What should Christians do with things like the internet and social media platforms?

More than 1500 years ago, Augustine expressed some of his reasons for preferring a written debate over an oral one:

Is it a moral imperative to get off of Social Media yet?

For the past five months, I've stayed off Facebook completely and I am happy to report that the world did not end. I did not go crazy or suffer at all for this. In fact, I think I am probably more sane than before.

Even setting aside the political aspects that are so simple to dive into when it comes to Facebook and Twitter in particular, Social Media is really better described as Antisocial Media because it makes it easier for people to engage in their depravity. To that end, it serves as a great illustration that Calvinism has something going for it, insomuch as basically good people left to their own devices would end up shaping a social media platform that is basically good too. But what you actually find when people are left to their own devices is that they group together to bully those they disagree with, create cancel mobs to attack individuals who “step out of line”, will willfully pass on things they know are lies if it serves their own goals, and the more anonymous they are, the more corrupted they become.

The greatest irony of living in a culture where the average person has the most access to every single bit of information that they ever had in history, is that the average person will ignore all of it. It used to take a research team months of combing through dusty books in the reference section of libraries to find out information about what, say, a 19^th century historical figure once said. Today, we can find that information in a thirty second long internet search, and that's “too much work”. So rather than check to see if Ronald Reagan really said, “Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary”, we pass it on in our timeline because the meme looked cool. (For the record, the quote, which I actually did see on a picture of Ronald Reagan on Facebook, does indeed have an attribution, but it wasn't said by Reagan. The attribution is: Marx, Karl & Engels, Friedrich. “Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League.” London, England. March 1850.)

But while I can make my argument about the objectively evil nature of Social Media without touching on the political aspects of Social Media, the reality is that the political aspects cannot be ignored either. And it's those political aspects which drive the question I asked in the title. Silicon Valley very clearly has an iron grip on Social Media platforms, and Silicon Valley very definitely has a specific political bent. They are also not shy about using their power to enact that political change. The problem is the political change they implement is almost universally contrary to Biblical principles. And lest there be confusion, I don't mean in the sense of setting up a theocracy. I'm talking about the basic, bare-bones aspect of civic governing which the Bible condemns as being evil even in countries which were never in a covenantal relationship with Him are being promoted by the policies being pushed forward by Silicon Valley.

Naturally, one can still use those platforms to push for the Gospel. In that regard, one could make the claim that Social Media is like the printing press. It makes it possible to spread either good or evil messages, but the person who writes the message is the one responsible for whether or not it is used for good or evil.

Except that there are certain truthful statements that you can write on Facebook—statements which are merely affirmations of the Gospel—which will get your account banned. In that way, it's not like the printing press, for the printing press doesn't have editorial control over what people use it for. Mark Zuckerberg does have that control over what you say on Facebook. Jack Dorsey does have that control over what you say on Twitter. Susan Wojcicki does have that control over what you say on YouTube.

Also, we must be cognizant of the fact that these “free” platforms constitute the richest companies in the world right now, and you must ask yourself how is it possible for a company that does not charge users to access it to not only make money, but THAT MUCH of it? It's scarcely hidden that everything you do or say on those platforms is feeding social algorithms designed to modify your behavior, primarily into purchasing more things. That is, the platform is not the product—it is the bait. You are the product being sold to the advertisers.

But it's not just advertisers who are willing to buy your attention. If Microsoft, Toyota, or Dasani can purchase manipulation efforts to get you to buy their product, what makes you think a foreign government couldn't pretend to be a corporation seeking advertising when they are really pushing subversion? And what's to stop Silicon Valley from doing it themselves when they want more power under our own governmental structure?

Manipulation occurs on that level as well. Specific viewpoints are promoted while others are suppressed. This isn't an accident. This is the whole point of the Social Media ecosystem. This is designed to make you feel isolated and alone simply for holding to positions that they do not want you to hold, and it's designed to amplify positions they want you to hold far beyond their actual power. Look no further than the astonishing power that LGBT advocates have when the May 2018 Gallup poll showed that only 4.5% of Americans identify as LGBT. Now, if you “misgender” someone, you can actually lose your job, and the fact that everyone knows this despite the fact that those who live outside of cities (that is, the majority* of people in the US), rarely have even met a transgendered person.

