Technology & Internet

How Social Media Is Controlled

Ever wonder why a comment you post on Instagram, TikTok, etc. seems to be the only one unnoticed? Or it is actually suddenly the one that gets the most Likes and you don’t understand why? Ever wonder why a reel you post only ever got one view when all your others got more? Or it actually takes off like wildfire getting tons of views and Likes?

Or have you ever wondered why social media seems more controlled than it did 10 years ago, when there was more freedom, more interaction from other users, and you got more noticed than you do now? Well, friends, we will cover that now.

How Social Media Is Controlled

Algorithms

Ahhhh yes, the good ol’ term you hear all the time nowadays when it comes to social media, or any Internet platform: “algorithms.” It is the no.1 problem because it is…well…a lie! Social media “algorithms” are robotic systems set in place to dictate how you and others get noticed - or not noticed - and are really not about “your preferences” as the claim goes.

Algorithms were created to actually prioritize and promote content that is basically the same old stuff, or what is “not offensive” to the public. That is why you might go back to a post you commented on and see that Instagram covered it with a notice saying your comment was hidden because it contained language that was spam or offensive, even if it really wasn’t. A robotic system is put in place to just hide or promote things based on recognizing input that it was programmed to go after or promote.

How Social Media Is Controlled

Algorithms are basically a robotic way of governing platforms without much human involvement. Also if you have been inactive on social media for a while and become active again, algorithms can make you seem invisible even more because they “detect” that you might be a bot, and sometimes you will all of a sudden be strongly noticed with your posts and getting tons of views or Likes. It is all based on a calculated computer system, unlike how social media was 10 or 15 years ago when the world was more real.

Shadow-banning

Believe it or not, shadow-banning is not always done by a human, but a computer as well. You do have many situations where someone out there is always flagging you or waiting to see your comments on social media so they can report it, but other times the robots are quietly banning you because of whatever they “detect” in your activity or words in your comments. They are designed to hide posts or users that they see as a threat, offensive, or like you yourself are some kind of a spam bot.

How Social Media Is Controlled

The comments are always the same

Ever notice how a lot of videos on YouTube will tend to have the same type of comments, or almost all of them are in praise or agreement with the video? This is unrealistic. In real life there is dissent and differing opinions. You are never going to find 100% agreement with something. To be fair, sometimes the creators adjust their comment settings this way, which is still deceitful and really just makes them look like they can't handle words that don't agree with them. Other times, all these 'people' who comment with the same old words are probably bots.

Paying to get noticed

This tells you everything. If you have to pay to get noticed, then you know that social media is not a random system like it once was. Both Instagram and TikTok offer plans you can pay for so that the platforms can get you noticed more or get your reels seen more often. The fact that they can do this for you tells you that social media can and is controlled and is not freely random if you have to fight to be seen.

How Social Media Is Controlled

This works much the same as getting followers: the more followers you have, the more you will be seen on social media, which is how a lot of Insta girls get ahead. They start out adding tons of people out of nowhere and they know those people are going to follow them especially guys, then later on the girls will unfollow about 75% of those people without them noticing, so that they then have way more followers than people she follows, giving the false appearance that she is more popular than she really is. And now that she has a massive amount of followers, she will be recommended more and promoted throughout the platform.

How social media is also used to control us

Humans love entertainment. We love humor, intrigue, glitz, and things that stimulate the feel-good parts of our brains associated with orgasm. But humans sadly are also sheep, and it’s very easy to control and manipulate us, and if this wasn’t true then businesses would never be as rich as they are. Humans care a lot about what others think, what others are doing, and how they are seen in the world. Humans care a ton about appearance, and they judge themselves and others by where they are on the social ladder.

How Social Media Is Controlled

This is why it is so easy for “social” media to manipulate the human mind as much as it does. Social media is controlled, and it also controls people. If it can keep you locked in and influenced as much as possible, and make you judge your own self against the world, then it’s doing its job. But you already knew that.

Anyway, what we were talking about is how social media is controlled. So the next time you notice one of your reels only got a handful of views as opposed to your others, or a goofy brainless comment you made on a post gets thousands of Likes, you now know why.

How Social Media Is Controlled
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