Guests in the US Capitol Rotunda included some of the tech industry’s biggest leaders, like Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Google’s Sundar Pichai and Tesla’s Elon Musk. [Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP Photo, pool]

Social media is the main form of communication in the modern era, affecting nearly every American and how we consume news, replacing cable news. Something troubles this new form of mass media, however, as nearly all American social media platforms are owned by one of the political parties.

Social media is a key player in the world and as a distributor of political information, we must watch it with keen eyes. Actions to control it are actions against free press and through examples, I hope to show you that.

Social media is the new form of communication, with most companies being owned by what is considered the center of the cutting edge of technology: Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley has long been the center of the capitalistic technological giants that dominate the S&P 500,the Fortune 500, Alphabet, Apple, NVIDIA, Intel, and many others. The Valley’s namesake comes from the development of the silicon-based integration circuit, commonly known as computer chips, something I’m sure many of you have heard about in relation to Taiwan and China. What this has to do with their politics is a different question altogether. Silicon has long been split between the liberals and libertarians. Ideological differences that had not made a large impact as most “tech-bros” stayed near the middle or left of the isle, while this was the standard many deviated. As of the most recent election and the election cycle preceding it, there was a shift. The Republican platform advocated for lower taxes on the rich and corporations and pulled many of these “tech bros” in. Now nearly all of these CEOs are standing on the far-right side of American politics.

In front row attendance at Donald J. Trump’s inauguration as the 47th president was Tim Cook of Apple, Sergey Brin of Alphabet (Parent company of Google), Sundar Pichai of Google, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Elon Musk of Tesla, and Mark Zuckerberg of Meta. These six people represent the six most influential social media websites in the United States of America, all in one party’s camp.

Social media influences nearly every citizen of America; according to Ecinnovations, 69.19% of Americans use social media (Source). X, formerly known as Twitter, went through a lot of changes after the company was purchased by Elon Musk in October of 2022, several being  to the app’s  community guidelines and moderation. Twitter now seems to be a hit bed for extremists to collaborate in the public eye as they aren’t being policed or having their hateful speech monitored. There’s little evidence to believe that because of these top brass’s new relationship  with the government, that they will become 100% similar to Twitter. The idea that they move to a place in the same ballpark is concerning. I, for one, do not want the world to be a more hateful place.

Algorithms are everything to these websites. Your Youtube recommended is a curated center of what you find entertaining and interesting. What if they change? What if your algorithm is trying to convince you of something, give something more real estate in your day? A common complaint in Twitter today is being forced to see Elon Musk’s tweets; a forcible change in the algorithm to benefit one person who coincidentally is in a strong spot of our government. One of the main reasons I worry about these social media companies is because an algorithm is moldeable: there is a distinct possibility malevolent actors could force upon you hateful, extremist content. Any sensible adult is able to understand what videos they’re watching and try to move away from it, but children are the main users of these sites. These pools of hatred are being exposed to younger children even now. What if Youtube engineers get a push in the wrong direction? It is worrying to consider a more hateful world.

You may ask, why is this worrying now? Twitter was a test case for when certain people in power want something out of social media, it becomes deregulated and dangerous. Tiktok right now owes the U.S. government a favor: to prevent its deletion, the company now owes Donald Trump so who’s to say he doesn’t try to alter it? A small change to the algorithm or the engineers that run Tiktok will be laid off, an awful choice. In years past, social media leaders sat near the middle or left of the isle. I must admit my biases and say that I am a person left of the isle, but the left has never had people so close to the pinnacle of power have damaging histories of seeking control: the want for control over media and press coverage. As that expands into a platform that you and young children and I use, it’s time to worry. All any of us should want is a less hateful world.