From Promise to Crisis: The Hidden Costs of Social Media

FMC Fast Chat takes you inside the news so you can be in the know in 30 minutes. Hosted by Fair Media Council CEO and Executive Director Jaci Clement, Fast Chat features notables in news, media, and business.

Sri Srinivasan is a digital and social media strategist, educator, and consultant who has worked with some of the world's biggest media brands. He's a thought leader in the space of digital transformation and a pioneer in using social media for effective communication. Sri, it's great to have you here today on FMC Fast Chat.

Thanks for having me. I'm delighted.

Because you truly are a pioneer in the social media space. Um, so much has happened with technology. It seems like the pandemic really fast-tracked the way technology is evolving. And the use of artificial intelligence now, the way that's come down the pike. How would you describe how social media has changed since you've been in the game?

Well, social media has gone from being one of the most important ways in which we connect and share to something that's gone through a crisis and is in the middle of a major crisis. And this is thanks to The people who created and run these platforms, they could have continued to build on the strong and positive underpinnings of social and built it into a way in which we would connect and share in a positive way.

For the most part, it was never perfect, but where it is today is so horrifying and terrifying in many ways. I blame the founders and the CEOs and their teams who run all of the platforms. I think it's safe to say LinkedIn is a place where there is less drama.

So that's relatively calm place to be.

But otherwise, the other channels that are huge and the ones that dominate are causing real harm in the world.

Okay. Can you break that down for the average consumer? You know, the person that logs on and is just posting to their friends, what is it they should know? What should they be aware of?

Yeah, this—

so there are a couple of different ways to look at this, right? So you can see the things that social media has done, positive things that it has, the changes it has brought, including giving a voice to dissidents in countries around the world, holding, holding big authoritarian regimes accountable, holding democracies accountable. Also, you've seen them be able to, everyday people could speak truth to power. And we saw things like the Arab Spring, which had a direct and important connection to the world of social media. So you can see those things happen. You've seen the breakout out of amazing influencers and social media stars who in a different generation or era would, people would be people we'd never heard of. And they, and books that have been successful because of that. So the creative power of social media has been something that we ought to admire along with what they have done for the powerless and the voiceless. But we have also seen the dark side of social media. These channels that we use to share our kids' photos have repeatedly and at every turn and every opportunity done harm to us and to society at large. They have divided us, they have poisoned us, and they have exposed grifts that already existed but magnified them in outrageous ways. And at every turn, the social media companies could have reduced the harm, could have helped heal, but they've chosen to divide. And internal memos and whistleblowers have told us that they knew all along. And that's why we are now paying the terrible price that we're paying and why we're seeing some very thoughtful, very smart people walk away from the platforms.

Now you're talking about giant companies. So does this all come down to the profit motive in the end?

Yeah, I think you could, you could certainly point to that, that it's profit, but it's also these particular, you know, billionaires who run these companies are somewhat like the billionaires who caused trouble in the '20s and '30s all over, all over the world, the 1920s and '30s all over the world, but The difference is that those folks are mostly interested in personal gain, money, maybe having an ear of a president, things like that. These folks, because of the unique nature of social media, have seen that they don't have to just settle for being fabulously wealthy. They can have put a thumb on the scale of everything from From the choices we make about what content we look at to the people we elect to office. So they are, they don't have to just be happy with being rich beyond anybody's dreams or needs. They want to and are able to have influence way beyond that. And I would look at someone like Rupert Murdoch, who's not a social media guy, But who saw the value of social media. As you know, he bought MySpace and has dabbled in other social media. He understood that what he did as a blueprint with media and digital media before there was social media, he could see where things were going with social and he wanted to do some of the things that these other folks are doing, but even he couldn't pull it off.

And I imagine though, Where technology is today and how fast it's evolving, how far behind are regulations? Or is there even any hope for there to be any meaningful regulations in place that put the public interest ahead of the commodity that, you know, the internet itself has become?

