Who's "Downriver" from Who, Anyway?
Social media companies are often modeled as being "upriver" from their user bases. I'm not sure this model is wrong - but I'm not sure it's right, either.
Last month was a doozy in tech news – first Meta debuted Threads on July 5, and then Twitter killed off the blue bird to become the “X” company on July 23. Naturally, these developments have sparked much coverage and analysis of what this “sea change” moment means for social media’s present and future.
Apart from the compelling reporting, I am also interested in the way that the relationship between social media companies and social media users has been modeled in these stories.
Often (but not always) social media companies are kind of portrayed as being “upriver” from the users. Products and resources “flow out” from these companies and then course downriver where they reach different banks of users.
However, we can easily invert this model and visualize the users being “upriver” from the different social media channels.
In Model 1, resources originate and flow out from Silicon Valley – and thus the burden of staying “current” falls on users downriver. Changes at Meta and Twitter mean that users must adapt, or risk falling behind.
In Model 2, though, it is the social media platforms who need to watch the tides and “catch the drift” of the users flowing past them – or risk becoming abandoned harbors.
Of course, these are highly imperfect, simplistic illustrations. And I don’t mean to suggest that one model is right while one is wrong. Rather, I simply emphasize that there are numerous ways of looking at complex, interconnected systems like social media.
Yes, it is true that a single company can affect the entire ecosystem for vast pools of users “downriver” from where the changes are happening. However, it is equally true that users are dynamic actors in the social media ecosystem, who will flow away from waters polluted by hazards such as exploitative data mining (to name just one).
So, whenever you see framing like this:
“Changes at Meta and Twitter expected to affect millions of users…”
… Just remember the inverse framing may be equally (or more) true:
“Millions of users’ changes expected to affect Meta and Twitter…”
The latter framing, in my humble opinion, more accurately evokes what has been happening in the recent months and years as social media users move away (and continue to move away) from the outdated models which no longer serve our evolving needs.