The American Social Media Experiment

Trump’s American vision for social media

Biernutz_71, April 12

Having worked for over twenty years in the technology driven corporate environment I have become increasingly nauseated with buzzwords. The latest buzzwords seem revolve around words like “everything as service” and “internet of things” or my favorite “digital transformation.” To me, it is all clever wordsmithing for the age we live in and its boring. That being said, there is another buzzword that we use a lot and that is “collaboration” and I happen to like it, but not for the reasons you think.

There has been much speculation lately as to what Elon Musk plans to do with his new stake in Twitter. Depending on which platform and chat you decide to peruse will likely determine what opinion you get. For example, folks on Twitter and those who work there see Elon as a direct threat to their agenda. Folks over on Truth Social think Trump and Musk made a deal to take down twitter. And of course, the wild, wild west of social platforms (Telegram) has all opinions in between. What is interesting is that they all seem to be very binary and myopic view of what is transpiring.

                Before I explain what I mean by that, let’s get back to my favorite buzzword: Collaboration. If you have read any of my previous articles you know that I am in the IT field and specifically network engineering and architecture.  Collaboration in my world is really just a melting pot of different endpoints or applications. For example, the integration of a chat service with external voice calling in Microsoft Teams would be a form of collaboration. In terms of corporate structure, various departments working together on a singular project would also be considered collaboration. Is it that much of a stretch to believe that America is also a form of collaboration? That we are the pioneers of the greatest social collaboration in history?

American has always been considered an experiment. Nothing like it has every been tried before and not many people were certain it would work. Consider what Benjamin Franklin said when he asked by a woman what the gathering of the forefathers at Independence Hall had produced:

“A republic, madam, if you can keep it.”

                We are not just a melting pot of cultures and ideas, but a collaboration of fifty unique states. Each state having their own three branches of government, a militia, and a constitution. We are a republic of fifty nation-states really. Each state fully capable of existing on its own in terms of political structure. I like this opening statement from Helle C. Dale of the Heritage Foundation:

The American experiment was unique and improbable in 1776, when Thomas Jefferson penned the Declaration of Independence and the American colonies defied Britain, the most powerful nation on earth at the time. As we look around the world at how difficult it is for democracy and freedom to take hold and flourish, America seems like a political miracle. – The American Experiment

https://www.heritage.org/political-process/commentary/the-american-experiment

                A political miracle is what we have lived for over tow hundred years. Despite numerous attempts to subvert, sabotage, or otherwise destroy the work of our forefathers…the Republic survived! It continues to survive today even though the frontiers are much different, and our pioneers are far less patriotic. Regardless of what you might think of them personally, people like Steve Jobs, Jack Dorsey, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg are pioneers.

                What these new pioneers; these forefathers of our digital age had in terms of talent and vision is enormous, but they sorely lack self-discipline and are cloaked with greed.  They stand in stark contrast to our true founding fathers who understood the trappings of man’s basic desires and the oppressive nature of power unbridled. Twitter, Facebook, Google, Instagram created a digital frontier with enormous power to influence our lives. In fact, Dan Scavino said they are the most powerful. In his interview with Lara Trump in 2021 he said this:

                  “Big tech platforms are the most powerful people in Washington DC”

                                “Big tech controls it all”               

https://therightview.com/the-right-view-with-lara-trump-and-dan-scavino/

                Of course, this was all said before Truth Social was eve announced. But this is where I think we have all missed the mark completely. If you go back and watch this video Dan clearly states several times that Trump was forced to do this. The refusal of big tech to reign in their base agenda led to them kicking Trump off Twitter. I don’t believe Truth Social was Trumps original plan. They failed to harness their power in an American way and Truth Social was Trumps response.

What I was alluding to earlier by our binary thinking and myopic view was that I don’t believe Trump envisioned a world without Twitter and Facebook but one that is integrated, a collaboration of platforms. Do you see it now? By forcing him off Twitter, Trump was forced to create his own social media site and it is a good one. However, the future of social media IS collaboration. Dan Scavino specifically states that Truth Social is to be a platform for all people, but it is not. For now, it is an echo chamber of MAGA types and that is great, but that is not the American way, and you know it. We were never meant to be on digital islands cut off from the rest of America and the world. Sure, the political landscape right now doesn’t afford a lot of peaceful interactions between the left and right, but that wont always be the case. We will come together, both digitally and socially.

