Don’t Confuse Social Media with Internet Presence (9/29/14)

Do you need a social media presence? One of the first things my publisher told me after signing on the dotted line was that I needed a social media presence. I had to be online.

I’m not an expert on being an author so I didn’t resist the requests of the team that was put together to help me succeed. I bought a domain name for my website, and created a blog. I expanded my Facebook account by creating a page for my books. I have started posting to my google+ account. I created a twitter account so that I could post whatever was on my mind any given second of the day. I already had a LinkedIn profile that was updated to list my new endeavors in the wonderful world of writing. I went to the extreme of creating a YouTube account to host a video blog for my book tour. Finally there are the author pages I have on Goodreads and Amazon. I think I have developed a very well rounded internet presence.

However, I don’t think we should confuse having an internet presence with it being social media. To tell you the truth if I didn’t honestly believe that I needed an internet presence I wouldn’t even bother; maintaining my digital footprint is like inviting a time-bandit in to rob me on a daily basis.

I want to try and prove my point that an internet presence isn’t social media. Recently there was a young lady who was censored by Facebook because some animal activists didn’t like her pictures. Now one of two things transpired; either the brain-trust at Facebook is completely and utterly spineless or they are a collection of Fascists that believe that they have the authority to censor what people have to say when they don’t agree with it. Let’s be clear this girl wasn’t promoting hate and genocide. She wasn’t displaying gory pictures that would leave a casual viewer scarred for life. In fact she even gave explanations as to the importance of each kill. The hunting license for this pays to support these animals. By participating in select population control you give the offspring the opportunity to survive. However, in the progressive mindset, that is supposed to be about inclusion and acceptance, you are permitted to freely express yourself up until the point that your opinion comes into conflict with mine. Once we have a difference of opinion you’re no longer permitted to express yourself. For the record I don’t hunt or fish, nor am I a fan for say, but I support the fact that this young lady does have the right to express herself freely. Personally I find Facebook’s decision to censor her freedom of expression to be reprehensible.

Although, I guess you can say Facebook is a social platform, after all it’s management chose to run a social experiment on 700,000 of their customers without acquiring the customers’ consent. Facebook has chosen to screw with the minds of innocent bystanders. You know a guy in Germany was performing social experiments on innocent bystanders without their knowledge or consent nearly 80 years ago. That man even went so far as to say what he was doing was for the good of the country, just sayin’.

How about the fact that social media platforms have tried to claim ownership over intellectual property that just happened to be posted. Yeah, Facebook is guilty of that one too. Buried in the small print you don’t see that your information will be kept against your will and farmed out for profit even after you have decided to severe any connection you may have had.

So you are going to censor me, perform social experiments to further your personal agenda, and steal my intellectual property. I could have continued to elaborate on how social media is in effect antisocial, but I have to get ready for Argentina vs Germany in the World Cup final. My point is that having an internet presence is not the same thing as social media. Social by definition means we interact freely. I can say whatever I damn well please, and you can choose to walk away if you don’t like what you hear. Social is wanting to interact, but not forcing me to be included against my will and stealing my identity when I choose to walk away. There are several terms that when you combine with “Digital” fit that description very nicely, and funny thing is they are all felonies: false imprisonment, kidnapping, and theft. I will maintain an internet presence because I have to, but don’t lie to me and tell me it’s social media when it’s social only when you find it convenient to be social.