“We can’t have a decent society, we can’t have people with their own volition, we can’t have a society that progresses, we can’t have a society based on empathy or kindness, if people are being manipulated from some central source, no matter what type of source that is.”

– Jaron Lanier

Special comment: On the same day that I published this quick dive into the most popular virtual interfacing networks, the CEOs of Facebook, Tiktok, X, Snap, and Discord testified in front of the US Congress. On the docket was the companies’ response to the sharp rise of online sexual exploitation of children and youth. In attendance were families of youth who had self-harmed or committed suicide. There was even a surreal moment when Mark Zuckerberg was asked to “say something” and apologize to the families seated behind him. You could see his hesitation as he struggled with the Senator’s request – acquiesce and admit wrong, or stay put and appear inhuman? He landed somewhere in the middle, issuing about as appropriate an apology as you can get in such a setting, without accepting any ownership of responsibility.

My post was not planned to coincide with this event. And this is not the first nor the last time these online heads of states will be summoned to legislative assemblies to defuse tensions around growing crises relating to social media usage. As Jaron Lanier describes in the video I had shared, the fundamental architecture of these systems will ensure these outcomes. Modern tech moguls, many of them founders and builders of this fundamental architecture, are brilliant developers and marketers. But they are not saviors. To imbue them with power and expect them to “regulate culture” as Lanier puts it, is an abdication of public responsibility. The profit motive is hardly the stalwart steward of great philosophy, governance, and ethics. It will not safeguard society. That is the public’s task, to be undertaken free from invasive surveillance and ruined edifices.

Another video shared here for those interested in further exploration of the topics discussed in the post:

 
(12:28-18:52 is a succinct summary of the crux of the issue.)

This week’s collection:

• A Circular Motion: Protest, what is it good for?
• Prisoners in the US are part of a hidden workforce linked to hundreds of popular food brands
• Trees struggle to ‘breathe’ as climate warms, researchers find
• Can Divestment Campaigns Still Work?
• Why You’ve Never Been In A Plane Crash

Note that only excerpts (often introductory) are quoted. For full text (and context) or video, please view the original piece.

Further reading for those interested in social media, the tech industry’s power, or surveillance:

• When dead children are just the price of doing business, Zuckerberg’s apology is empty
• The illusion of closeness: how social media redefined respect
• The Rise of Techno-Authoritarianism
• How Surveillance Is Changing Our Most Intimate Relationships

Notes on the ongoing Gaza conflict, and its interpretations:

• The Fog of War Crimes
• Rubble from Bone
• The Zone of Interest Is Much More Than a Holocaust Film