                Whether we like it or not, a decentralized social media is coming. The notion that we can have our platform and they can have theirs is just not scalable. Even the idea where just two or three platforms host most of the interactions is being seen as dangerous and outdated. Look what Jack Dorsey of Twitter said from the Independent:

 Twitter founder Jack Dorsey has said he regrets the role he played in making the internet more centralized.

The tech billionaire lamented the transition away from technologies that formed the early days of the internet – like Internet Relay Chat (IRC) instant messaging and the peer-to-peer framework of Usenet – into one dominated by a few giants like Google, Facebook, and even Twitter.

“The days of Usenet, IRC, the web… even email (w PGP)… were amazing,” Mr Dorsey tweeted.

“Centralizing discovery and identity into corporations really damaged the internet. I realize I’m partially to blame and I regret it.”

Mr Dorsey stepped down as Twitter CEO in November, 15 years after founding the social media platform.

https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/twitter-jack-dorsey-elon-musk-b2050432.html

                We see integration in almost every aspect of our lives. Go to any organizations website and see all the ways to connect to them. That is integration. There are also third parties that will collaborate a business’s marketing and customer service departments with social media platforms. These concepts on their own is nothing new.

                What is new is for us is to start thinking in larger terms of social media. Sure, there is already linking between Facebook and Twitter accounts, there is integration between organizations and social media, and there are third parties that will collaborate your business with social media. What I am suggesting is platform agnostic social interactions. An experience where it doesn’t matter which platform I chose to log onto, my contacts are replicated, my data is transferable, and interactions span many platforms and areas of interest. I believe this is way we are headed; it is what Jack was referring to and I believe this is the way Trump planned it.

Donald Trump is a lot of things. He is a patriot, a father, a grandfather, a deal maker, and master strategist. To me, more than any of that he is a pragmatist. Trump likes to get things done! It is what drives him to deal with people he may otherwise avoid. His desire to get deals done is what led to the Abraham Accords, the Doha Agreement, and a fledgling relationship with Kim Jong Un (little rocket man). It is also why I believe Trumps respects what Twitter and Facebook have built. They are more than just social media sites. These entities represent years’ worth of expertise, knowledge, data, algorithms, and livelihoods for some users (think Facebook Marketplace). None of that is just reproduced easily in a short period of time. And if you are Trump, why would you?

                Is Elon Musk going to take over Twitter or dump it? I don’t really know. I know this, for those of you expecting to see the demise of Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook and the domination of all things TMTG that day is not coming. Mostly because I believe it was never intended to be that way. If you recall in one of my very first articles No Contradictions, I laid out the case for a BGP/AS Number hijacking of Facebook. When I wrote that article, I felt that Trump’s team was prepping Facebook for a takeover. Whether that is true or not remains to be seen. However, I believe that tactic of takeover is fully in line with Trumps pragmatical wisdom: much easier to take over than to rebuild.

                Trump is a president for ALL people and the landscape of the social media frontier is gong to reflect that. People are waking up all over the world to the dangers of centralized governments and the New World Order. There is a populist wave of uprising where the people are wrestling power away from the central governments.

(Thomas) Jefferson also knew how great the American experiment’s appeal would be to others. “The flames kindled on the 4th of July, 1776, have spread across too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary, they will consume the engines and all who work them.” – The American Experiment

https://www.heritage.org/political-process/commentary/the-american-experiment

                The American experiment was radical and cutting edge but an experiment none the less. How fitting that we arrive that same cutting edge of a social media experiment: where power is wrestled away from a few oppressive giants and returned back to the users. There will be a decentralization of media platforms, there will be differences of opinion but unity of purpose, and there will be a collaboration of ideas and interactions because that is The American Way…and the world is watching.

Biernutz_71

4/12/2022