"A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in."
A Social Media Reformation
Social media has revolutionized the way we connect, share, and communicate. Yet, like many innovations, it comes with a complex set of challenges. Drawing parallels to the 19th-century Hungarian physician, Ignaz Semmelweis, who faced resistance for his life-saving medical discoveries, this blog delves into the pressing need for a reformation in our digital spaces. Our position is that the reticence of the tech and venture capital industry to seriously address the negative externalities and consequences of our dominant social media paradigm, or to seriously explore often older, more mature, alternative paradigms, comes from a myopic and self-interested Silicon Valley culture designed to protect private wealth and status above all other considerations. We will describe the birth and monetization of social media, highlight the negative impacts of the current digital ecosystem, and propose a set of practical principles for creating more humane, user-centric platforms.
Dying for Change
Ignaz Semmelweis was a Hungarian physician who made a groundbreaking discovery in the mid-19th century, asserting that the simple act of handwashing with chlorinated lime solutions could drastically reduce the incidence of puerperal fever, a leading cause of maternal death at the time.
Semmelweis' findings came at a time when the prevailing belief was that diseases were caused by an imbalance in the body's humors or miasmas, invisible toxic vapors. Semmelweis refuted this prevailing theory by highlighting the significant disparity in outcomes for women situated in two distinct wings of the same hospital. In one wing, midwives managed the care, whereas in the other, physicians, who frequently handled cadavers, would subsequently attend to childbirth without engaging in hand hygiene.
However, despite the evidence, his findings met significant resistance, especially from the likes of professor Johann Klein, the director of the Vienna General Hospital's first obstetrical clinic. Klein staunchly opposed Semmelweis's theories and even terminated his assistantship in the clinic, an action that set back the cause of antiseptic procedures for years. This resistance could be attributed to the prevailing beliefs and the inability to understand or see beyond established paradigms. More nefariously, it could be attributed to the defense of the status of physicians in society, over the care of patients and the status of women.
Reclaiming the Social Web
Social networks focus on connecting individuals around shared interests, activities, and building relationships. Social media also enables connections, with the key distinction being the presence and influence of advertising, on how the product is designed and the behaviors nurtured in users.
In an era dominated by social media platforms, it may seem counterintuitive to reclaim the term "social network." However, due to the unintended consequences of social media, there exists a yearning for the genuine connections and real-world engagement of the pre-internet, and even the promise and innocence of the early internet. That innocence was lost when social networks became social media, when they were transformed by the incentive structure of the venture capital industry, supported by techniques pioneered in machine gambling, into a profit-driven attention economy. In response we have seen a growing countercultural and regulatory movement to establish humane social networks that prioritize the needs of users over advertisers and investors.
The Birth of Social Media
MySpace was just one of a number of social networks connecting people online that struggled to monetize their user bases effectively. Sensing an opportunity, MySpace executives coined the term "social media" when attempting to sell the website and its advertising business model, leveraging the success of the 'reality TV' craze at its peak. This innovative concept, of the perfect media company where the consumers create the content, caught the attention of Cheryl Sandberg, who saw its potential to monetise the growing user base of Facebook.
Facebook quickly embraced the social media model, leveraging user data and sophisticated algorithms to capture attention and generate advertising revenue. By leveraging techniques pioneered by the machine gambling industry, to increase 'time-on-device', Facebook and other modern social media apps capture attention by nurturing screen addiction, which increases ad revenue. However, as the popularity of social media grew, concerns regarding its impact on society emerged.
The Humane Tech Movement
In more recent years The Center for Humane Technology has shed light on the attention economy, revealing how platforms prioritize engagement at the expense of users' well-being and fulfillment.
The Social Dilemma, their thought-provoking documentary on Netflix, further exposed the dark side of social media. It explored the perils of behavioral addiction, dark design patterns, the proliferation of misinformation, the rise of online harassment, the impact on children's mental health, and the polarization of society as a result of algorithmic biases. These revelations fueled a collective realization that what people truly desire are social networks embedded in grounded communities and oriented around shared interests, activities, and values, not social media that disconnects them from real-world relationships.
A Ledger of Harms
The plethora of harms caused by ad-funded social media include:
- AI Bias: The bias present in AI algorithms can lead to discriminatory outcomes and unjust decisions. The design and training data, often rooted in historic or societal biases, influence the AI's decision-making.
- Online Harassment and Abuse: The unchecked growth and pseudo-anonymity of social media platforms have given rise to online bullying, hate speech, and other forms of abuse.
- Information Bubbles & Polarization: Social media algorithms create echo chambers, reinforcing our beliefs and blocking out diverse viewpoints.
- Screen Time Abuse: The compulsive use of digital devices leads to a wide range of mental health issues. For example, the constant exposure to idealized representations of others' lives can lead to feelings of inadequacy, envy, and even depression.
- Data & Privacy Issues: Today's social media users are often unaware of how their data is used, sold, or mishandled.
The Pillars of a Humane Social Network:
The Center for Humane Technology and other advocacy groups have been at the forefront of a growing movement seeking to redefine digital platforms. Their mission is to create social applications that empower communities rather than advertisers or investors. They envision a future with less behavioral addiction and more fulfillment, where online interactions enhance real-world connections and support event-based communities away from the noise of social media.