This manipulation does have an effect, as evidenced by the way that people's views on social issues such as homosexual marriage have so rapidly shifted in recent years. True, one could argue the LGBT movement has always had a disproportionate amount of political power, but it is undeniable that things have changed much faster since the inception of Facebook (2004), YouTube (2005, bought by Google in 2006), and Twitter (2006).  It is not primarily through the influence of Hollywood, which has been blamed in the past. The numbers for the entertainment industry are in free fall, and they've burned off most of the cache of support they used to have. But regardless, pressure from Hollywood remained the same from the 90s through the early 2000s.  Yet Obama ran in 2008 on a platform opposed to gay marriage. By 2012, those who agreed with Obama's position a mere four years previously, were getting banned on the social media platforms. And by 2015, the Supreme Court ruled that gay marriage was now affirmed.

Today, social ideas, especially those relating to the so-called “Woke” movement, are still gaining traction at a rapid pace even through historically conservative Christian institutions. This is almost certainly traceable to the fact that those who are presenting woke content on social media are being promoted on the platform, while the voices of those who object to it are being banned. The disproportionate banning of voices from the right—voices who are nowhere near as extreme as the voices on the left which are being promoted—certainly is shifting the Overton Window ever more quickly to the left.

So, is it a moral imperative to avoid social media? I'll let you come to your own decision. But if you want to use it, for your own mental health, remember that the audiences there are not real. That is, they are not representative of how people really think. They are the cultivated result of social manipulation, and they are specifically designed to influence you on your own feed. The fact that you see some of what your friends have written on Facebook, for example, may make you think that you're getting a genuine sample of what your friends really think. You are not. Facebook commonly does not share every post that your friends have written, and often when they do display it to you it's hours or days later—anyone who uses the platform has run into the experience where they see a post from someone five days after they wrote it, while the entire time they saw the same four posts at the top of their feed. This is intentional, not accidental. Facebook is using their algorithms to decide when to parcel out data they have problems with so they can claim neutrality by delivering it while still manipulating you so you don't respond quickly or see it when the post is most relevant. And only a fool would think they are smart enough to avoid being manipulated when that manipulation is the basis by which Facebook is a multi-billion dollar company.

The only way to actually avoid the manipulation is to avoid social media altogether.

* And if you're wondering why I say that the majority of the US doesn't live in cities, according to https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2020/05/america-a-nation-of-small-towns.html, 39% of the US population lives in cities with more than 50,000 people (which comprise only 4% of all “incorporated places” in the US). Contrast that with the 37% of Americans who don't live in “an incorporated place” at all. The rest live in small towns, of which 76% have fewer than 5,000 people, and 42% of those had fewer than 500 people.

Social Media Oppression

I posted this earlier on my Facebook, but figure the results should be known wider.

So, about that search engine manipulation that YouTube swears they don't do. I confirmed if you search on YouTube for "Steven Crowder" a video from his verified channel doesn't even show up until the 19th on the list (irrespective of if I'm signed in to YouTube or signed out, but most of this was done in incognito mode). Not only that, but only 6 videos from his verified channel even appeared in the top 100 results.

If you search for "StevenCrowder" (without the space, literally matching his verified channel name of "StevenCrowder") it gives 3 videos from his verified channel in the top 25 results.
Searching for "Steven Crowder Change My Mind"...no results from his verified channel until the 23rd video.

Only in searching "Louder With Crowder" do you get all but 2 results in the top 25 actually from Steven Crowder's verified channel! Remember, the verified name of his channel, again, is "StevenCrowder", not "Louder with Crowder."

Why do I point out so repeatedly that StevenCrowder (the channel) is a verified channel? Because YouTube swears in it's last update that it tweaked the algorithm to promote verified channels as opposed to non-verified channels, so you would know you're getting the content you're searching for. And it's almost true! If you search for "The Young Turks" for example, the first 11 videos are all from their verified channel. The next two aren't, and from that point on through the top 50 results, about half are from their verified channel.

If you search for Vox, 10 of the first 11 results are from their verified channel.

Even if you search for "Joe Rogan" (a center-left leaning individual), only one video out of the first 50 was NOT from his verified channel of PowerfulJRE!

But search for Red Elephants, a right-leaning channel (official verified name: The Red Elephants Vincent James), and you get 3 results out of the top 10. Search "Vincent James" and you get 0 results in the top 30, even though you get several results for James Vincent McMorrow (yes, "Vincent James" gives you multiple results for a "James Vincent" and NOT for a guy with the name "Vincent James" literally in the verified name of the channel.

