The Beginning of the End of Social Media?

[Night Sky 248]

My recent experiences with getting back onto social media have left me perplexed. 

On YouTube, if you comment on a video that is more than three days old, no one engages with it.

On Facebook, no one has been around in years. 

Every dating app I've tried is a ghost town, but the companies keep them going and run them like scams with egregious pay walls. 

So, a lot of the so-called major players seem to not be as vibrant as they are still held up to be. They seem like dead zones.

And in other areas which are more active, matters seem to be almost entirely toxic. Just propaganda echo chambers, the 2 minutes hate and people screaming at each other. 

This is a grim picture I am painting, obviously. I have been very disengaged from the internet generally and social media in particular for a long while now. Coming back to it now, it seems the bad trends have progressed, but there is just far less activity overall. 

What do all of you think, ponies?

[Snoopy Fan 2,181]

It does seem that way. I believe that there is far too much negativity in the world, and social media does seem to be the cause for a lot of it, but at least this website is a nice and friendly place.

[Fluttershutter 2,561]

As long as there are humans and internet there will be mindless chatter.

Sounds like you're just not up on what's current. I'm not either but I'm familiar with the words Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok.

I don't know anything about dating apps.

[ZiggWheelsManning 11,308]

@Fluttershutter

Twitter is now X, there is mindless chatter and chaos.  Brains are rotting without keeping intact common sense and compromising.  

[Night Sky 248]

I don't feel it's ALL bad. The internet has accomplished great things, it still is accomplishing great things and it could accomplish even greater things yet. 

It probably saves tens of thousands of lives a year at least. But how many people does it kill?

Whoa........we need to turn the negativity down a great deal. 

There's a reason that a place like this is a bastion of good vibrations. Well, I should say there are many reasons. One, we're Equestria. That right there is the real reason. But, it's not for nothing that here we do not have a giant media company turning an algorithm loose upon us to divide and rule.

I'm not saying there's any stopping big tech. But the future of the net, if fate smiles, might see a rebirth of places like MLP forums. More people need to break with the platforms and just go back to a more basic way of connecting with like minded folks. These types of forums worked just fine in the 2000's. No, or far fewer adds, Actual moderation, no frills or distractions. Just legit conversation.

[Xada 450]

The real problem lies in maximazing engegement for profit. Majority of social media is designed to encourage negativity with recency bias because thats what keeps people hooked and increases ad revenue.

Spam botting and paid trolls make this situation worse

[Clawdeen 15,548]

It’s not going anywhere lol. Facebook has been dead for years. When I was in my early 20s most people I knew stopped using fb. Now I’m 30 and it’s still just the older gen using it.Internet forums have certainly died out as people favor Discord and Reddit. 

Tiktok and Instagram are where everyone’s at. As people are wanting their five minutes of fame trying to make it big on TikTok and get a following on Instagram. When those die out something new will come and take its place as always. Then people will fight for the spotlight on there as well. The girlies gotta try to sell makeup and skincare while using the beauty filter somewhere(they really be thinking we don’t know they’re using a filter lol). People need to advertise their Temu bought products they’re upselling somewhere. Based off my own personal online interactions and what I’ve witnessed the obsession with vanity is higher than it’s ever been. With the only thing quenching that thirst is high followers, likes and gifts sent via tiktok live.

[RafaStaryStory 3,575]

I wouldn't even say the end of social media but the end of the Internet as a whole, at least the way as we know, which actually already ended a while ago, I'll try to explain it.

1: Internet is no more the same, that simple place we all used to spare some time, to have fun, to enjoy, is now commercial. Everywhere we go there is people trying desperately to get money, everything is being monetized, everything is about engagement, ads all over the place. It has created a new kind of life for people, good things came with this, but bad things as well, probably, a lot more than good things, Unfortunately, a lot of engagement nowadays come from hate and negativity, that said.

2: Unfortunately, the Internet created a kind of society that just continues growing nonstop, which is the community of punishers, a decade ago it was common to hear the phrase "Internet is a Lawless Land", well, people decided to kill that and deal with things with their own hands, the Cancel Culture rised because of this. People hating on others for no reason, thinking that they are "Internet cops" or something, can truly ruin some people's online lifes for stupid reasons. Why I say this? Because it happened with me, 3 years ago I was destroyed by members of a artist community because of the silliest reasons you can think of. These punishers are slowly killing the freedom of speech, I saw other people being canceled just because they dislike something or because of some random opinion. These people don't understand what law and respect are, much less what is simply ignoring someone they dislike, so they like to pretend that they speak in the name of "Internet Law", this is dangerous and is killing a lot of people out there who just want to spend some free time online sharing their thoughts on something, people continue enjoying to see and follow this. It's one of the main reasons I decided to stop using such social medias, it's just not secure, and let's not forget about people constantly trying to hack or scam others.

