But There’s Nothing ‘Social’ About ‘Social Media’ Anymore
But There’s Nothing ‘Social’ About ‘Social Media’ Anymore
Plus Ben Smith on his new podcast and the OpenAI debate
Blink and you would have missed it. In fact, you probably did. The small print of Meta’s Q1 2024 earnings report was an accidental obituary to the modern social media age (2003 – 2024).
With TikTok in the ascendancy, social network apps were forced to not only embrace short-form vertical video, but heavily market it to their customers. Facebook reacted by first launching Reels in 2021, a year after the video platform YouTube had launched YouTube Shorts.
Both companies have heavily pushed the format, even incentivising creators to produce more short-form video. The problem is that TikTok isn’t a social media business in the traditional sense. It’s really a video platform.
Even with no connections on the platform, you will be served popular short videos via its algorithm. Sure, you can comment on these posts, but you aren’t building and nurturing a network, say like the early days of Twitter.
Speaking of which, Elon Musk’s iteration of the micro-blogging platform has seen it turned into a Swiss-army knife of a social media platform.
As part of the overhaul, since early 2023 your primary feed on the app is no longer made up of your followers. Instead, you are provided with a ‘for you’ selection of the most popular Tweets, sometimes including the creators you follow.
Instagram was arguably the last hold-out. You were generally served content from the people you followed and you could interact with them. But Meta’s recent results make the situation very clear: the app has fully transformed into a video sharing platform, just like TikTok.
“This month we launched an update full-screen video player on Facebook that brings together Reels, longer videos, and live content into a single experience with a unified recommendation system,” Mark Zuckerberg said.
“On Instagram, Reels and video continue to drive engagement, with Reels alone now making up 50% of the time that’s spent within the app.”
So are social media networks dead? Funny enough, Threads, Meta’s Twitter clone which was launched in 2023, is growing well.
There are now more than 150 million monthly active users on the platform. But it pales in comparison to its sister and brother apps, including Facebook and Instagram.
And since Musk took Twitter private, it’s increasingly hard to find reliable stats on the platform’s user numbers. Daily user numbers are estimated around 250 million.
Perhaps people just don’t want social media networks anymore? It’s a bit of discombobulating thought when you consider that Zuckerberg wanted to make ‘The Facebook’ an online mirror of real life rather than a virtual place to meet-up and make new connections (like SecondLife).
Now, in many ways, offline life attempts to mirror online life, which itself is a reflection of offline life, ad infinitum.
Semafor’s media pod. Ben Smith and Nayeema Raza are launching a new pod, Mixed Signals, looking at the intersection between media, business and politics. What do the duo want to achieve with the pod? Here’s what Smith told me:
“Nayeema and I met at the Times and we've have been talking about media for a long time -- how the key decisions that affect politics, culture and technology get made. Pulling back those curtains is a big part of Semafor's mission.
“I'd say our goal is to answer those questions, with the help of guests who are deeply involved in those decisions, and capture the drama and power of media without the conspiracy theories.”
The Telegraph waiting game. The general election has put a potential spanner in the works for the sale of The Telegraph Media Group. Though the process will be run by RedBird IMI, after the UAE-backed outfit was prevented from taking the publisher over, whoever plans to purchase the company will face extensive political scrutiny given The Telegraph’s and The Spectator’s influence on the right.
The decision could be deferred to the Competition and Markets Authority by whoever is Secretary of State for Media after 4 July. The Civil Service will also be lifted from their pre-election ‘purdah’ period, when Whitehall work slows so as not to impact on the election campaign.
National World, The Daily Mail General Trust and Paul Marshall, the hedge fund backer of GB News, have all been previously linked with the sale.
The Internet Archive’s torrid time. The online library has faced a string of denial-of-service attacks over the past couple of days. Brewster Kahle, founder and digital librarian of the Internet Archive, said: “With the support from others and the hard work of staff we are hardening our defences to provide more reliable access to our library. What is new is this attack has been sustained, impactful, targeted, adaptive, and importantly, mean.”
Jake Adelstein to Substack? The Tokyo Vice author is openly considering a move to the platform and what content he will give his viewers/listeners. Incidentally, the HBO dramatisation of the book, which is also called Tokyo Vice, is now in its second series. 1990s Japan, Ken Watanabe and Michael Mann, need I say more?
OpenAI and the media. There are now two camps in the media debating the ‘AI question’. Reddit, News Corp and FT are just some of the companies which have signed licensing deals with OpenAI.
The New York Times, meanwhile, is suing Sam Altmann’s business and it’s costing the Gray Lady at least $1 million per month. The Information’s Jessica Lessin is effectively on the outlet’s side and has published an op-ed in The Atlantic warning other publishers that the AI companies could take all of their audience and trust at the same time.
The BBC’s election plans. As mentioned in the last newsletter, BBC News yesterday unveiled its plans for the general election, with Clive Myrie and Laura Kuenssberg hosting the coverage.
Most importantly, Rick Wakeman’s neo-medieval prog-rock anthem, King Arthur, will once again serve as the outlet’s theme tune. But it’s ITV News which has nabbed the first TV debate between Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak.
Elsewhere, LBC Radio’s Iain Dale has quit the broadcaster to run in the general election for the Tories. Paul Waugh (Labour) and Seb Payne (Conservative) are two other former journalists vying for a seat. Michael Gove, the ex-Times leader writer who has spent almost two decades in Parliament, is heading the other way and quitting frontline politics.
🎙️ Podcast
The latest Political Press Box episodes, including, George Eaton, Rob Ford, Robert Colvile and Catherine Neilan, can be found here.
🎥 Video essays
📖 Essays
How disinformation is forcing a paradigm shift in media theory
Welcome to the age of electronic cottages and information elites
Operation Southside: Inside the UK media’s plan to reconcile with Labour
📧 Contact
For high-praise, tips or gripes, please contact the editor at iansilvera@gmail.com or via @ianjsilvera. Follow on LinkedIn here.
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