Look up "Paul Joseph Watson" and you'll get lots of videos *about* him, but absolutely none *from* him in the top 50, even though his verified channel name is exactly "Paul Joseph Watson".
It's not like YouTube doesn't know who you're actually looking for. They will still give you a link to the *channel* as the first result for "Red Elephants", "Paul Joseph Watson", and even "Steven Crowder"--all right at the top of the list! But they will not return any results for video searches.
Hence why in his last show Steven Crowder mentioned he's begun certain proceedings he's not going into detail over yet. It's not an issue about what *we* want YouTube to be; it's about YouTube lying about what *they* claim they are. False advertising is false advertising. And if you're clearly a publisher refusing to publish a specific worldview you disagree with, you are not a platform. And you deserve to be sued like a publisher can be. Period.

Four variations on atheist YouTubers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0p3xAEx69mY

Cruz grills Google

I think it's great Ted Cruz is taking the fight to Google:

What is section 230?

The key issue here is section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA). The issue is over the distinction between a content provider vs. a content publisher. Put simply, a content publisher can edit or alter content, whereas a content provider is supposed to be neutral on content and not be involved in altering content in any way.

Google claims to be a content provider

Currently Google is legally regarded as a content provider under section 230, not a content publisher. As a content provider, Google enjoys certain legal immunities. For example, Google can't be liable for racism if their content is in fact racist because Google is a provider that doesn't have a hand in the content.

Google is really a content publisher

That's been shown by these documents and recordings from Project Veritas. If Google is a publisher, then Google will no longer enjoy legal immunities under section 230. Instead, Google could be liable for their content. Google could be open to law suits from multiple parties. These law suits could cripple Google.

Of course, this is exactly what Google wishes to avoid. Hence Google claims to be a neutral content provider, not a content publisher.

In fact, I suspect that's precisely why Google sent a mid-level executive (Maggie Stanphill) rather than a senior executive to be grilled by Cruz (where's Jen Gennai?!). What's more, Google sent a "user experience" director. That's a position that requires little (if any) technical knowledge about computer science and the like. If Google had sent someone with more knowledge or connections than this woman, then there could be more serious repercussions for Google.

However, in light of the documents and recordings from Project Veritas, Google deserves to have their section 230 immunities revoked.

What is Project Veritas?

Basically it's a muckracker organization that was founded by conservative James O'Keefe (B.A., philosophy, Rutgers University). Its purpose is to investigate and expose corruption in high places. You might know them for their work exposing Planned Parenthood selling aborted baby parts as well as their ACORN sting. And now Project Veritas' work against tech giants like Google.

Of course, no surprise, liberals and progressives hate Project Veritas as well as James O'Keefe. Ironically, liberals and progressives have long advertised themselves as the consummate muckrackers and whistleblowers. Too bad liberals don't appreciate it when conservatives do the same against corrupt liberal organizations and institutions.

In addition, what's O'Keefe doing that's in principle different from (say) the progressive filmmaker Michael Moore? As far as I can tell, the main differences are twofold. First, O'Keefe's work is factually-based in a way Moore's work is not. Moore heavily edited his films in order to spin them in favor of his liberal or progressive views whereas O'Keefe attempts to show the unvarnished truth. He attempts to show videos and audio recordings straight from the horse's mouth as it were. Second, Moore sometimes tries to hide behind satire, but Project Veritas' work isn't satirical but real.

More broadly, there are plenty of liberals or progressives who have used similar tactics against conservatives (e.g. pretending to be someone they're not, doxxing their opponents). However I don't see liberals or progressives decrying what their fellow liberals or progressives have done or are doing.

It seems to me liberals and progressives disagree with Project Veritas primarily due to political ideology and not Project Veritas' muckracking and whistleblowing work and exposes. By contrast, it seems to me many if not most conservatives disagree (even vehemently) with the political ideology of hacktavists like Julian Assange and Ed Snowden, but thees same conservatives still appreciate at least some of the good work that WikiLeaks has done.

Some conservatives disagree with Project Veritas' ethics. These conservatives believe Project Veritas uses unethical means to investigate and expose organizations like Planned Parenthood. That gets us into another debate. Personally, I don't necessarily see a problem with using unethical tactics (depending on the tactics) to expose crimes that can't be exposed otherwise.

All that said, I'm not suggesting I always agree with Project Veritas.

