Social networks no longer connect people, they connect consumers and advertisers

Instagram is going to change, and users have been angry. The social network will adopt a new interface in which the content is displayed on full screen and where the video is the protagonist. The video that “content creators” and influencers make, not your friends or family. Because social networks already have very little social. Their purpose is not to connect people with their loved ones but to get them to see as much advertising as possible to earn more money.

To achieve this, Instagram has to increase the time each user spends on the platform. And the best way is by copying the strategy that TikTok uses with such success: constant doses of dopamine encapsulated in short videos of curiosities, trips, or silliness. Plus, it’s free. HBO Max, Disney +, or Netflix hire directors, actors, and scriptwriters to develop their content offer, but Instagram uses its users. These do not charge a single euro; their salary is likes and compliments. The most popular can profit from it when they become human billboards. In her photographs, branded bags, a great lipstick, or a much-needed protein shake to get in shape begin to appear.

This lifestyle is highly coveted today, and children no longer want to be bullfighters or astronauts; they want to be “influencers.”

Instagram wants to be TikTok because it is more profitable

But this short video thing can be squeezed more, and that’s why Instagram will imitate the TikTok interface. Many users have publicly expressed their discomfort because they liked the application as it was. Some of them with a large following, like the Kardashians.

Adam Mosseri, CEO of the social network, said earlier this week that whether they like it or not, the redesign will roll out to all users sooner or later. He admits that he still needs a lot of tweaking but that the course is already set: Instagram is no longer a social network for photos or friends but an application for consuming short videos, which is what makes money. And last Thursday, Mosseri said that changes to the test would be stalled due to lousy usage data, saying you need to “fail from time to time. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be acting with ambition.” This cable pickup is just a pause to improve the execution of a plan that will not change.

The plan cannot change. Gradually, throughout these ten years, Instagram has gone from being a service to connect friends and photographers to being a kind of television in which you do zapping by swiping upwards. It goes from connecting people to connecting “content creators” with users. Fulanito is no longer one from the bar; now, he is Menganito, the content creator. Language is essential because Facebook no longer talks about friends and family but about creators and consumers. Creators who work for free, of course.

When I became Instagram many years ago, I did not do it to create content for Zuckerberg’s social network to increase its metrics. Neither me nor anyone, I suppose. But we have been falling for it in exchange for some virtual case or the need to promote our business to make money off the net. Because if you’re not on social media, you don’t exist, or so they say.

Using AI to curate content removes the original purpose of social media.

Because more complex than the interface is the selection system that the company has been adopting lately to increase its metrics. The control that each user has to see the content that he has explicitly chosen to see is increasingly limited. Friends’ content is more and more hidden, and it is almost reduced to the Stories they copied from Snapchat. Everything else has recommendations for accounts that “might interest you.”

Whoever follows Schwarzenegger will see motivational gym videos, and whoever follows Hamilton will see them from Formula 1. And as you watch more or less time depending on the content, Instagram’s artificial intelligence will show you more related content. You end up without realizing it, wasting a lot of time every day flipping through channels you never chose to watch. If TV is the silly box… What is Instagram or Tiktok?

Mark Zuckerberg said on this week’s shareholder call that about 15% of the content you don’t follow and appear on your Instagram is curated by its artificial intelligence. By the end of next year, that content will double. It is a public statement that they are no longer a platform that connects people; they are a means of communication. This is important because Facebook’s excuse for their lack of action when moderating certain content was based on the fact that they only acted as a platform. Now that they openly admit that they will serve the content through algorithms, they will be left without the few remaining arguments in their defense.

Artificial intelligence will not recommend the best content, but the one it thinks is most apt for you to comment on something, like it or not, changes to the following video. With so little user attention time, what works best are videos that make you angry, outraged, lie, or, in the best of cases, make you smile. Instagram wants you to stay as long as possible and see as many ads as possible.

Facebook’s mission is no longer to connect the world but to zombify it. All hooked. Looking at the screen; sliding; giving like; and, of course, consuming advertising. It’s like watching TV, but an algorithm controls the remote, and the presenter doesn’t charge.