What if the E-commerce Social Media Platforms closed?

I got a survey this week that asked various questions surrounding the responsibility of social media companies to monitor their audience. I thought about what that means, what expectations we should have, and who sets the rules.

On the one hand, I do not want Mark Zuckerberg to decide what is deemed acceptable content. What he deems acceptable doesn’t mean I do. Yet, should the Federal Government be those decision-makers? Based on how they operate these days, I would say that is a hard no, but I do look to Government and business to squash the voices of extremists who incite terror and hate. Is that killing freedom of speech? Like everything, to have a functioning society, you can’t give just free reign as our country did hundreds of years ago. It ends up it is not a good look.

Can you imagine what would happen to the countless businesses that use TikTok and Instagram as their e-commerce platform, and it shut down, kicked you off, or lost its edge? Where do you go? Both TikTok and Instagram are two of the biggest stores in the world. Your customers live there. Unfortunately, in America, we give a more prominent voice to companies, and those companies end up owning us.

I am hoping, and again, this is just hoping, that Web 3.0 will put a lot more monitoring of new sites where the majority prevails, not the minority with a loud, ugly voice. Doing business is built into the model in a thoughtful way building communities, not eyeballs.

The tools are there, but I am not sure anyone has quite figured it out….yet.