Public interest is something that we don't think often enough about in this country, and we are paying the price for it. So I think that regulations would be good, but they aren't feasible or possible in the current environment. One of the most amazing things I've seen are repeated print ads in the New York Times, full-page ads taken out by Meta and previously by Facebook saying, please regulate us, saying we need the help. And because they know the help isn't coming. Because they know that our governments at every level and across the world aren't prepared. If you haven't watched a CEO of one of the social media platforms speak in front of Congress, in front of senators, and see them run circles around them, then you haven't understood the basic fault lines and mismatch in the regulators, those whom they should be regulating. But don't know how to. And so you ask the people at Meta, they'll say, yes, we want regulation. And everyday people and critics like me will say, we need regulation. So you'd think that's easy, but the mechanisms don't exist. The willpower doesn't exist. And governments at every level of the United States don't know what to do. Thank God for Europe because the Europeans have shown us the way in terms like, In terms of things like privacy and holding these people accountable, they've done a much better job than folks in the United States.

Does this ultimately come down to a better educated public and it would be a ground up kind of movement?

How does that work? There are efforts that I don't want to, I don't want to sound so pessimistic, but we have to hold these platforms accountable. A lot of good people have left the platforms. But a lot of people are still there also, and they need to fight. So people have asked me for a long time, Sri, how come you haven't left Facebook? And now they ask me why you haven't left Twitter. I have very dear friends who point out it's a Nazi bar now. And would you hang out at a Nazi bar? And my answer to them is that, yes, it's a Nazi bar, but it used to be my bar. And I believe that unlike at a Nazi bar, I can be there. And shout every day as I do, posting angry things about the bar owner, in this case, Elon Musk, every single day, I feel I'm doing something. And not everybody needs to feel this way. There are very good people, as I said, who have left and have made the case why we should all leave, whether it's Facebook or Twitter. But I feel it's almost like, you know, being mad at Con Ed or one of your local power utility. You could leave, but you could also stay and try to make it better. So that's what I'm trying. I have no illusions that I'll be effective or people like me will be effective, but there is some satisfaction in shouting into the wind.

Okay. What role do you think the news media has played in all of this?

Well, the news media has been used by these companies. And so they've been a victim, but also perpetrator. Of the crimes that we are talking about. Media companies have done a terrible job explaining the role of tech in our lives. They've done a terrible job of warning us about the dangers. I might be talking a lot about it now, but I was one of those people who didn't do enough when I had the stage, including when I was at an on-air commentator, a tech reporter on Channel 2, Channel 4. Channel 7 here in New York. I didn't sound the alarm enough. I'd always say I'm a tech evangelist and a tech skeptic, but I didn't warn people enough about what we were getting into. I mean, you can look at it. This is what happens with technology. You remember the first time you got a BlackBerry device and you saw it, as I did, as something that's so helpful. I can be connected when I'm out of the office. And this is a good thing, but it was actually a terrible thing. It was the start of us being on 24/7. Yes, the computer had already made that possible, but the phone made it even more possible. And that's why, again, I praise the Europeans because they understood that there is something about work-life balance that you have to think about. And I was just with some friends and one of them's from Europe and his, if he wants to send emails to his underlings, he can send it after 5 PM on a Friday, but it goes into a queue and doesn't get released till Monday morning. Imagine if our world was like that in America. So technology always comes in the guise of something that'll help you, will save you time, energy, productivity, all of that stuff. But it is something that will ultimately cause our own harm and cause us great harm as these companies have done. So I think that more people should speak up. I think more people should fight to fix these, but it's not going to happen automatically. We're, I'm sure we're going to talk about AI. And one of the things I say about the world of AI is that the social media, the AI companies will not fix the problem. Just the way the social media companies did not fix the problems. You go back to 2016 and the damaging impact a variety of actors had on that election, including Facebook in particular. And you fast forward to today and no lessons have been learned by Facebook or by folks who cover these things. So the media, for journalists, and we, we have fallen into the trap set by the folks who want to destabilize and ruin America's democracy by not being more vigilant.

Where would you rank our country in terms of our vulnerabilities and how we're using social media compared to the others? Are you putting us way at the bottom?

Yeah, I would put ourselves, I would put America at the bottom in so many different ways. Some of it is because of technology. Some of it's directly because of social media, but some of it is also because The gullibility of Americans. We are talking at a moment before the elections where depending on how the results go, we could have someone who has caused great harm as an advocate for not getting vaccinated be the head of Health and Human Services in the United States. I'm talking about Robert F. Kennedy Jr. And the The fact that that man isn't an outcast and isn't marginalized to the extent that no one should be promoting him to where he is today, where he's at the precipice of his wildest dreams, tells you how badly America is positioned and has set up over these many, many decades. And that's just one example. And as you know, America is a country which has 5% of the world's population, but it's 20% of the world's prisoners and 20% of all the COVID deaths. And those are just 2 things that we can attribute to the way America is so badly positioned to deal with information, deal with facts, deal with humanity, deal deal with, you know, our fellow citizens. And that makes me really sad.

