Why do we deserve billionaire-owned social media platforms?

From Citizen Kane to Elon Musk

The classic “Citizen Kane” is an excellent piece of media criticism (arguably one of the greatest American films). Maybe it is time to revisit this movie again? The main focus is Charles Foster Kane — a media mogul and the influence his newspaper had on war and politics. Here’s a famous line from the film:

Charles Foster Kane: Are we going to declare war on Spain, or are we not?

Jed Leland: The Inquirer already has.

And another famous line:

Emily Monroe Norton (his wife): What will people think?

Charles Foster Kane: I control what people think!

Getty Image. Source https://www.liveabout.com/citizen-kane-synopsis-and-plot-summary-4766891

And this film was released in 1941. And in 2022, we have this:

Stephen Semler @stephensemler

The amount Elon Musk just paid for Twitter ($44 billion) is nearly equal to Biden’s proposed climate budget ($44.9 billion), in case anyone's wondering how seriously we’re taking the climate crisis

Of course, this is not surprising. Scholars and media critics have been talking about the influence of the media and money on our politics and daily lives. There is no lack of critiques and initiatives. However, the reach of the new media platforms (and the data!) puts another spin on it. Yes, we deserve better. But how do we get there? The following tweet is a good summary from Ethan Zuckerman who, along with many others, is working on ideas for creating a better platform — a better digital public sphere that we deserve. Because social media and digital public sphere are not just about tweets and likes. The interactions, posts, and comments (and the engine behind them — the software, data and algorithm!) have real world consequences. This is not an easy problem to solve (I guess that is why, since 1941, we haven’t fixed it!). But he provides avenues that have potential. Instead of mass migration to another platform or creating systems, we should focus our resources and ideas on open protocols, aggregation, linking interoperability. In other words, build protocols not platforms.

Ethan Zuckerman @EthanZ

It's embarrassing that we've been willing to have our public, civic conversations on platforms controlled by corporate boards. Musk's purchase of Twitter just makes that absurdity even more apparent. Unfortunately, the solution is not as simple as mass migration to Mastodon.

And looks like I am not the only one thinking about this.

Michael Lobel @mlobelart

Today's Elon Musk/@Twitter news puts me in mind of William Randolph Hearst, who in early 20th century envisioned how to concentrate power through media ownership. Hearst, shown here as a jester distributing newspapers, famously inspired the title character of Citizen Kane

Robert Reich @RBReich

Zuckerberg owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post. Elon Musk owns Twitter. When multi-billionaires take control of our most vital platforms for communication, it’s not a win for free speech. It’s a win for oligarchy.

Despite my negative headline, I am hopeful that these takeover events will remind us of the past and provide some impetus to collectively think about our media ecosystem (which is not isolated from technology and data platforms).