Lured into oppression: Advertising manipulation

Imagine you enjoy the support of a whale, they love your content, comment regularly and upvote you to the moon. Pretty good times. One day, you have just written your latest post and are just about to hit the post button when you notice your whale patron also posted. You choose to read their post first and it is about the horrors of vaccination and the evilness of their usage. The post you are yet to send: "I just had my child vaccinated, Yay!"

Do you post it?

There are some pretty convincing and influential people out there in the Steem world pushing for advertising revenue but, think twice and then a few more times after that before supporting anyone who claims advertising is good for the system. It may be good for some bottom lines however, it is not good for freedom of speech.

The reason that so many accounts are being demonetized, banned, suspended and the like on other 'social' platforms is because of add revenues, not some authoritarian government. The greatest threat to freedom of speech is money earned on the commercialisation of content. Do you think that Coca-cola or Marlboro are going to support an influential speaker against those industries?

What are you willing to do for a whale vote? What is your price on your thoughts and words? Would you post your article on vaccination if you had a pretty good idea that it would cost you a consistent whale vote? Sure?

This is how platforms make money now, selling our collected data for advertisers to segment, then the ad space for them to target us with. We are the product the platforms sell, not our content. This means that their success depends on advertisers, not content producers. Content producers are just lures to land big whale advertising accounts and the school of fish to catch in their marketing nets. The ecosystem is completely designed for consumption, not expression.

You might be the most celebrated, rewarded and influential person on a platform but, as soon as you become a liability to advertising revenue, gone. Sure, they will make some drama about it and milk the process the entire way but it will always be the same, conform or be ejected from the system.

The new governments are not (and perhaps never were) those that were elected and rule the laws, it is the money behind them, the ones who lobby for this to restrict that. That is where the laws are made and when it comes 'societal acceptance', it is the advertisers who dictate what should be.

Look at the content out there and find what makes money and what doesn't. Look at the trends and you will see how narrow the pathway is and to stray from it is to be outcast. This happens on the left, the right and the centre pathways as with global markets, there is room for lots of segmentation.

You think you are different because you listen to some 'alt-news' service? Think again, they are advertiser driven also and if you wanted to have a differing opinion on a topic, you will be outcast again.

You cannot trust the opinions of people who rely on the support of opinionated positions for their bread and water as they are unlikely to bite the hand that feeds them, are they? Would you? If you were a whale supporting someone's content, are you mature enough to understand that people can have different opinions and still respect each other's views on other topics?

Advertisers do not care about the nuances of human existence where one person can have several views concerning various topics and often conflicted views concerning one. All they care about is the view that supports their ability to sell, or doesn't. And if someone does a good job of influencing others away from their product, they will use every trick they can to undermine and destroy the credibility of that person, group or rival. Truth matters little to advertisers.

Through their whale status, advertisers effectively centralise control by only supporting those who tow their line for their advantage. To play their game is to play the game that for centuries has been driving value to a very narrow point in the community, it is to support the conglomerates and it is to support the oppression of the many for massive gains for the few.

Does that sound like someone who is thinking what is best for a decentralised platform looking to empower content creators and diversity of thought? For those who want advertisers in on the platform, take a good, long, hard look at what they get out of it. Follow the money.

One of the draw cards of the Steem environment is the decentralised, uncensored nature of a platform that does not rely on advertising revenue of any kind. Rather, it (imperfectly) rewards content producers for being content producers and who that is decided by the community, not advertisers. To lose that factor due to short-term, influential thinkers is to lose the thing that makes Steemit unique, self-sufficiency. Where the money comes from matters a great deal.

Taraz
[ a Steemit original ]