Context: 

From the beginning, social media platforms have trumpeted that they have ‘democratised’ self expression.

• The article digs deeper into the premise that social media platforms have democratised self expression.

Difference in online self expression over the years:

• The early days of online discourse centred around long­form text on blogs and message boards. 
• This required individuals to think through the substance of what they wanted to say and then articulate it in their own words to communicate to their audience. 
• Even if the content itself was nonsensical, it required conscious engagement, certainly from the writer but also the reader.
• With the advent of social media, long­form text has gone through a series of abridgements, from posts to tweets to retweets, likes, memes, and emojis.

Assessment of quality of online self expression:

• Time spent on these online engagements is too little to allow active involvement. 
• A retweet or like may not necessarily indicate 100% endorsement with the online  content.
• When users do not take the time to reflect and articulate specifically what they feel, instead of merely reiterating someone else, it will not qualify as self expression.
• Retweets and likes are binary instruments which leave no room for personal nuance. Memes and emojis constrain articulation to the selection at hand, shaping instead of facilitating self expression.
• Social media shapes the discourse by privileging antagonism, snark and outrage over dialogue and reason. This in turn prods individuals to become more antagonistic and outrageous with the effect that the medium dictates the message. 
• This influence of the medium on the message is visible also in making virality the primary determinant of value instead of the substance of the message itself.

Conclusion:

• Being a capitalist enterprise, social media platforms thus promote ever greater homogenisation and mass production of ready made expressions such as memes and emoji because they are interested not in promoting self expression but engagement.

News Source: The Hindu

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