To bring about this transformation, a humane social network must prioritize several essential aspects:
- Privacy First: A novel privacy model that ensures user data is protected and individuals have control over their personal information. Privacy by design and GDPR compliance are vital elements in fostering user trust and safeguarding their online interactions. This is not just about following the law. Meaningfully informing users of their rights and the data controllers data handling processes and putting users in control of their data pulls out the rug from underneath the current business model where data is a commodity the social media platform can sell for profit.
- A Humane Business Model: Social networks should prioritize user interests and goals above profit generation. By aligning business models with user well-being, these platforms can avoid the dark design patterns that lead to addictive behaviors and screen-time abuse.
- Reputation and Peer-Verification: A humane social network values credibility and authenticity. Subject-matter authorities and peer-verification mechanisms ensure reliable information and discourage the proliferation of bot networks, scammers, and mis- and disinformation.
- Humane Governance: Public-friendly digital spaces don't just happen; they are intentionally built. A humane social network embraces a governance model where communities themselves make the rules, fostering transparency and inclusivity. The principle of subsidiarity, which emphasizes decision-making at the lowest appropriate level, ensures that community interests are respected with a sensitivity to local contexts.
A Call for a Humane Future
Semmelweis's last years were marked by increasing frustration, agitation, and despair. He became deeply troubled by the continued high death rates from puerperal fever and the medical community's refusal to accept his findings.
Towards the end of his life, Semmelweis's behavior became increasingly erratic and confrontational. He took to writing open letters to prominent obstetricians, aggressively criticizing them for not adopting his recommendations and blaming them for the deaths of countless women. These letters were filled with passion, anger, and desperation.
In 1865, his public outbursts escalated, which alarmed his colleagues and family. They believed he was suffering from a mental breakdown. With a ruse, his wife and a doctor lured him to a visit to a mental institution in Vienna. Once he realized the deception, he tried to leave, but he was forcibly restrained and admitted. Within just a couple of weeks of his confinement Semmelweis had died from puerperal fever, from a wound that became infected, most likely from having been beaten by staff.
Driven to anger and embittered by the resistance of the medical establishment to change, Semmelweis' funeral was unattended, including by his wife and 3 children. He was 47 years old.
Semmelweis directly saved the lives of thousands of women during his tenure at Vienna General Hospital, but indirectly the widespread implementation of the Semmelweis doctrine across continental Europe likely saved hundreds of thousands to millions of women from puerperal fever alone, and with something so laughably easy as washing your hands after touching a corpse.
Rubber, meet Road
The thing about laughably easy is that it is only so in hindsight, and in comparison to a range of failed proposals based upon false premises. The geo-centric map of the solar system is more complex than the helio-centric one, because it is false. Most modern solutions to wicked problems, including in the humane tech sphere, are similarly artificially complex.
But having said that, sanitation is easier said than done. At the time, Semmelweis was despised by much of his staff, who hated putting chlorine solutions on their hands and arms. And other hospitals who attempted to implement the Semmelweis doctrine failed to enforce hand washing between childbirths, only requiring it between working with cadavers and the delivery room. This was not obviously a mistake prior to the germ theory of medicine.
What was clear was that midwives successfully delivered babies at low levels of puerperal fever, and Semmelweis had the stats to prove it, he just didn't have the capacity to influence an entire culture of arrogant, dismissive, status-oriented men who believed that the purity of knowledge was a higher priority than patient care.
These were the tech-bros and VCs of their day.
In our modern context, it is as laughably easy to say 'consensus algorithms, not engagement algorithms', as it was to say 'sanitation, hygiene, patient care over the pursuit of pure science'. It is not, however, laughably easy to change the ideological foundations of our institutions, then or now.
But human fulfillment, if that is our purpose, is entirely dependent upon general consensus. Our goals intersect, contradict, and come into conflict. A person can only achieve their ends sustainably, either shared or private, by coming into confluence with others. Well designed communication systems have no mis- or dis- information, by definition. Well designed consensus algorithms are not simply the sum or aggregate of subjective opinions, but the synthesization of our individual voices into a coherent whole, based upon a bounded playing field voluntarily consented to - aka Bitcoin's proof of work algorithm, democracy, the scientific method and peer review, Google's PageRank algorithm, examination systems, amongst many many other consensus algorithms we interact with every day.
In the context of social media that means incorporating the revenue model natively into the consensus algorithm, to align the interests of the platform with users and communities, and building a layered vouching system in order to amplify authoritative voices and bridge builders within shared spaces.
Conclusion
As the negative consequences of social media continue to accumulate, it becomes increasingly clear that the time has come to reimagine social networks. We must address the chilling effect of surveillance capitalism on free thought and speech, combat the challenges of mental health arising from excessive screen time, and mitigate the polarization caused by information bubbles.
Semmelweis planted a tree – a legacy of improved health outcomes that he would never personally witness. The tech and venture capital industries have the power and responsibility to do the same today, or they could resist change and scar the industry in the eyes of citizens for generations to come.
Venture capitalists must fund and encourage ethical, user-centric platforms and solutions. Tech developers should prioritize well-being over mere engagement metrics. The industry as a whole needs to address and rectify the challenges we face, learning from past mistakes. If we ignore the challenges posed by unchecked tech advancements, we risk jeopardizing the very fabric of our society, as has been depicted and documented by organisations such as the Center of Humane Technology.
Our task is simple but not easy to achieve: to nurture digital spaces that prioritize genuine connections and community. The decisions we make today will have long-term effects, influencing future digital experiences. Let's work towards a balanced, user-centric digital future.