The Influence Of Web Based Social Networks (week 3)

 

Web Based Social Networks

Wikipedia defines a social network as social structure made up of a set of a social actors (such as individuals or organisations), sets of dyadic ties and other social interactions between actors[1]. In essence, a social network is a reflection of the patterns of relationship among people, a congregation of like minded people coming together to speak their minds. Despite these definitions seeming very complex, like something that would just have theoretical implications, I feel like web based social networks have changed the course of humanity and the way people have fundamentally started expressing themselves. It is a huge blessing to humanity or maybe perhaps a curse given to a primitive being who’s primal minds cannot evolve quickly enough to keep up with the technology we create, whether we ever find out or not, it has completely changed what it is to be human and to express.

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In my opinion, YouTube is the most influential and the most resource filled social networking/video sharing platform. It is almost unfathomable how much information YouTube has, it is akin to a giant library with infinite knowledge. To give some context, 500 hours of content being uploaded every minute[2] which means that 30,000 hours per hour and 360,000 hours every day. By the way, 360,000 hours = 41 years worth of footage is being uploaded to YouTube per day. Of all the content uploaded, I would assume that less that 3% is probably usable content but considering the magnitude, it is probably enough. I can genuinely say that YouTube has taught me a lot more about studies than my teachers than they ever have and the same goes for my parents, it motivated me to work hard, be ambitious, have self esteem, taught me how to code, taught me math, sung me the most beautiful songs and has made me laugh the hardest during tough times. It is almost like another beautiful world separate from the one I live and breathe in, I would not know what to do with the absence of YouTube, it is almost scary to think about it’s disappearance and how it would make me feel like I lost a good friend. Maybe not to such an extreme, but I can guarantee this generation agrees with me which is why it pains me to see the direction is currently taking[3] by bending over backwards to cater to mainstream sentimentality not understanding that they are fundamentally snapping off the base which created them in the first place, treason of the highest order.

img url:https://www.eff.org/files/banner_library/Twitter-censored.png

Another great social media is Twitter. The existence of Twitter is extremely baffling to witness the faux pas they get away with. Twitter is extremely popular in my opinion as a status updating app. The other reason why Twitter is so popular is because of the fact that news travels extremely quickly on twitter, one person sees a tweet and relays the information to his followers so on and so forth. The only problem of twitter is that it attracts disorganised masses that can easily be weaponised and polarised extremely easily when they get stuck inside an echo chamber surrounded ONLY by people who think the same. It also does not help that the people who run twitter have a clear political bias and exercise their unchallenged undemocratic right to censor based solely on whim while pretending to follow guidelines. They have silenced many journalists and even used their tactics against the New York Post [4] when it criticised the current POTUS. It is baffling to see clear and plain violation of the freedom of speech and freedom of press be allowed to occur (while perfectly legal).These are interesting times we live in.

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