The last couple of years, big Social Media platforms face scrutiny from governments and the public despite their great quest trying to create a social and connected world.

In the beginning everybody applauded the greatness they represented. Now, it seems that the mood has changed. Some claims that this initially great social network is now the source of psychological disturbed and anti-social children, disconnected from the real world and disconnected from real social interaction.

Others claim that social media is producing jerks who are losing their free will, participating in a quest to undermine the truth, and is making politics impossible.

Is the social media using addictive game theories to create online dopamine responses for the purpose of commercial interests?

It would be very important to find out whether Social Media is a good thing or bad thing for our society. What do the facts say about the digital social media platforms?

Can we find facts that conclude that the online Social media is a great thing, or do we have anything that can conclude the opposite?

Let’s try to find out!

The wave

The movies with the names The Wave and Die Welle, is a small learning experience for those who are interested in politics. The purpose of the movie is exploring the importance of what type of society we want to pursue.

Should we pursue a fascist regime or a democratic; the social society or the individualist society?

The most important aspect of the movie is that the powers of a social group are amplified through discipline, equality and a common purpose.

In the beginning of the movie everybody feels great about being equal, and that the comradeship within the group is increasing participation due to these simple social rules of engagement. Logos and body-signs bonds the group together, and they promote the group to increase the number of members and thereby intensify the opinions and ideas shared by the group.

The movie explores a social experiment that has unintentional consequences due to some very simple facts:

• Being a part of a social network makes you feel good
• Being lonely makes you miserable

This is not revolutionary facts, and should be unnecessary to mention. But the movie explores something deeper; the feeling of being equal to the members of the group, and sharing equal ideas with a common purpose – with discipline and collective efforts the group is stronger together.

This is the great thing about the story. The feeling of equality makes it possible for some people to create a collective idea, where ideas outside of this collective are suppressed. This further promotes the collective idea to external non-members, and suppresses the individual idea. All arguments opposing the collective idea are rejected because of the collective strength behind it.

The movie shows how the collective amplifies the belief that their idea is the right one, and everybody else is wrong. This is not very unlike than differences in religion. It is impossible to believe in Jesus, if you believe in Mohamed; they will certainly reject the existence of the opposite prophet.

When some members with an obscured extremist mentality suddenly are empowered by this collective manifestation, things might easily go wrong.

At some point the movie raises the important question:

Is the collective idea a better idea than the individual idea

This is a very interesting question, and we have provided a great answer to this through our democracy.

The individual

The democracy is promoting the individual idea. Our democracy is actually the manifestation of the need for individual performance. The purpose for the democracy is to provide participation through money, ownership and freedom. If you have no voice you are not free, but our democracy is trying to provide everybody with this voice.

The idea is that everybody’s individual opinion and performance has greater value than the collective opinion and performance.

The origins of democracies, can be understood by historical records describing the hardship of trying to survive difficult environmental conditions. The group could not do this without the individual performance. In such communities the woman often had an equal voice to the man, because the man knew that cooperation was the only way to survive. Together the group quickly understood that the individual must be rewarded for their performance. If you perform great, you are rewarded accordingly. If you are a freeloader, you might be excluded.

Everybody living in a democracy loves to participate in heated discussions. When joining these events, some might suddenly burst out with an ingenious statement that makes all the others seem like primal apes compared to the speaker. Despite the fact that some might feel inferior to others, they still nod approvingly to the fact that someone had a better idea.

The power of the individual is far greater than the power of the group. Everywhere in our society we can observe this simple fact. The inventors of our past have had such great influence over our current society that it is fairly simple to conclude the following:

The individual mind is of greater importance than any collective mind-set

I think everybody understand that this is what makes democracies so powerful. Because the group tell you that you are important because you are different, and that you should pursue this difference even if you fail in doing so.

When many people believe that it is so much more fun in a group, why are the individual so important?

Evolution of the individual

The reason for the power behind this mind-set is proven by Darwin’s theory. It is not a coincidence that this is the greatest evolutionary theory of our time.

If the individual is pursued, we can harvest the great ideas that are spurred from great individuals. This process is exactly the same when we pursue it in our gardens and suddenly some individual plant seems to produce far better berries than the others.

