Mollywood BLVD

Molly Penny is a local radio personality and MNSU alum. It was her love of pop culture that got her interested in doing a radio show for KOWZ 100.9, and she is now the music and promotions director at KOWZ & KRUE Radio in Owatonna. She resides in Mankato with her movie buff husband and YouTube obsessed children. Catch her on Twitter at @ mollyhoodUSA.

tech tok … Time’s up!

Social Media just may be the downfall of modern civilization. I have touched on this in previous columns, like my February 2018 column titled, “Changing of the Tide (Pods): A Look at the Internet Challenges that Should Have Never Happened” and my August 2019 column, “The Viral Song Phenomenon.”

The innocent days of emailing a link of the monkey scratching his own butt, smelling his ngers and falling off the tree branch are long gone. We have entered a new era, where technology, social media, information (and disinformation) overload and unchecked data sharing is spiraling out of control. We use Google so much, MerriamWebster now considers ‘google’ a verb.

Large platforms and Big Tech titans, like Google and Facebook (now Meta), have gone more or less unregulated since their inception. Recently, CEOs of Amazon, Apple, Facebook (Meta) and Google have been facing their ‘Big Tobacco’ moment, as they have been called to appear before Congress for various reason.

Earlier this fall, a former Facebook employee whistleblower account alleged that algorithms for the platform aim to show more divisive and hate lled content to users, as it increases engagement and makes the site easier to sell to advertisers. According to the Facebook whistleblower, the company’s own research has found that on the app Instagram, also owned by Facebook, 13.5% of teenage girls report increased thoughts of suicide, due to the app, and 17% of teenage girls report the app made eating disorders worse.

Sen. Josh Hawley,R-Mo., introduced new legislation to make social media companies liable for bodily and mental harm in icted on children, speci cally those under 16. Mark Zuckerberg,

founder and CEO of Facebook is one of the most hated men in the Big Tech industry — and he wasn’t even the one taking joyrides to space with his riches! He has simply allowed his platform to put pro t over people’s safety. As 60% shareholder, it is safe to say the buck stops with Zuck. Actor/comedian Sacha Baron Cohen took to Twitter to chastise the CEO, stating, “In any other company, Mark Zuckerberg would have been red years ago. But Facebook is a one-man dictatorship.” He went on to say, “The problem with Facebook isn’t with algorithms. It’s the boy robot who runs them.” Low-key, Zuckerberg does give me Data from Star Trek Next Gen vibes, but it does seem harsh, because it’s not just Facebook that seems to be poisoning the proverbial well. Earlier this school year, a video on the social media video sharing app TikTok encouraged students to steal items from their school bathrooms, such as soap dispensers, even stall doors, and post a video of the act on the platform. They coined this viral trend ‘Devious Licks’ (also known as ‘Diabolical Licks,’ or ‘Nefarious licks’). In the good old 90s, a stupid prank like this may have been a one-off, but we are in the digital age, where likes and follows and clicks rule all, so it did not end there. I got an email from my kids’ school stating the following: “Dear Families, “We want to bring to your attention recent trends being spurred by monthly challenges on the social media platform TikTok. As shared below, there are different TikTok challenges for every month. While some students may consider these to be pranks, these actions are a serious matter. The October challenge, “slap a teacher” encourages students to walk up to staff members, slap them, then run off, making sure that the whole incident is captured on camera to be shared on social media. This behavior will not be tolerated. Any student involved in this challenge, or others, will be disciplined with The thumbs up Like logo is shown on a sign at Facebook headquarters in the appropriate Menlo Park, California. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File) consequences.”

A Google sign outside with a span of the Bay Bridge at rear in San Francisco. (AP Photo/ Jeff Chiu, File)

The email went on to list the speci c TikTok challenges we, the parents, are to watch out for each month. I got a chuckle out of this list, so here it is:

November: Kiss your friend’s girlfriend at school; December: Deck the halls and show your balls; January: Jab a breast; February: Mess up school signs; March: Make a mess in the courtyard or cafeteria; April: Grab some eggz (another stealing challenge); May: Ditch day; June: Flip off in the front of ce.

It’s ‘Deck the halls and show your balls’ for me. TikTok is not owned by Meta (yet), so, not a Zuckerberg problem, just another example of how things are spreading from virtual life into real life.

We all did stupid things as teens — ‘Senior ditch day’ and school vandalism was the norm in my day. Social media has taken it to another level, giving a megaphone to some pretty dumb ideas. Not all of these hair-brained schemes have been set into motion by teens either; adults have certainly been swept up by them.

Would the Jan. 6 insurrection have taken place without the aid of social media platforms? But how do you limit what can be shared on sites if the content does not go against pre-established community standards? These social media platforms are, in fact, privately owned entities, but they also act as a virtual town hall to some extent. As the companies try to regulate the content shared on their platform, there are outcries of censorship and 1st Amendment infringement from users.

The biggest issue for Big Tech is not that they allow harmful content to be shared, or even that they allegedly encourage it through algorithms, it is more about monopolistic practices. This is where the majority of lawsuits and government hearings stem from.

These companies are simply too big and are able to buy out their competition. Amazon has seen a slew of lawsuits claiming that they are eating up smaller competitors and locking sellers in to unfair agreements. Facebook is being sued for antitrust violations, and although it is unlikely, facing a potential unspooling of their recent acquisitions of Instagram and What’s App. (Was changing the company name to Meta about saving face?)

When one company has a monopoly on social media or search engines, the power and in uence becomes too great to control and necessary to regulate.

Data leaking has been another problem for Big Tech. Earlier this year, a private research company discovered over 1.5 billion Facebook users information for sale on a hacker forum. Originally it was reported that 533 million accounts had been compromised, and, shockingly, Facebook opted not to notify its users claiming this was from a breach that occurred in 2019. Robinhood, the online stock trading platform, is the latest to have a massive security breach in early November.

If corrupting our kids wasn’t enough to get the world’s attention, those spam calls about your car’s extended warranty just might do it. Whether it is an exodus of users leaving the platforms due to censorship, leaked data, or regulation that seeks to break them up, a day of reckoning is coming. Better back up those photos. 