I know that I can write this with some clarity and insight, as I am a veteran of Social Media these past sixteen years. The provenance of Bealtaine Cottage on SM can be traced back to the very beginning of the Bealtaine Project. This website carries at least half of those years in detailed recording of the project as it developed and grew. So, you will understand my concern…
I have witnessed the descent of various platforms across SM into what I perceive to be a corporate cesspit of monetising everything that has an audience! Strong words, yes, but not even beginning to reflect my feelings or perceptions!
My concerns stretch even to this website that I PAY for on an annual basis…€300, with an extra sum for my domain name…and still the site is infected with banners that greet me each time I open my website to write a blog or check on comments! “make money, grow your business, attract more sales,” etc., the list is ever-growing!
Now, don’t misunderstand me, for I am not against business or financial independence, but the constant barrage of advertising and corporate interference on SM is not to be tolerated! Much in the same way that Earth is out of balance, society is out of balance and corporatocracy is dominating everything, there is a definite dumbing-down of civilisation, (though I much prefer the word, culture, as this sums up what it means to be civilised)! Culture is being stripped away from civilisation, leaving skeletal remains that are disturbing to witness!
Writing as I do on this website helps me maintain a degree of sanity, for it is a quiet experience, with no interference or judgement. I post and let it go…to whatever corners of the world it may be read. It is a way of sharing my observations, sometimes a world view such as this is.
What does corporatocracy mean? Wikipedia says: “Corporatocracy (/ˌkɔːrpərəˈtɒkrəsi/, from corporate and Greek: -κρατία, romanized: -kratía, lit. ‘domination by’; short form corpocracy) is a recent term used to refer to an economic and political system controlled by corporations or corporate interests.” Does this strike a note with you?
This is a rather interesting piece from:
https://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/monitor/we-need-talk-about-surveillance-economy-now
“Just as industrial capitalism claimed the world’s natural resources for economic benefit, now in the digital age multi-billion-dollar industries are expropriating our private experiences to produce behavioural data that will ultimately be used in the marketplace. Instead of slowly changing our climate, Zuboff and other scholars of the digital economy fear that this time around we are changing human nature. This new threat is called surveillance capitalism.
Companies profit under surveillance capitalism by collecting information on our social-psychological behaviour, running it through opaque algorithms and using it to predict and even promote human behaviour that is valuable to other companies. Corporate actors are saturating online spaces, vying for attention from the endless possibilities of niche markets their products can cater too. The economic pressures have created an information ecosystem of monitoring and sharing data from our personal online social spaces with the goal of turning a profit through the regulation of our actions.
Just as the Industrial Revolution came with many advantages, such as more cost-effective production leading to cheaper goods, and eventually improved quality of life, so does data collection and processing in the Information Age. Most of the benefits come down to the quantity and quality of the information we can now gather about almost everything.” You can read the full text by clicking on the link I posted above. Thank you to CCPA.
I wrote this blog in order to let you know that I am fully aware of the tangled societal mess we now find ourselves in. In many ways the pandemic has brought this to the fore. However, I am also aware that there is a global experience and therefore can be rather debilitating to ponder on for any amount of time. So, in response, my advice is to be aware, safeguard your information as you see fit, avoid being sucked into Social Media for any length of time (it is addictive!), know that with the strongest will in the world, advertising will get inside your head and wreak havoc. Be discerning!
Finally, do not be naive…this is not about one politician, or indeed any politicians or governments…look beyond the screen and follow the money! It suits the corporatocracy to feed us “goodies and baddies!” Simply read history to see the evidence for yourself and understand how we are kept in an infantile state in regards to power and control!
Stay close to Mother Earth in as many ways as you can. Remember who you are, an individual human being experiencing a great journey with the Great Mother!
Blessings to you all XXX Colette
PS: The Bealtaine Cottage Calendar for 2021 is now with my printers in Carrick on Shannon. As soon as I have the proof, I will post a preorder link…in the next few days hopefully!