Antisocial Media: TikTok, Meta, and Algorithmic Content Distribution
TikTok’s meteoric rise is forcing other social media platforms to respond. As a result, social media is getting less social. Below, a look at recommendation media and Meta’s response to TikTok. Thanks for reading.
Cigars, Emus, and Porta Potties
Social media is becoming less social. TikTok popularized algorithmic content distribution. Now other social media platforms are scrambling to respond.
With traditional media, targeting is more of a sledge hammer than a scalpel. For example, magazines play to specific interests — cigar aficionados, emu farmers, portable restroom operators — and advertisers looking to market cigar cutters, porta johns, or emu feed tag along. Here, advertisers operate on inference: lots of guys watch football; lots of guys like beer and pickup trucks; ergo, football games have ads for Bud Light and Ford F-150s.
The internet provided a more refined — though still imperfect — targeting toolkit. Eliminating geographic constraints enabled new connections and deep niches to thrive online. Interests could be parsed thinner and thinner. As Kevin Kelly notes in 1,000 True Fans:
If you lived in any of the two million small towns on Earth you might be the only one in your town to crave death…
