Socials need to grow up, here’s to why and how…

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• July 21, 2024
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With more than 20 years of experience and definitely in their adulthood, it’s time for social media platforms to get their adult badge and play a pivotal role in shaping our generations for a better world.    

It was an early morning of Tuesday 19th December 2023 when I woke up to a supposedly normal day of work, only to find my Facebook account unavailable. I thought “ok, it must be one of those downtimes across the globe”. But no, it was just me. I couldn’t access my profile nor Messenger and a shiver ran down my spine. I tried resetting my password, believing I was temporarily blocked or tentatively hacked, but again, all attempts failed miserably. In total panic mode I quickly browsed through a million Help pages by Meta, but none led to real time support. How could it be? 

Cutting a long story short for your benefit (and also mine), I regained access on 11th January 2024 for what had to be the longest 24 days of my life, thanks to my two lawyers who took matters seriously and legally with Meta. Solely depending on social media platforms to perform in my job I must say I dealt with it pretty well despite numerous crises and panic attacks. 

Why did I start with this ghastly memory? Simply because never in my professional life did I feel more impotent and at a loss, a situation completely out of my hands and spiralling so quickly that I didn’t even count the amount of business lost during the most important time of the year for clients I represent. What’s even worse and unacceptable (because mistakes and problems do happen) is that Meta is not equipped with a Customer Support Service, and it’s scary. Scary that the planet’s giant in social communications does not have a proper support system in place for its customers, the ones who contribute to the success and stock market of the leader of all virtual communities. If for 90% of social media users it’s all about touch-basing with distant relatives, school friends and colleagues, for the rest (like myself) it’s their main source of livelihood, so let’s not minimise the importance of such platforms. There were moments I was in total darkness, without psychological support I would have struggled, I’m honest.

You might be curious to know why I had been shut out of Facebook without parole. Basically I was indirectly, coldly and abruptly accused of contributing to fraud business on Meta’s platforms, a blasphemy! I, who take business so seriously, who cannot even stand the idea of a tiny spelling mistake or grammatical error let alone fraud anyone financially or by means of impersonation. The difficult part was being told to “forget about my 16 years of historical data and start a new account”, mind-boggling how a company would allow that if I was truly considered and accused of being a fraudster. Even the most ferocious killers have a legal right to defend themselves in court, I felt I was being treated even worse. But let’s put that aside because it’s not the core of this article – the non-existent support is. I guess everyone agrees that after 20 years of presence, experience (and profits), Meta can afford a solid team of support specialists in each country, able to assist the desperate, honest, innocent beings, no?

And this takes us back to the core of this argument – the need for such platforms to grow up and provide verified virtual identities to all its users, free of charge – something which all governments should be imposing in their own country. At the moment, one needs to pay a monthly subscription to have “Meta-verified” profiles, i.e. going through a verification process by means of an official document like ID/passport. Why should the transparent profiles be contributing to a growing virtual network made up of fake names and accounts, putting them at a high risk of being insulted and scammed gratuitously?  

Here’s why verifications are crucial?  

Without verification of profiles, we are bound to see an increase in cyber-bullying, online harassments, virtual hate, threats, malicious AI and senseless discussions because users abuse of a system by hiding behind fake profiles and accounts to hide their identity/fake business, because they wouldn’t be able to do so with their own name and surname.  

Yes it’s true, if you’re harassed or threatened online and report it to the police, eventually that person will be tracked down, but let’s be honest, what’s the need for all that red tape and waste of precious national resources if we can prevent such detrimental behaviour? 

It would be much simpler to verify each and every user for the benefit of the entire society. Just like we all need to present our ID card or passport when requesting services wherever we go, it’s about time we did the same in the virtual world, where business and pleasure are mixing more and more every year that passes, and we need more truth than artificiality.

With verifications in place:

The European Parliament should be discussing this at international level with the policy makers, because it needs to protect its citizens before it’s too late. 

Written for The Sunday Times of Malta by Alison Casha (Founder at Socialogy™) one of the first marketers with a 20 year strong career and practical experience who believes in social media as one of the most important marketing/customer care channels for any business giving importance to  customer satisfaction and real time engagement.  

Socialogy™, “The Art of Social Marketing” provides cost-effective and sustainable social media marketing to SME’s and marketing agencies at a European level. Whatever the job, Socialogy™ will always show maximum respect towards our planet.

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