Just to follow up on the question, top of the list, I'm guessing you're putting Europe in terms of how they're—

Countries in Europe. I'm a big admirer of Scandinavia and other parts of Europe, which work together and understand that their people come first and not corporations. So this is not just about social media. Think of, imagine a country where women, when they have a child, get a year off, their job is held for them. They get a goodie basket full of a year's worth of, or many months worth of supplies for their children. They get free healthcare. That same country, or in this case, countries like many countries in Europe, are then going to take care of their citizens in a different way throughout the journey of that young child that's born to that mother. Right. So in America, where we put companies first and the primacy of corporations over people, we end up in the situation we're in today where the same poor quality of information, the low quality of information, the low quality of trust in government has resulted in everything we're seeing here. We just had multiple hurricanes in successive weeks. And what happened? The, the most important sources of information are, is the government that is, that is vilified every single day on local news, on national news, on social media. So why would someone believe the government when they say, hey, get out of there? Because they are taught that thumbing your nose at the government is the most important thing you can do. on a daily basis. So that has resulted in this warped situation in America. And as I keep saying, we're paying the price for that.

Okay. As you're talking, I can't help but wonder, are you saying the First Amendment is something that we should regard as not being able to survive the digital landscape?

Oh, I wouldn't go that far, but the First Amendment obviously allows Elon Musk to go out and offer $1 million every day for the next few days to someone in Pennsylvania to sign up for his super PAC or whatever it is that he's offering. It, the First Amendment allows him to do that, but electoral rules may not allow him to do that. But who cares? Like we're in this country and in this situation where facts don't matter, where the rules don't matter. And there was an understanding, all of us. in the '60s, '70s, '80s, that these are the facts and we can grow as a society if we understand these facts and we're all agreed that these are the facts. And while I'm all for citizen journalism, I'm all for the wisdom of the crowds, I'm all for folks being able to speak up and speak out. Those are all good things, but they've also resulted in this place where There are people who would have been hounded out of public discourse and the public arena a generation ago who are at the top of public life today. It is something that happens in other countries. And by the way, one of the things that is going to happen with the election is the world is watching. And what happens in these set of elections is going to make a difference, not just to America, But to lots of countries and lots of people around the world.

And what role do you think the American education system is playing into this?

The American education system has played, it plays an important role, a disappointing role for the most part. We are now in a country where people are criticizing books that we grew up in, banning books that we grew up in. Where To Kill a Mockingbird is not considered a book worthy of knowing. Books that some of my friends have written about issues such as race or being gay are banned in America. We live in a world of banned books and people deciding that they know better than their teachers, than their kids' teachers, what their children should be taught. And this has resulted in the kind of hellscape of poor outcomes for our kids. And this is before this, right? We, you know, for generations now, we've talked about Americans being bad at math and being in the 30s in math and things like that. And this, everything that's happening because of social media now and because of the political climate, Things are becoming worse faster than we could have ever predicted.

What about our technology skills? If our tech skills were more advanced, because now that we're getting into AI, what I'm seeing is a much larger gap happening very quickly. So where does education play in that role of giving us the tech skills we need, or should we not even be able to rely on education because technology evolves so quickly?

Yes. Well, education matters. And one of the things that I used to do on TV was talk about how you can catch up with your kids because your kids will always know more technology than you. And how do you keep up? Because you have to keep up. And now all of this with, with the role of, of, of AI, everything I've talked about just gets accelerated, gets worse, deeper, faster than we, we can imagine. And the amount of fake information, disinformation, misinformation that's already coming through our feeds and is something that we see on a daily basis is a major, major crisis for all of us. And so we need to think about how can we fix those and get everyone educated? How can we do— I used to do workshops, by the way. I go way back. about email, telling people to use email because folks thought, why do I need email? I love the fax machine. And then here's the internet, and then a whole bunch of workshops are on that. And then here's social media. And you've been very kind and had me on various opportunities to get out my inner tech evangelist. But even in your sessions, I don't think I did enough warning of what's coming. And now I've created a course called My Non-Scary Guide to AI, and I've been teaching it and I've done it in about 12 countries in the last 18 months. And everywhere I go, I see that people want to learn, they want to fight back, but they don't know how.

