Facebook: The Creator Economy and the Journey to Fascism

When Facebook started, the underlying philosophy was to connect friends. This is why the platform was driven by nostalgia for many years.

However, the philosophy changed from friendships to community. This means various people who have not been friends can now come together to support common causes or interests.

What I call philosophy here is also known as algorithm in Big Tech parlance.

Now we can see how the algorithm has moved from optimizing friendship connections to community or common interest connections.

Today, the algorithm or philosophy is optimizing for creators. This has effectively led to the creation of what is popularly known as the, “Creator Economy”.

What is the implication of this logic? The implication of this logic is that everyone on Facebook and their activity is treated like a creator. All your posts and engagement is seen like being part of Facebooks production system. And you are supposed to earn something from it.

This logic is not limited to Facebook. Twitter and TikTok have applied the same thinking to their product development and customer experience. People now earn money and various incentives for making videos and developing platform audiences.

At the heart of the creator economy is the influencers, who are at the top of the pyramid. However, other accounts are also treated as part of the system.

What we have not really appreciated is that Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and other platforms are like countries of their own, with citizens of their own and rules, regulations and “constitution” of their own.

This reality has not taken a life of its own because of the barriers regulators have developed. For instance, data privacy laws and other protections have ensured that social media users have not become as monetized as they should or can be. But we all know the level of data and information “Big Tech” has on all of us.

The information big tech has on individual users is enough to build a digital identity map for taxation, credit scoring, prediction of social behaviour, job recruitment, admissions, health insurance and other forms of insurance.

While this prospect is tempting, it is indeed the last frontier before totalitarianism. The kind we have feared in real life and that we have read in George Orwell’s dystopian novel-1984.

After the creator economy, the next phase is to create some Uber digital identity, which of course will just be your Facebook Account. A combination of your creator money and your profile will now be linked to essential government services. This can be in turn backed up by a blockchain system that ensure that such an identity is immutable. You may be able to change your username and password, but your account will ba backed by your blockchain ID.

Under this dispensation, no one will ba able to open an account that is not linked to a blockchain powered ID. The actions and every activity of all digital consumers can be monitored and pre-empted. This is a major theme for totalitarianism.

This and other similar dynamic is the reason why regulators in US are holding back from allowing big tech companies to hold banking licenses. Such an economic decision will have global political implications.

In 1906 the US government filed anti-trust charges against Standard Oil company. The same thing happened to Microsoft in 1990. The fear of governments in liberal democracies has been that capitalists can grow so big and rich to the point that they become accessories for Fascism.

This point will be well proven with the role of major corporations such as;

1. IG Farben- They produced Zyklon gas which was used to exterminate Jews in concentration camps.

2. Volkswagen: Used forced labour in factories

3. Siemens: Involved in construction of concentration camps

The general logic about large corporations is that too much concentration of power enables them to direct policy, trample on worker rights and collude with their favourite politicians to perpetuate themselves in power.

We often use these social media tools harmlessly, but in the long run, the powers behind these technologies have greater political, economic and social implications for the wider population of users locally and globally.