There are, of course, bigger issues afoot. As I write this, we are days away from Donald Trump's second presidential inauguration, as well as a torrent of day one executive orders. As expected, one of those curtails transgender rights, while others target immigrants, who could face confinement or deportation.
I do not have insight into all of that just yet, aside from the rather big, obvious clues from Project 2025 that have been floating around for months now. What we do know is that it will be monumental, soul-bruising, and nightmarish.
I think we can also look at some of the moves occurring with social media for some solid examples of the sort of corruption and bigotry that will be driving the next few years.
Of course, we already saw what happened with Twitter, now X. The site was always filled with bigots, and its trust and safety team had to regularly play Whack-a-mole on the worst of them. The company did a fairly good job in its time, but it nevertheless always had its issues as the site strived to be a "digital town square."
Then, Elon Musk, who bragged about the notion of buying the site, was forced to put his money — not necessarily his mind — where his mouth was. Musk purchased Twitter for $44 billion in October 2022.
Since then, the site has become a haven to some of the worst, with Musk himself trying to do his level best to top them all. With his estrangement from his transgender daughter — as well as his own anti-LGBTQ biases that likely existed decades before she walked the earth — the site has become pretty welcoming for anti-trans voices.
Rather than attempting to safeguard language, X has only encouraged these anti-trans voices, and despite Musk proclaiming to be a "free speech absolutist," he has banned use of the word, "cisgender," which essentially means "not transgender."
I would be remiss if I did not note that Musk, the world's richest man, also helped finance and promote Trump's reelection, spending a reported half a billion dollars.
Tech billionaire Mark Zuckerberg recently decided that he, too, wanted a piece of what X was doing. Along with his own current turn toward Trump, his company, Meta, decided to make a few big changes in how it moderates Facebook, Instagram, and its other various apps and platforms.
Earlier this month, Zuckerberg announced the removal of fact checkers from the U.S. side of Meta and that has garnered the most attention. But it was his new allowance for bigoted language that most caught my eye.
Consider these examples, garnered from training materials acquired by The Intercept. People are now welcome to say, "Gays are freaks," or say that immigrants are "grubby, filthy pieces" of, well, excrement.
Key to this, however, is that gender and gender identity are completely freed up from any restrictions. Posting "trans people are mentally ill" is considered perfectly acceptable on Meta's properties, as is "look at that tranny," which was posted beneath a photo of a 17-year-old girl.
Zuckerberg claims this is about getting Facebook back to its roots, though I have to note the site initially started as a way for him to rate the attractiveness of female college students. He also seems to claim this has something to do with masculinity, though his own appears to be close to the play-acting of a pre-teen boy trying to imagine what masculinity is after one-too-many Batman movies.
Perhaps he, too, should spend some time considering his own gender issues — but I digress.
I don't feel we can change these sites for the better, at least not in the short term. X seems a lost cause, and I suspect Meta's products are as well.
The policies of X, and the changes at Meta, will also surely lead to similar developments on other sites. I expect we'll hear more from Google — specifically about its YouTube site — soon. Of course, the incoming administration will most likely have more to say about all of this, too, given that so many tech giants have been cozying up to Trump, including visiting him at his Mar-a-Lago resort.
While I have left X, and am winding down my involvement with Instagram and Facebook, I do fully understand if anyone isn't quite ready to do the same. We have spent the last decade or two siloing ourselves into these sites, using their reach to help build our networks and promote community. It's difficult to disentangle from that.
Yet, consider this: If you are not planning your exit and building up your next option post-Meta or X, then you really are helping support those companies' policies. Additionally, understand that these sites will get worse, and your audience will leave. Eventually, you will be promoting yourself to a whole new, hostile, bigoted crowd. You may not be able to move off of the sites now, but plan your exit — and start building toward it.
For myself, I've rebuilt my own website for those who need to find me, and moved my main social media presence to Bluesky, which is a bit less beholden to billionaires. I am not, however, suggesting that Bluesky is the basket for your eggs. There may well be other options that fit you better, and there may be sites not yet built.
Heck, you might be the one to develop your own new and amazing thing, and this may be the opportunity to do so. Really, that is what I'm hoping for.
I am old enough to remember the internet from before X, or Meta, or a whole lot of other things. While the big players have provided useful tools and a lot of reach for our voices, it may be a time for us to control our own places, and for our community to build something entirely of their own.
Perhaps it is time for us to lead.
Gwen Smith was once friends with Tom on MySpace. You'll find her at www.gwensmith.com
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