3: And to finish it, I heard before that a good way for this to end, would be if the Governemnt takes care of the "internet laws". Well, I personally don't think that way, I wouldn't trust the government for it any bit. At first, the government trying to deal with these problems would look and feel really good, but with time, we would all start to notice the problems. By trying to convince us that the internet will be safer this way, they obviously would want something in return...all of our data, they will monitor everything, everything we do on the internet, everything we say. I already see people complaining about the censor bots in some of the social medias, shadowban, etc, well, this will be a lot worse as this is pretty much how online freedom will really end definitely. We'll be forced to do things the way they'll want.

Internet pretty much became Real Life 2.0, that free land we all used to visit to have fun, now the real life problems have extended to it. It's pretty much our fault, it's everyone's fault, when something good comes along, everyone tries to touch it, then, ends up ruining it. In my opinion, for the future, the tendency is for things to only get worse, AI is already making things even more complicated, just look at the controversy and confusion it's causing. unfortunately, I believe there is no salvation 

[Fluttershutter 2,561]

On 2025-03-24 at 3:59 PM, ZiggWheelsManning said:

@Fluttershutter

Twitter is now X, there is mindless chatter and chaos.  Brains are rotting without keeping intact common sense and compromising.  

I know but that's stupid And I'm pretty sure everybody still calls it twitter.

Whag if we just start calling MLP Forums M? 

On 2025-03-26 at 5:30 PM, Clawdeen said:

Internet forums have certainly died out as people favor Discord and Reddit

Yeah, this place is the last bastion of hope. Maybe we will become the new internet. 

On 2025-03-26 at 6:59 PM, RafaStaryStory said:

I wouldn't even say the end of social media but the end of the Internet as a whole, at least the way as we know, which actually already ended a while ago, I'll try to explain it.

1: Internet is no more the same, that simple place we all used to spare some time, to have fun, to enjoy, is now commercial. Everywhere we go there is people trying desperately to get money, everything is being monetized, everything is about engagement, ads all over the place. It has created a new kind of life for people, good things came with this, but bad things as well, probably, a lot more than good things, Unfortunately, a lot of engagement nowadays come from hate and negativity, that said.

2: Unfortunately, the Internet created a kind of society that just continues growing nonstop, which is the community of punishers, a decade ago it was common to hear the phrase "Internet is a Lawless Land", well, people decided to kill that and deal with things with their own hands, the Cancel Culture rised because of this. People hating on others for no reason, thinking that they are "Internet cops" or something, can truly ruin some people's online lifes for stupid reasons. Why I say this? Because it happened with me, 3 years ago I was destroyed by members of a artist community because of the silliest reasons you can think of. These punishers are slowly killing the freedom of speech, I saw other people being canceled just because they dislike something or because of some random opinion. These people don't understand what law and respect are, much less what is simply ignoring someone they dislike, so they like to pretend that they speak in the name of "Internet Law", this is dangerous and is killing a lot of people out there who just want to spend some free time online sharing their thoughts on something, people continue enjoying to see and follow this. It's one of the main reasons I decided to stop using such social medias, it's just not secure, and let's not forget about people constantly trying to hack or scam others.

3: And to finish it, I heard before that a good way for this to end, would be if the Governemnt takes care of the "internet laws". Well, I personally don't think that way, I wouldn't trust the government for it any bit. At first, the government trying to deal with these problems would look and feel really good, but with time, we would all start to notice the problems. By trying to convince us that the internet will be safer this way, they obviously would want something in return...all of our data, they will monitor everything, everything we do on the internet, everything we say. I already see people complaining about the censor bots in some of the social medias, shadowban, etc, well, this will be a lot worse as this is pretty much how online freedom will really end definitely. We'll be forced to do things the way they'll want.

Internet pretty much became Real Life 2.0, that free land we all used to visit to have fun, now the real life problems have extended to it. It's pretty much our fault, it's everyone's fault, when something good comes along, everyone tries to touch it, then, ends up ruining it. In my opinion, for the future, the tendency is for things to only get worse, AI is already making things even more complicated, just look at the controversy and confusion it's causing. unfortunately, I believe there is no salvation 

Yeah, that's always the way. I miss the anonymous anarchist intermet of my youth. If you ask me it was the beginning of the end when the normies started coming. The internet used to be for nerds. Then there's the fact that people don't bother designing nice forums like this or nice personal webpages anymore. They just run to the social media. And of course there's always the government ruining everything.

[Clawdeen 15,548]

Moments ago, Fluttershutter said:

I know but that's stupid And I'm pretty sure everybody still calls it twitter.

Whag if we just start calling MLP Forums M? 

Yeah, this place is the last bastion of hope. Maybe we will become the new internet. 

Yeah, that's always the way. I miss the anonymous anarchist intermet of my youth. If you ask me it was the beginning of the end when the normies started coming. The internet used to be for nerds. Then there's the fact that people don't bother designing nice forums like this or nice personal webpages anymore. They just run to the social media. And of course there's always the government ruining everything.

Or it’ll fully die off at some point like everything does. 

[Fluttershutter 2,561]

5 minutes ago, Clawdeen said:

Or it’ll fully die off at some point like everything does. 

So far so good/