A Call for Socializing Social Media

Benjamin Kunkle at n+1 has issued a manifesto:

1. Social media should be socialized because services tend to be or become monopolies. Most private enterprises, whatever their business, have at least a few competitors. Large social media companies—Facebook, Twitter—tend to lack competitors, for the simple reason that their platforms are not compatible. I can’t create a profile on a non-Facebook site that then appears on Facebook, and no microblogging service could emerge to challenge Twitter unless it were capable of inducing mass defections. Social media services or social utilities, as they would better be called, are thus more like highways or railroads than like car manufacturers or freight companies.

Also: “Social media should be socialized because its content is produced by society at large, and society is distinct from the economy.” Or, as a Tweet that recently came my way put it: “We’re all unpaid interns working for Twitter in exchange for exposure.” Read the whole thing.