The Ecosystem of Connective Media:
Lock In, Fence Off, Opt Out?

Chapter Eight reexamined the histories of Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, and Wikipedia as a collective within the six elements used to analyze social media. As competition between companies rises for share of online social spaces, technology algorithms and user data drive competition and innovation. José van Dijck (2013) used the example of Google+ and its algorithm to organize people into circles, which was promptly copied by Facebook who offered an iPhone application that automatically organized your Facebook friends into groups. Plug-ins and applications that help stream data from one network to another is where money can be made while users share information (using features such as the "Like" and "+1" buttons on news sites and being able to log into your ESPN or Vimeo account via Facebook where everything is connected).

Behind all of this are users and content. For van Dijck, the "early expectation that Web 2.0 technology was going to usher in a platformed sociality conditioned by user equality and equal access turned out to be utopian" (p. 159). All platforms treat users and content differently, while their goals may be the same, the monetization of their spaces have impacted the way sociality and connectivity currently exist and will exist for some time.

The ownership of these spaces mirrored the corporate approach in which these companies reshaped the digital landscape with their own acquisitions and developments: Facebook purchasing Instagram and partnering with Ticketmaster and Zynga; Google expanding into new markets with Google Wallet and creating Chrome OS. Partnerships, purchases, and innovation are moving user data and content around the web like pieces on a digital chessboard.

As these platforms expand, governance will play a huge role. Google has been investigated by the European Commission and the FTC for possible monopolization of search engines and browsers. Apple and Facebook have openly sequestered sections of the web for their own purposes and yet refuse to be transparent about the algorithms they use to gather data. How can governments compete against fast-paced corporations and business models that require instant adaptation in order to survive? It leaves the user scrambling with only one solution: opt out. Van Dijck no longer thinks that Google and Facebook mean "public" or "neutral," they are "ubiquitous" and "inescapable" (p. 166). Once you log in, you can never truly log out.

She also noted that besides "a few big players that dominate the ecosystems and which have formed the focus on this book there are many smaller, specialized, both profit- and nonprofit-based platforms that seem to be pushed away from public view" (p. 176). There is a new generation of activists coming, and they are unhappy with the way Google, Facebook, and Twitter have been steering online relationships. This generation is coming from everywhere, from every corner of the world, and it is this cultural diversity that will prove vital to a thriving and changing ecosystem. This quiet reference to online groups serving digital justice to news organizations or social media sites that do not meet the moral standards of said groups is an accurate understanding of what can happen when everyone has the knowledge to collect data and do whatever they please. What is missed in this chapter is the dichotomy that has begun to emerge between social media sites (and traditional corporations) and online activist groups. Facebook and Twitter may be beholden to their shareholders, various governments, and a number of regulatory agencies, but who keeps the activists in check? They say their job is to police these companies because the governments of the world cannot, but who polices them?