The invention of Facebook sparked a big bang that exploded into all kinds of different social media sites and apps.  It created a breeding ground for pop culture ideas.  FB is the most prominent of the social media sites.  It started as a place for people to share their ideas, but has transformed into a new form platform for ideas to be spread, but they are not the ideas of everyone’s Facebook friends any more.

When it was introduced, FB was simply a place where people friended everyone they knew and liked certain celebrities.  It was a place where everyone that they had associated themselves with on their accounts could post links, share articles, and most importantly straight up write what they think.  They post a link to an article on how body image has changed throughout the centuries, or share the commercial and mark their posts with #likeagirl, or even post their commentary on politics.   While some of my friends posted their opinions on how the govt. shouldn’t be able to ban guns, others posted how offended they were that John Boehner rolled his eyes during Obama’s state of the union address. 

Facebook was a platform for anyone to post their unbridled ideas.  It was an estuary for the opinions of someone’s liberal and conservative friends, people who were upset about a court ruling, friends who stood too strongly behind one idea, things that were big deals, and some that were small.  Newsfeeds were filled with anything from puppy pictures to a saddened, patriotic post about a soldiers death in a foreign country.  Depending on who the friends are, it supplied a balanced flow of ideas from every end of the spectrum.
     

Facebook is now set up with algorithms that look back at google searches, Facebook likes, and accessed links to determine what it think any given individual would like to see.  It then narrows down google searches and changes people’s newsfeeds to the predetermined results that it assumes you will want to see.  That means every time any googles anything at this point or scrolls through FB to look at what all of their friends have posted, they only see a portion of what they could be seeing.  Social media is now not a place for any idea to be shared, but a place for everyone to be saturated with the ideas it thinks they have.  Facebook tries to determine your opinions and show you the posts that follow them.  Then what’s to say they can’t try and feed you their own opinions?
      Facebook started as an innocent site for everyone to share their opinions.  It has undergone a transformation.  What began as an idea estuary with no ulterior motives is now a censorship device perpetuated by every search, like, share, or post.  Social media has society be the neck and it’s dragging pop culture into the depths that it created for us.  It is driven by itself.  If it is no longer driven by the individual, then it is out of our control and no one can even guess at the amount of censorship and ulterior motives that FB revolves around today.