April 9, Jared Schroeder, associate professor of journalism at SMU Dallas and a specialist in Frist Amendment issues, for a commentary acknowledging the 25thAnniversary of social media and U.S. lawmakers’ inept attempts to regulate the platforms. Published in The Hill under the heading: As social media turns 25, we’re still perplexed about regulating bad actors: https://bit.ly/37Crloh
You’ve probably never heard of Six Degrees. The name sounds a bit like a forgettable boy band from the late-1990s. That isn’t far from the truth. In 1997, before platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat dominated the information universe, Six Degrees became the first social media site. Its anniversary was in January. We forgot it.
While Six Degrees persists, like the Backstreet Boys, off our radars but still online, we can’t forget the massive impact the service heralded as social media grew to consume our lives and our very realities.
Along with cat videos, social media ushered in an era of falsity, extremism and othering that, at times, has come to threaten democracies around the world. The Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol breach, for example, likely was planned and performed for social-media audiences. It was done in real life, but documented for virtual audiences. We’re a long way from Six Degrees — maybe 180, at this point, from where we should be.
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