Cruz's showmanship

I'm sure Cruz knew he was dealing with an ignorant mid-level executive rather than a more knowledgeable senior executive. I'm sure Cruz knew this woman wouldn't be liable for much. Nevertheless Cruz grilled her. Cruz turned the hearing into something of a show.

Some might take issue with Cruz for doing this, but I don't have a problem with it. I don't think Cruz's goal was to make this woman answer for all of Google's crimes here and now or anything along those lines. (Not that he would've objected if that turned out to be the case!) Rather I think Cruz's goal was to inform the public about Google and other tech giants' strong political biases against conservatives (among other things) and thereby turn the tide against these tech giants. In short, it's political theater, but I don't think all political theater is unethical. Sometimes it helps to drum up public support for a worthy cause.

How Conservative Christians can help foster competition among the Social Media as a way of limiting their influence

Source: Statistica 2018

In recent days, we’ve heard a lot about the “liberal bias” of many social media platforms, such as Google, Apple, Facebook, and Twitter. Some of these seemingly have “the power to restrict free speech”, because they are private companies where leaders have liberal personal agendas, etc. They are headquartered in liberal Silicon Valley, and they are a part of the social elite.

Nevertheless, money talks, and while founders and some of the big names may have liberal agendas, it’s a sure bet that not all of the shareholders of those platforms have liberal agendas, and they are going to be more interested in profits and share prices than in “sharing the pure leftist agenda”.

The kind of money that businesses care about is the “net profit” line (or “retained earnings”, as some of the financial statements put it). It’s the money that a business owner puts in his own pocket, or that makes its way into shareholder earnings. All the rest of it is money that goes into someone else’s hands … to vendors, or utilities, or other suppliers.

But “net profit” is money in the bank. And so, if you want to send a message to the various social media, you want to focus your fire on their net profit. (I suspect this will work even in the age of social media).

Most of the social media earn huge amounts of money through advertising revenue. It’s the only real way they can monetize their platforms.

Ogilvy on Advertising Profit

Ogilvy on Advertising Profit

Back in the days before “social media” (as a way for technology companies to earn advertising revenue), there were print advertising, radio advertising, and TV advertising. And there was a rigid enough set of rules for ad agencies and clients to follow, that the advertising legend David Ogilvy could summarize them succinctly, as he did in his work “Ogilvy on Advertising” (Vintage Books, 1983).

These rules worked neatly enough for me to get jobs in advertising, first as a copywriter, then as an advertising manager, even though I had no experience or education in the field. (Back in the 1980’s, after I was graduated from college, I worked in a Christian ministry for the better part of a decade, earning neither money nor career experience.)

Ogilvy states his rule for clients (advertisers) in search of a good ad agency (and good advertising):

Ask what the agency charges. If it is 15 per cent, insist on paying 16 percent. The extra one per cent won’t kill you, but it will double the agency’s normal profit, and you will get better service (pg. 66).

Normally, agencies didn’t charge a fee in those days. They added 15% “commission” onto whatever the media outlet would charge. And that paid for the agency’s work (and their rich lifestyles). But agencies (like everyone) worked on a thin profit margin. The difference between 15% and 16% commission was the difference between 1% or 2% net profit.

That’s why Trump’s 4% economic growth is so much better than Obama’s 2% growth. It’s not just adding 2% to the bottom lines of businesses. It’s doubling the net profit (and for stockholders, it’s doubling what’s in their 401K accounts).

[This is how “trickle-down economics” works for the common person. It doesn’t increase their income. It increases net worth.]

The flip side of this can be applied to the Social Media that we are all growing to dislike, because of the “liberal bias”.

How Social Media Make Money

By opening up forms of competition, in the various media, we conservative Christians can significantly affect those bottom line numbers – at least to the kind of degree that will make a difference between 15% and 16%, or 2% and 4%.

There are ways that technology companies (and the “social media” are first of all “technology companies”). They can actually “sell” products … this is how Microsoft earned its fortunes. People were buying PCs, and there was Microsoft software to be sold on every PC. And many software companies would only write their programs for the Microsoft operating system --- because everyone was using it, and everyone wanted “interoperability”.

Microsoft’s monopoly existed insofar as everyone needed to use the same operating system and programs so that the information could be interoperable – so that everyone could read the same documents and spreadsheets.

