always be viewed with a scrupulous eye. That’s why Facebook’s decision is so important, why it matters, why we should view it from every available angle because it is made up of all of these seemingly disconnected bits and pieces.
So, with apologies to McLuhan, the medium is the sausage.
We all like it, but no one wants to know how it’s made.
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