De-Platform - The Rise and De-Fall of the Social Media Revolution

By Thomas B. Cross CEO TECHtionary and SocialStreamingTV

Note: This is a draft and as such open to suggestions and corrections via [email protected]

Like with many ideas on-line becoming online, de-plane is deplane and de-bug is debug, I expect de-platform will become deplatform. While I understand debug to fix a software problem, I never understood de-plane to off-board an airplane that I onboarded. As with any new name or concepts few understand the term much understand what it means. When users unfollow, it means you are still on the "platform" but don't follow the posts of others anymore. Deplatform is more serious when you are banned, suspended permanently and otherwise unable to register under your name, nickname, pseudoname(s) or even accounts that promote the account being removed. Yet what does that really mean for the user, fans, lovers, haters, followers, press and anyone else. The reasons for deplatforming are manyfold with the classic benchmark of what is not allowed even with constitutionally free speech is "yelling fire in a movie theatre." However, telling lies, mistruths, sedition, threatening images, treason and the list goes on as well as issues are frequently allows though not related to constitutional violations of free speech at all. Social media is also an accelerant to any "instant replay" of a television interview. Gone are the days where followers have no say in the process; they are equally involved when they actively share what one person says to others. Doing the math gets crazy. If you have 100 followers and the person who shares your post with 100 followers and then another posts to their 100 or 100,000 or a million followers the people who might see a post is almost astronomical. This goes far beyond a fire movie theatre to a global volcano. This is not Speaker's Corner in London's Hyde Park where most anyone can talk but you don't own the space where you can't hide and importantly you have to bring your own soapbox to stand on. The physical soapbox is the no-tech platform for you to stand on above others and your voice is hardly heard beyond 50 feet. Today, we have global internet platforms which means that your new digital social soapbox can reach billions of users with sometimes an often unexpected and unanticipated consequence of what you are talking about. Importantly, the goal of these digital platforms is to let you "say something, so they can sell something." Not unlike a farmer's market where they "sell you space, where you can sell something." These digital soapbox platforms are interested in not what you say but how much they can sell. They only restrict what you say when they think is not something they can sell or rather their advertisers don't want to be associated with. 

Unanticipated Consequences - This is the "elephant" issue, that in my opinion, what are the consequences of your actions and those who follow you take. You can stand in your closet at home and "yell fire" all day long. Other than your family or friends no one will take you seriously much less take action on your speech. However, when you use your digital soapbox to "yell fire" it can start as we saw in the early days in Egypt - a revolution.

The impact of social media in its earliest forms of television and radio and others is well known such as in Nazi Germany and profound as reflected in the powerful movie Keeper of the Flame how society can be mobilized against one another. Yet the difference between a person standing on a soapbox and a digital one is profound. Today, your speaking on your digital soapbox can rapidly mobilize armed forces to attack, harm and murder people. Digital soapbox social media technology is not going to turn itself off and go back to people standing on street corners. People love hiding away shouting hate, harm, mis/disinformation and worse on their digital soapboxes and there is really nothing anyone can do to stop them. Like Pandora's box, digital social media soapboxes can appear, disappear and reappear faster than you can find them and stop them. Like hackers, malware, ransomware and others and parental control software we may need to have digital soapbox software to wash our minds like our mouths out with soap. Even then nothing will stop all of it. As children try to stop cussing, adults need to stop hating, shouting and believing what is not true, digital social media is not going to reform itself, nor is the government capable of doing that as well. The answer is taking personal action to move "off the grid" and off social media. Otherwise, we will all get deplatformed as like viruses and other even more deadly unanticipated consequences of our actions consumes society.

Summary - there is nothing to stop a person who has been deplatformed to build their own platform. In fact, we encourage it and help people do that and support Stop Hate for Profit. Free speech is not kept in a digital bottle or book on a shelf but a living and actionable concept that for the good can be really good and sadly when used for the bad can get people killed. One can only suggest as we do "do good and good will come back to you manifold."