Then the question about the individual or the crowd arises again:

Should we squash the remaining berries, or the one that suddenly stands out as the most efficient one?

Usually we do not kill any berries, but replant the great performers to explore their properties. We know that killing the remaining berries are not a good idea, because the initial observation is not necessarily true. But there are no rules or laws with regards to berries.

For the human crowds the situation is very different. We cannot squash anyone because it violates our laws who are supporting all individuals. But the arguments exist because we are living on a planet where the rules of genetics are defining the existence of all life.

But a very important question remains.

Is the experiment called Digital Social Media a fascist movement trying to create dominating and collective ideas, and thereby suppressing individuals?

The social media

The social media is trying to “connect the world”.  This basically means creating groups of people and connecting people with equal ideas and purposes.

The fact is very clear:

People with different ideas and purposes does not create socially interconnected groups.

This fact makes us understand that strong individuals will not be a part of these groups, because they believe in their own voice, not others.

So, the fact is supporting the argument that Digital Social Media is guaranteed to create groups of people with the intention to share ideas, and purposely try to enhance them through engagement, equality, discipline and collective efforts.

This makes it possible to create movements, where the power of the group is dominating, and their leader very often gets an autocratic and powerful position. This is a very dangerous situation, since individuals are outnumbered and suppressed.

It would still be highly probable that individuals are creating a group due to his individual purpose. But if the individual uses the group for the purpose of suppression, violence, or any other form of group mentality suppression mechanisms, it is not very different than being suppressed by any other despot.

It is only through democratic means, the real strength of a group membership is exercised due to the fact that it is done through rules, laws, communication and agreements that support the individual thought.

In such a setting, the individual need to convince people that what they do is correct, and everybody else is not. Such arguments must be proven through normal scientific measures.

Suppressing the individual

Some would argue that there are some strange things going on, when the capitalists are monetizing a socialistic system, opposing individual goals. This is contradictory to the strength of our monetary system, since the individual goals are the origin of our monetary system in the first place.

The business is usually a manifestation of one person’s strength and purpose. It is a major contradiction that someone is creating a business that is opposing the individual.

We all know that some of our greatest defeats in history happened when huge groups of people started to eradicate the individual. Most likely some of these individuals in question were rich people. But the disastrous outcome of wars is usually a brutal suppression mechanism for the benefit of the group. This is actually an eradication of evolutionary principles, and is a strange phenomenon only existing in the human world.

We do know that these suppression mechanisms usually occur when the successful individuals are lost, after some generations. Today, some vital mechanisms ensuring individual efforts are removed, and some would say that the American dream (not only American) has effectively become a sucker’s game.

The curse of bigness, was once described when the able men and women disappeared in Ayn Rands famous book called Atlas Shrugged! It is very interesting that the rich still believe that the book was written about them, and not the successful individuals who shapes our world. Those who now are lost, and won’t appear unless the system once more will support the individual.

In a challenging future where our monetary system might face problems, the availability of Social Media platforms where people can create globally dominating groups can be a danger to any form of government.

Some might think that the groups can destabilize dictatorships and communistic regimes and form new democracies. This seems to be a strange conclusion, since the democracy is supporting the strength of the individual for the benefit of the group.

Anti-social media

It would be reasonable to believe that if we have a social media supporting the group, we would have equally strong systems opposing it through structures supporting the individual.

We do not have an Anti-social media, for reasons obvious for the individual. A strong individual will not engage in huge social systems or anti-social systems for that matter.

Some functions like blogs and distributed media systems are supporting the thoughts and actions of the individual. But they are effectively suppressed because the digital social media systems had an exponential growth, and is still increasing the centralized idea by implementing functions like commercials, news and support functions for the group. People who believe in a centralized system, should also be aware that centralized systems are suppressing the individuals and marginalize those who are not a part of it.

Disturbingly, these centralized functions make it possible to create news based on fiction and lies, the traditional way to influence the collective mind in specific directions.

This enhances the group or the already rich and powerful who profits on stupefying group mentalities. They probably do not understand that the origin to our (their) current assets is suppressed; the individual.