The other way technology companies earn revenue today is to sell “advertising” on the “platforms”. “Platforms” such as Google.com (and spin-offs like gmail), Facebook, and Twitter, don’t really sell anything. They earn their money from advertising. They are paid by “views” or “eyeballs” on their various pages.

The more eyeballs, the greater the profits. The fewer the eyeballs, the less the profits. And in this regard, Ogilvy’s “pay your agency 16% instead of 15%” will work in reverse, too. If Google, or Facebook, or Twitter, lose just a couple of percentage points in terms of “eyeballs”, their bottom line net profit can be seriously affected.

And when that happens, the shareholders will notice.

(If there are enough conservatives to win all the elections that we won in 2016, there are certainly enough of us to affect market share. On the flip side of it, “the left” is currently making all the noise it can possibly make. They can not turn up this dial. Their method is now to limit conservative participation. This is where we need to work against them.)

Helping Google’s Competitors

In our free enterprise system, the way that these numbers are affected is simply through the addition of competition. And while it may not have been easy to add competition for Microsoft in the 1990s because of interoperability standards, we can still introduce “choice” (that magic word to which “the left” cannot object) by just simply giving our conservative eyeballs to other sources of advertising revenue.

Outside of its Android operating system, and phones (which have natural competition in the iPhone), Google doesn’t make money by charging you a nickel for each search that you make. It makes money because it charges advertisers (“clients”) for each search that you make.

So we see President Trump complaining about Google searches. This makes sense. In marketing, one of the new buzzwords is “content marketing”. The idea is to produce “content” (either written or video) that draws lots of eyeballs for you (and hence, revenue for the “platform”).

Perhaps the government can do to Google what they did to Standard Oil in the late 19th century, or to ATT in 1984 … break them into smaller components. But a government-led solution is not necessarily going to be a good one.

Here is how Google makes its money (contrary to how Microsoft gained its dominance):

When an “advertiser” (or “marketer”) gains lots of eyeballs for itself, it’s been demonstrated that those numbers can turn into “demand” (“demand generation”), “sales leads” (“lead generation”), and hopefully revenue (“top line”) and eventually “net profit” (see above).

THE way, in recent years, to gain “search engine optimization” (or “SEO”) was to look to Google’s algorithm. Google re-writes its algorithm on a regular basis – the algorithm is the set of rules that put a piece of content high or low on the Google search page. (A particular “search” may generate millions of “results”, but the only ones that really count are those on the “first page”, because most lazy people don’t continue to flip through the pages; they merely click on the first thing they see).

So for the last few years, marketers (“content marketers”) have been rushing, like lemmings (almost), to understand Google’s latest algorithm, and to write or produce “content” in such a way that is normal, natural, not repetitive, and informative.

(This perhaps is one reason why the journalistic styles of the NY Times and Washington Post may factor into the results so heavily. This may be a self-fulfilling kind of thing).

Regarding search engine market share, Statistica.com shows that Google “generated 63.5% of all core search queries in the United States“ in April of this year. However, this doesn’t take into account searches done on mobile phones. On “mobile devices”:

Despite Google's dominance of the U.S. search market, it is Microsoft's bing service that leads in terms of longer search queries. In terms of the mobile search market in the United States, Google leads again with an over 93 percent market share.

The alternative is to use other search engines. Make certain that those search engines (Bing, DuckDuckGo, Oath (formerly Yahoo), Ask, AOL, etc.) are generating higher traffic numbers.

One way to do this, even on Android phones, is to have those search engine apps handy on your phone, and to re-set some of your default settings.

It’s only a little bit of effort – maybe a lot for those of us who are technologically challenged. But the difference will be significant – Ogilvy’s 16% vs 15% for the competitors – or Trump’s 4% vs Obama’s 2% economy.

Similar tactics can be used for Facebook or Twitter. While there aren’t natural competitors for these platforms, we CAN affect the traffic … instead of shying away from “political discussions” on Facebook, we can add to them. As I noted above, “the left” is currently making all the noise it can possibly make. There are a lot of Christians simply staying away.

The response should not be to turn off social media. The response should be to turn up Christian messaging, to the point that it produces more eyeballs than those on “the left” can (in terms of noise).

Challenge your liberal friends and neighbors when they say something like “you’re a racist and a homophobe”. They are certain to lose that discussion, and you’ll generate more conservative “eyeballs” which, in turn, will persuade the shareholders that it’s in their best interests to eschew censorship and to foster free speech (“competition in messaging”).