How I learned to not fear Trump and Social Media

(Note: This starts out as political, but it isn't a political essay. It's about trust in media, so bear with me.)

Lots of pundits are checking in about how awful it is for #Facebook and #Twitter to have reinstated #donaldtrump . I'm pretty sure it isn't awful. It seems absolutely meaningless.

The image of big Donnie in 2016 is completely different from what it is today. Then he was considered by many, including detractors, as a successful businessman who knew how to work the system. There were concerns about his bluster and how he treated people, but everyone had a boss that was like him and he was more of a mean joke than someone to take seriously.

Today, we know, for a fact, that he is a horrible businessman who has lost billions of other people's money and millions of his own. Businesses know they are taking an enormous risk doing business with him. As a politician, he is, possibly, more dishonest than Representative George Santos (although the jury is still out on that one). In the end, the only people that still have any respect for him do not represent a majority anywhere. There are, in fact, more dangerous versions of him already in the public eye.

All that to say, whatever he does on any platform, including his own weird attempts (#TrustSocial) will not move the needle on his influence. He has significantly blown his credibility wad with anyone who might still be on the fence. Yes, there are a significant number of people still in his thrall that can do some real damage (e.g. #january6th), but the courts and the DoJ are dealing with them.

What is really giving me confidence that there will be no recurrence of what happened in 2016, and a couple of years before, is that the social media user base has found out that the major, for-profit, social media platforms really don't care about making the world a better place. #Zuckerberg and #Musk want everyone stupid, frightened, and angry because that makes it easier to sell them fraudulent crap.

That isn't working anymore. Over the past few years, Gallup and Pew research has shown a steady decline in trust in social media as a source of information. It currently sits at 10 per cent. Yes, only 10 per cent of the social media audience trusts what they see on social media. They just don't have the influence they had 6 years ago.

A big reason I'm not fearful of the return of "The Donald" is the growing influence, however, are print newspapers. While still economically challenged, print publications are seeing a renaissance of interest from the public. Moreover, the Gallup and Pew research shows that while less than 10 per cent of the public gets their news from print, 67 per cent trust what they read.

Another reason is because of old Elon himself. Twitter recently added some transparency at his demand that showed how many people actually see the tweets, as opposed to the numbers advertisers look at. A recent substack post I follow pointed out that when he shared his posts on Twitter, despite having tens of thousands of followers, only a few hundred actually saw the posts, whereas the number of people opening his posts in email was twice that total. He said that he thought he could not leave Twitter without damaging his following, but he's rethinking that belief. Twitter's new feature has demonstrated its lack of reach and relevance.

Finally, the emergence of decentralized social media. Yeah, I know. "Decentralized" is a popular tech buzzword now and has its own problems, but services like Mastodon have shown the value of not having Mark Zuckerberg in charge of what we consume in media.

In the end, there are a lot of things to worry about, but what we've gone through with Trump and centralized social media is not that big a deal anymore. The market and government regulation are taking care of that.

Find me on Mastodon at @[email protected] and @[email protected]. I write for Cyber Protection Magazine and podcast at Crucial Tech