Watch out, Zuck is mad now
A new circle of hell is in the works
Mark Zuckerberg has fallen to second place in the race to be the most harmful person on Earth and he's pound-the-podium, spittle-into-the-second-row livid. Facebook (recently renamed to Meta, and which runs Instagram) has never pivoted this quickly. Everyone's a little on edge. How far will Zuck go to blitz TikTok off the top rung on the ladder of harm? Second place is the first loser and Zuck does đ not đ lose đ for đ long.
Every day, TikTok and Meta carefully measure their clicks and call the result engagement. Then they compare. If their engagement number isn't bigger than before then heads roll, apps get unasked-for overhauls, and the budget for their AI department gets doubled again. Too bad for us that their engagement numbers are a direct measure of the harm they are inflicting upon the humans of the world.
By the numbers, TikTok is vastly out-victimizing Instagram, especially among young women and children. While both boast of about a billion victims each month, TikTok's sphere of influence is growing faster. From 2019 to 2020, for example, TikTok's US market penetration grew from 16% to 38% while Instagram limped from 20% to 29%.
Globally:
TikTok victims, on average, open the app 19 times a day (teenagers 43 times) and waste 89 precious minutes on it.
59% of TikTok's victims are aged 13 to 24.
56% of TikTok's victims are female.
TikTok's "microinfluencer" engagement rate is 18% compared to Instagram's 4%
These numbers so infuriate Zuck that last month he instituted a Meta-wide policy to purge all the under-zealous, under-committed, and generally undesirable employees from his company.
âRealistically, there are probably a bunch of people at the company who shouldnât be here.â - Zuck
Then, perhaps awed by TikTok's efficiency in harming so many children and young women, Zuck responded with characteristic aggression. He transformed Instagram into a TikTok clone. Nobody was asking for it. Everyone hated it so much that the changes got rolled back after a week. But it'll happen yet. Zuck doesnât take no for an answer.
Apparently in Zuck's world, no child and no young woman can be left unharmed. Don't even ask about his plans for Instagram for Kids.
What's the harm?
What's the harm in sitting on our ass "engaged" by TikTok or Instagram? Well, it's a long list. Let's start by focusing on one easily observed harm.
Sitting, Sprawled, and Splayed
Have you tried walking, running, swimming, cycling, rowing, or climbing while swiping through TikTok? It gets awkward fast so you learn to be still while swiping. Maybe you've tried sketching, oil painting, writing prose, or practicing the hula hoop while swiping through TikTok. It doesn't go well so something has to give. Most of the time, we stumble down the path of least resistance. So whatever isn't TikTok gets dumped.
Engagement is, for the most part, a strong bias against physical movement. Sitting. Lying down. Sprawled out. Splayed. Sedentary. Physically present but mentally absent, flicking at our phones.
Some research shows that sitting poses a similar health risk as smoking. That seems harmful. If it's true, how should we feel about Zuck's zeal to have Instagram better steal the time and attention of our youth?
Furthermore, sedentary lifestyles lead to heart disease, metabolic syndrome, and obesity. Eventually if not immediately. As many adults know, the behavior patterns we got away with in our teenage years often lead us into serious trouble as we age. That seems harmful too.
Zuck's Obsession
TikTok has already been banned in India, rescuing 200 million souls for the moment. Good for them. There's regular rumblings of a US ban too, but so far TikTok has dodged that guillotine. It could still happen.
So why can't Zuck let TikTok do its thing? Why must he say "let me get in on that new method of harm"? Maybe TikTok will be banned or regulated or implode in some strange way. Perhaps parents will get wise and ban TikTok one by one. Good for them.
Sadly, it seems like Zuck is putting up an extra fence to make sure no TikTok victim accidentally escapes into the wild. It's like there's no opportunity for harm that he won't grasp and squeeze for all its worth. Zuck is so enthusiastic about causing harm to millions that he's invested tens of billions of dollars in what he's calling the Metaverse. Imagine trying to escape that hell.
Who knows why he's this way. It's getting real weird though.
How different would modern life be if Zuck was serious about help instead of being so ungodly serious about harm? Or if someone â anyone â was as serious about help? Weâve been steeped in harm for so long that it might be tough to imagine.
Life is hard enough when weâre not serious about help. At some point, and hopefully soon, weâll have to step out of range of Zuckâs fire-hose of harm.
And get serious about help.