Okay. Give me 3 of your top tips for that person that wants to help but doesn't even know where to begin. Where do they begin? What's the best advice you can give right now?

Get, get an understanding of what's happening. Anything on the internet that's too good to be true or too bad to be true probably is. And therefore, watch out for the things that are in your inbox and look at them and say, why is this here? Why am I being manipulated? Why am I letting myself be manipulated? When your cousin posts something in your group chat that is a lie, or misinformation, correct him so that everybody can see that and maybe he'll pause before he sends it down the line to the other group. Another thing we can do is to really look through at how this technology works so that you can detect fake, deepfakes, which are a big problem as you know.

Hmm.

One of the things that we talk about is that in the old days we'd say, see it with your own eyes, see, listen to it, and then know and trust it, right? Well, that's hard now when you're seeing somebody do something that is so realistic that it's hard to, hard to believe. Cloning of voices, for example, you know, is a big deal. There have been stories about a congressman who sent thousands of dollars to his daughter who was in trouble, who turned out not to be his daughter. So we talk about having a safe word for your family so that if your mother calls asking for money or your son calls asking for money, you say, what's the safe word? So that you know if it's fake or not. And we are under siege. And the first thing to know about being under siege is to know that you're under siege. Because if you don't know and you think everything's okay, Then you won't respond the right way. I just met family, extended family of mine that I hadn't met before. And they were in 1991 in Kuwait when Saddam Hussein invaded. And as you know, in more recent wars, there's a warning and everybody can see the missiles coming or the troops advancing, all of that. These folks in the capital had no idea they were under attack. And they woke up and heard what they thought were firecrackers. And they looked out the window and the Iraqi army had surrounded the police station next door. And so Americans to me are like that, where we live in our own bubble, just happy with the circumstances we have and not educating ourselves, not participating. And then it'll be too late once we look out and see the Iraqi army right outside our house. So the analogy is, of course, not the Iraqi army, but disinformation, misinformation, manipulation of all of us at an extreme level.

Okay. So let me take your superpower and move it up a few notches to say, okay, Sree, you're in charge of the world now. What would you do to solve this problem?

Well, that's very kind of you to offer, but it's more than superpowers and not just me, but there isn't a consensus about— I know what we should be doing, but the consensus that these are common, these are a common good for all of us is not understood. And that's because the politicians have frayed that, have actively fought that. So that you can't agree on just basic things in life today. We know politicians who lost their jobs or lost a chance to be president because of a single indiscretion or even a single thing that they said wrong or a single case of plagiarism. And we're now in a world where plagiarists say, I didn't do it. Sexual attackers say, I didn't do it. And it becomes— everything becomes a he said, she said, he said, he said kind of thing. And so we need to get back to the basics and say, these are the common things we agree on. It may be a very small amount of things, but what are they and how do we build that up so that the people who lie have some consequences for themselves?

The near future, what do you see doing? How do you see helping People even just understand what the problem is. But what will your focus be?

Well, thank you. So at DigiMentors, my small social digital consulting training business, we work to help brands be stronger online. We talk about increasing and improving their digital footprint. We have 2 footprints, the physical footprint, everyone who knows and loves us already, gives us money, hires us, et cetera. The digital footprint is everyone else in the world. So how can we go out there, represent what we're doing better so that more people appreciate what we do and therefore have more impact, more influence, more resources, and have a chance to make a difference?

All right.

One more question for you. What's the best thing about being Sri Srinivasan?

Oh my God. The best thing about being me is that I get to work with some fantastic folks around the world that I have gotten to meet and know thousands of people because I'm old and I've been in one place for a long time. And that folks are so nice and responsive when people ask for things and more people offer to help than ask for things. And I am blessed to have a network and connections that make that possible. So I'm always grateful for that. And of course, my family. I have 2 wonderful twins and my wife Rupa and, and our dog who I walk 3 times a day. And I'm grateful for all of that.

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