{"id":6607,"date":"2021-01-09T15:52:59","date_gmt":"2021-01-09T15:52:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/?p=6607"},"modified":"2021-01-09T16:49:22","modified_gmt":"2021-01-09T16:49:22","slug":"amplify-possibility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/2021\/01\/amplify-possibility\/","title":{"rendered":"Amplify possibility"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeople like us do things like this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Social media understands this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It also knows that people like points, likes and something that feels like popularity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The social media companies optimized their algorithms for profit. And profit, they figured, would come from engagement. And engagement, they figured, would come from confounding our instincts and rewarding outrage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because outrage draws a crowd.<\/p>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n

And crowds establish culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And a desire to be the leader of a crowd reinforced the cycle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so the social networks created a game, a game in which you \u2018win\u2019 by being notorious, outrageous or, as they coined the phrase, \u201cauthentic.\u201d The whole world is watching, if you\u2019re willing to put on a show.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s not how the world actually works. The successful people in your community or your industry (please substitute \u2018happy\u2019 for successful in that sentence) don\u2019t act the way the influencers on Twitter, YouTube or Facebook do. That\u2019s all invented, amplified stagecraft, it\u2019s not the actual human condition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many of us have an overwhelming need to rubberneck, to slow down when we pass a crash on the highway. This is odd, as most people don\u2019t go out of their way to visit the morgue, just for kicks. And yet\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I hope we\u2019d agree that if people started staging car crashes on the side of the road to get attention, we\u2019d be outraged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s what happening, and the leaders of social networks pretend that they can\u2019t do a thing about it, just as Google pretends that they can\u2019t control the results of their search algorithm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The shift that the leaders of the social networks need to make is simple. In the long run, it will cost them nothing. And within weeks, it will create a world that\u2019s calmer, happier and more productive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amplify possibility. Dial down the spread of disinformation, trolling and division. Make it almost impossible to get famous at the expense of civilization. Embrace the fact that breaking news doesn\u2019t have to be the rhythm of our days. Reward thoughtfulness and consistency and responsibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can do this. Enough already.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seth Godin<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cPeople like us do things like this.\u201d Social media understands this. It also knows that people like points, likes and something that feels like popularity. The social media companies optimized their algorithms for profit. And profit, they figured, would come from engagement. And engagement, they figured, would come from confounding our instincts and rewarding outrage. … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[137,143],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-posts","category-sethgodin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6607"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6607\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6616,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6607\/revisions\/6616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}