Jessica Sandfort
“Moral hazard has never met a more efficient amplifier than a digital network.” -Jaron Lanier
Societal Train Wreck in the Marketing, Maddening, Mayhem of META
As the saying goes, “If you aren’t paying for the product, you are the product.” Listening to the live Senate hearing this Wednesday, December 8, 2021, with Instagram’s CEO, Adam Mosseri, was bone-chilling, to say the least.
As the Commerce Committee composed of bold US Senators from across the aisle brought up harrowing and horrifying examples of human trafficking, sex trafficking, drug trafficking and the glaring increase in suicide, specifically in teenage girls attributed to these platforms.
US Attorney General recently announced the shocking risks. Senator Blumenthal from Connecticut cited how quickly one of the committee’s “teen accounts” led them to ways of suicide that he could not even speak of the gruesome details in the hearing. Senator Cruz repeatedly nailed the CEO for his lack of cooperation in providing vital internal data, or in showing any true commitment to profoundly changing their bad business practices hurting teens and society.
It was stunning and sickening to hear the apathy and completely narcissistic answers beginning with a phony “In all due respect Senator” repeatedly with no substantial answer or commitment.
Why should they commit? They are making BILLIONS of dollars off our intentionally created addiction. The moral compass has not only shifted, but it has completely slipped off the wildly spinning out-of-control, “Meta” planet. Moral responsibility simply does not exist in the greedy-warped social-media solar system.
In all respect to invention and capitalism, and to the efforts being put forth by our mighty and bipartisan leaders on the matter, it is us and us alone, who can defund and depower these beasts ruling a dangerous faux universe.
We, as a global society, are letting evil, greedy billionaire beasts control our everyday lives – from the palm of our own hands. We have fallen as addicted victims and dragging our kids down with us.
This social media platform Instagram alone has 1 BILLION users per month, and is predicted to 2 BILLION by 2023, according to Digitalgyd.com.
It has 300 MILLION teen users around the world and seems to add salt to the wound by bragging about their investment of $4 billion (about $12 per person in the US) dollars to be “safer” and the “leader” in social media platforms. A smart gambler would call BULL.
Ninety-percent (90%) of our teens are on social media platforms and according to the American Acadamy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, there are important positives and even more important dangers to bare of from dangerous exposure.
We have quickly, and quite innocently, left Tom in Myspace to dive headfirst down the rabbit hole of Mark Zuckerberg’s nightmarish fantasy world; “Alice and Wonderland” on methamphetamines.
Beginning with innocent sentiments of connecting to friends, family, and helping our businesses, we have gone in lightning speed, to a world of addicted users completely BLIND to the societal warzone and imprisonment we have put ourselves in.
What is most alarming is this mountainous and flamboyant apathy among adults. Parents. Grandparents. Future Parents. Adults, who are quite honestly just blinded by the light of their devices. Victims of their own “device.”
What chance in hell do our kids stand? What chance in hell does our future generation stand if the ADULTS in the room cannot educate themselves on what these platforms are and how they are negatively impacting our lives and our children’s lives and future?
We are setting our kids up to be completely reliant and manipulated on a constant, nonstop daily basis.
In our own usage and by having active accounts on these platforms, we are making these monsters billions of dollars to fuel the future Meta world that will never ever end.
It is an urgent civic duty to listen to the most recent and past unedited senate hearings with FB, IG, Tik-Tok, and Twitter found from various reliable news sites including the WSJ, PBS, C-SPAN others via YouTube.
Read up on the notorious, trail-blazing journalism, “The Face Book Files,” by The Wall Street Journal that they launched to the world in September 2021 revealing shocking internal documents and whistleblowers.
Additionally, The film “Social Dilemma” is not cinematically graceful but gets the important message across.
A quick listen of Jaron Lanier, is life-changing. One example: Jaron Lanier interview on how social media ruins your life
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We have a particularly important choice in paths ahead of us that will determine the world our children and grandchildren, and future generations will live in. Sitting on their couches in fake Meta la la land with phony real estate and make-believe work, addicted to fighting over topics that could be settled by meeting face to face with friends, family, and neighbors? Being marketed to nonstop? Who are we kidding?!
This is not living life with real experiences, with joy, with laughter, with ways to impactfully change society and the world. This is purgatory.
As we sit complacent on a bullet train heading full speed to completely “off the rails” there is the ethical and moral responsibility that each of us carry to delete, deflate and de-power these platforms. In the wise and simple words of Mister Rogers, “Our society is much more interested in information than wonder, in noise rather than silence…And I feel that we need a lot more wonder and a lot more silence in our lives.”
Deflate and de-power by deletingaccounts. Pull all money from stocks and investments in these social media platforms. #DefundZukerberg. #DefundDorsey #DefundTikTok
“It is impossible to work in informational technology without also engaging in social engineering.” Jaron Lanier
Find more information at:
US Senate Hearing 12/8/21:https://www.c-span.org/video/?516470-1/senate-hearing-online-protections-children&live=&source=techstories.org#!
Jaron Lanier: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kc_Jq42Og7Q
Facebook Files: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-facebook-files-11631713039
American Acadamy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry: (https://www.aacap.org/AACAP/Families_and_Youth/Facts_for_Families/FFF-Guide/Social-Media-and-Teens-100.aspx)
Statistics: https://www.digitalgyd.com/instagram-statistics/#instagram-demographics
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