The outcome of this imbalance is currently unknown, but we have some historical evidence that will give support to a correct answer.

Why?

If it is true that social media is disturbing the mind, creating psychological problems, single minded group mentalities and suppression of the selfish individual – why is everybody using it? And why is everybody is talking so positively about these platforms?

Facts are always unclear when it comes to feelings, because causality cannot be used in conjunction with them. But a psychologist would understand why, but probably without any direct conclusions.

All psychological evidence makes the group attractive. They represent a bond it feels great to be a part of. Even if you are not part of it, but are only one amongst many pictures or contacts in a group, you will feel as if you are a part of the group. Sometimes you get a message from someone and everybody writes something positive about this, a gesture that solidifies the positivity to be a part of this group.

The spy factor, where you actually think that you are a part of people’s lives is another feature that makes people feel so good about the platforms. Happiness through visual feedback, without the understanding that what everybody see is not real; merely a happy distortion of the ordinary life everybody has.

All these feelings, are exactly why the social platforms are dangerous. Because they do represent feelings in the communal hive. Feelings who do not follow the law of causality.

These platforms are now used by dominant figures, the already rich and famous, and more disturbingly politicians, who feeds on these group mentalities and feelings.

Fashion industries solidifies their global financial strength through these platforms, using the cheapest alternative for commercial benefit. Young V-Loggers are made to believe that they can be millionaires by creating commercials for these companies, without the understanding that the alternative for the big corporations would be extremely expensive commercials on television or physical touring campaigns. Things that actually benefits people through good salaries and work are now marginalized by teenagers who think they follow the path to heaven.

But still they believe that the platforms are great and will give you great opportunities, because anyone can make it if they use the internet to promote themselves. But the opposite is more likely to be true, since the easy way is to sell the dream others have created.

This dream is a part of the delusion of greatness in being on the social platform!

At some point, what people believe to be a great thing might turn against them. Because the group marginalize the individual. The individual will have to increase its effort to further marginalize others to promote his ideas in competition to those who marginalize people with an extraordinary precision in the first place.

We can see this happening today. Some companies are global machines that thrive by marginalizing people. When the products cannot be marginalized because of increasing material costs, what is left is the human cost. These costs does not seem to have any limits on the low side. It seem to be an evil circle where lower product costs makes it possible to further decrease human costs, and again reduce the product cost.

This will not promote a global society, but oppose it. Because eventually those individuals who have resources will lose it to the group. In traditional causality evaluations, we will be able to understand that the group will be weaker, and where the end result is an increased group mentality and thus an increased suppression of the individual.

We are living in a time where the choice is simple; stay on the old ship before it hits the iceberg, or embark on the new-built automated zero-energy ship destined for the future.

The latter, requires a lot of money and determination! But the most interesting prospect is probably – who will build the new ship?

Who is John Galt?

Conclusion

It is reasonable to understand that the power of the individual and the power of the group have two naturally occurring functions in our society. The group is strong when they support the individual. The individual cannot gain strength without the group.

This means that there is a balance to this system where the democracy who represents the group, is supporting the individual so that they can exploit the individual strengths for the purpose of the group. This system is well known and is called “teamwork”, even if the dominating individual is an egoistic selfish ass-hole.

Is Digital Social Media a governing system, like our business ventures or democracies? It is reasonable to believe that this is not the case since they do not have any laws, and therefore lack structures that support the individual.

Their construct is merely a social network, where the groups can roam freely without any governing principles.

The current facts with regards to this are the following:

• Being social, is a mutual interaction of actions and reactions, where the reactions influences the actions, and causality might be a result of good interaction
• Digital social media is detached from causality, since reactions is detached from the actions, and the actions are detached from the feedback through reactions
• If there is no causality in the social interaction, there are no social interaction
• If there are no social interaction, the group will be likely to suppress the individual

These facts make the Digital Social Media to a potential hidden disruption to our current society, because it is not a social system but a system that disturbs the strength of the individual and democratic principles.

If you cannot respond properly to the wave of stupefying comments or news, you cannot influence the social structure, and the system is effectively a system that suppresses your voice and thus your freedom. Some will argue differently, but even if it enhances the voice of some people who needs to be heard in some rare cases, these are the exceptions rather than the norm, because the group is the main driver of the system.

