Social media platforms and their creators have been low-key hinting their products are harmful to humans for a few years now, from rising interest in “digital minimalism” and headlines about founders not letting their own kids use the platforms they created. Facebook-owned Instagram and YouTube announcing plans to hide certain user metrics this month, metrics once thought to be integral to the user experience like “Likes” and “Subscribers,” are more lyrics to that song. The thinking is, these numbers may be doing more harm than good.
Rather than criticize these Silicon Valley giants for taking so long, I have to praise them... because they’ve recognized they need to be dismantled a bit and that their dismantling is better for everyone and society as a whole. The case for hiding engagement and subscriber numbers because it is better for mental health and overall content creation (think less “thirst traps”) has already been established but see Global Mail Instagram Influencer interviews & this Buzzfeed article if you are in need of a refresher on those reasons. Besides preventing content degradation related to a warping sense of self-worth, metrics should be better hidden is to hinder bad actors from gaming the system. Bad actors here include scam artists, fake influencers that struggle to sell t-shirts, bullies hyped up on vitamin vengeance and foreign powers hostile to the US spreading political chaos.
If social media is just a numbers game, it will always be manipulated and abused. The botting/fake accounts/views industry has been profitable for almost a decade precisely because social media has placed such an emphasis on numbers. Many a shady businessman in a non-English speaking country have made small fortunes for themselves exploiting Silicon Valley’s tunnel vision on this issue. A wealthy Instagram botter once told me, way back in 2015, that customers buy fake followers because they increase “organic following." This is still true today.
The better your numbers -- be it the amount of likes you are getting or the amount of followers you have -- the more likely the platform’s algorithms will recommend your content to other people. You can trick the platforms robots into thinking you are popular, and you can even trick other people into thinking you are popular too, but getting real humans to buy your products is a whole other story.
This reliance on numbers, even fake ones, is also exactly why Russia had such an easy time getting unsuspecting Americans to share their fake political content. One of the main reasons why Americans shared Russian propaganda on Facebook and Twitter in the first place is because they thought the user sharing the inflammatory and misleading content was legitimate. Why did Americans think these fake users were legitimate in the first place? They had high follower numbers and high engagement metrics. These fake accounts were even on occasion recommended to real Americans, furthering the appearance that they were real. When it comes to facts, popularity has replaced the truth. Even the robots think so.
Besides breaking reality, how social media metrics can be used during harassment campaigns was highlighted earlier this month during the massive beauty guru YouTube controversy known as Tati Westbrook vs James Charles.
Bullies using their follower numbers and engagement metrics as justification (and validation) for their bad behavior is nothing new, but the Westbrook vs Charles controversy took it to a new level. The use of subscriber metrics as a ridicule target was so conspicuous, many believe the change over displaying subscriber numbers YouTube announced quietly last week was directly related to the controversy.
After 37-year-old Westbrook fake MeToo-ed then-19-years-old Charles over him basically not promoting her vitamins on Instagram, Charles’ immediate 3 million subscribers loss in less than a week made the news. His number drop was watched with glee by much of the influencer-hating internet because less subscribers means Charles makes less money. If James Charles’ sole value as a human being were his social media metrics, the internet was watching it plummet in real time and mocking him for it. The controversy mainstreamed Subscriber loss parties as enabled by third-party sites like SocialBlade. This public display of subscriber loss also fueled further organic loss because if so many people were unfollowing James Charles that must mean Westbrook’s statements had merit... right? Nope. James Charles has regained his subscribers since and the beauty gurus involved seem to be in a tenuous peace predicated on pretending no one used homophobic tropes to further their YouTube careers nor falsely accused any teenager of being a predator. (Yikes!)
On YouTube’s end shortly after the beauty drama simmered down, they announced subscriber numbers displayed publicly would be rounded, effectively curbing the ability of third parties to display real time subscriber numbers, a vital component of subscriber loss parties. Newsweek theorized the YouTube change was a “knee-jerk reaction” to curb “cancel culture” and combat the month-long Tati vs Charles negative press cycle. Hiding subscribers in this case would not only tamper negativity, it would reduce incentives to drag other users for gain.
Criticisms to hiding account metrics have said that it would make being an Influencer more difficult, but the solution there is easy; let advertisers access the real metrics of each Influencer. It just doesn't need to be public. Making it harder for bad actors to operate has another benefit too: it will strengthen the digital economy on each platform.