But it is still difficult to establish as a fact that digital social media is a bad thing. And it is difficult to establish as a fact that digital social media is a good thing. Many people argue that it is a great thing, due to the good feeling of being a part of a social network.

But the current facts have enlightened some aspects with digital social media that makes it very probable that the digital social media is biased towards “big trouble”. It is a sucker’s game where the individual loose and the collective movements are getting a dangerous momentum.

I believe that some groups of people, minorities or individuals, should be watchful of what lies ahead if these groups get bigger and stupidity becomes the mantra.

At some point it can be difficult to stop them.

Then, they will move fast and break everything.

Everything!

 

Notes about Copyright Infringement

Most of the social media platforms have a strange clause in their privacy policy. This usually include a statements like: «What kinds of information do we collect?», «How do we use this information?», «How is this information shared?».

If you have only basic knowledge about Copyrights, you will be able to understand that they have no legal rights to collect any information about your communications and what you do on their platform. If this platform enables you to make the information publicly available, they are violating your Copyright, unless you have explicitly accepted this unlawful behavior. This usually requires your signature, not an accept button on an internet page.

The reason is one indisputable fact:

All communication and pictures on social media is covered by the Copyright Laws

The copyright legislation of countries such as England, Australia and the United States (to name just three) specifically protects ‘literary and artistic’ works, as well as musical and performed works.

We have recently seen in the «The Pirate Bay» case that platforms who share pictures, movies, books and other copyrighted material can be prosecuted, even if they only indirectly is participating in the copyright infringement. This case is very similar to the social media platforms. The only difference is that they don’t do it indirectly; they do it by fooling you to believe that they are allowed to sell the information that is your copyrighted ownership through a privacy policy notice.

Remember that there is a huge difference in the words «Sharing», and «Selling». The expression «to share», is conveying that you can use something for free through sharing, opposed to purchasing through a monetary transition. If a company indirectly or directly participates in Copyright infringement and they profit on this infringement, they must deliver back the entire profits of this infringement to the owner(s) of this material.

It is vital to understand that the Copyright with regards to letters and communication belongs to the receiver, and that the entire content on social media is in the ownership of the receiving party. Consequently users do not have any right to give away a copyright license to what they do not own, or intend that others should receive on social media. Receivers of messages are bound by the common understanding of confidentiality and are equally constrained by the fact that they cannot give a copyright licence to what they do not own.

This understanding is fairly straight-forward but more simply understood by the fact that a Mail-man would have been fired or imprisoned if he broke his trust to his customers, and started to open letters to profit on the content. It would not help his case if he promised that he did not reveal any names, only profiting on the hot stories and the content of the letters. Usually, the simple common sense is a valid measurement before you call a lawyer.

The aforementioned statements concludes that the only ownership social media have to your copyrighted material is the records of when and to whom you sent a message, including the right to show your pictures to employees of the social media company. If bio-metric data or any other data is extracted from your pictures, they are going beyond the intended usage of your pictures. The copyright connected to your pictures is merely a license to “show them to your friends”. 

Still, social media believe they owns the right to keep your copyrighted ownership if the receiving party of «your» messages and pictures does not delete them. This will of course go beyond the normal understanding of a copyright license, and actually mean “you transferred your ownership to us”, which of course must be a explicit consent in written form (§ 204).

Let’s express a known fact:

A thief is a thief, regardless of his method of deception when stealing your property.

It would be reasonable to think that  governments and lawmakers are protecting big corporations in their quest to shut down illegal activity, but  equally interested in protecting the individual from big corporations who profit on illegal activity. It should not matter if governments have an interest in the data-content, since their primary function is to protect the individuals who pay their salaries; the basic understanding of a sound democratic and capitalistic system.

It should not be necessary to explain the rationale behind the word distrust, and how this can unfold in a discontent population.

A social media platform, whose sole profit (or sales) is by «Sharing» your Copyrighted material, should be a great opportunity for any intelligent lawyer who understands the profits in a case where he/she (they) represents the collective losses of billions of individuals.