Mediaboss Marketing

Ronn Torossian has spent his entire career as a PR executive in New York City, fine-tuning his PR techniques and learning to lead effectively. His ideal approach is to establish himself as an expert within a particular field through thought leadership. Ronn Torossian PR has become synonymous with marketing in his field, and if savvy businesses and individuals are willing to listen, he can help them market themselves.

What is Thought Leadership?

Let's take a step back for a moment and think about Oprah Winfrey, Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, and Dave Ramsey as role models of thought leadership. The people above are more than just celebrities. They have a massive following that truly represents the values of the brand these mega superstars have built. Fans of Oprah hang on her every word, buy each book of the month, and follow her success mantras. Fans of Taylor Swift will leap to her defense, and Dave Ramsey is easily the world's most famous financial expert.

How did they all get to this point? By using thought leadership to market their business. By carefully watching what people want, what they need, and how they tend to embrace their heroes, Ronn Torossian has done the same. The chances are good that people will lean into your ideas wholeheartedly if you give them credibility and something to believe in. And that's the essence of thought leadership.

Ronn Torossian defines thought leadership as the process of providing useful information to your industry to build credibility. It will be much easier to market or sell your product once you become an expert and a top resource within your field.Developing thought leadership involves promoting educational content and establishing oneself as a leader in the broader community. Social media is particularly useful for casting a wide net and gaining exposure.

Ronn Torossian's Thought Leadership Best Practices

Although there are many different approaches to thought leadership, Ronn Torossian PRhas discovered only a few strategies that consistently yield success. Here are some of Torossian's top recommendations.

Know Your Audience

To begin with, you must know who you want to inspire. Not only do you need to know your audience to provide the information they want, but you also need to know their buyer persona to ensure they will become your customers. Whatever you are selling, such as thoughts, products, services, or recommendations, you must find a way to engage your consumers so they become loyal clients.

Start by engaging with customers on social media. Furthermore, you might want to start reaching out to consumers with basic questions regarding your field. Creating leadership content will position you as a leader in the industry.

It is important to keep in mind that your target audience is likely to age, evolve, and adapt over time. Maintain the same approach to ensure that you gain new followers and keep the ones you already have.

Get Social

After working in the PR industry for over a decade, Ronn Torossian has learned that networking is key to success. Networking is essential as a top executive in the Big Apple, but social networks and social media have made the process much simpler.

Reaching your consumer base through social media is easy to market your company. This is an excellent tool for staying connected to potential customers while establishing a unique voice that will help you stand out from your competitors.

Put Your Words Into Print

Engaging followers in a conversation is one thing, but you need to develop your authority if you want to establish credibility as a thought leader. You can do this by publishing an assortment of articles. To get out of the social media bubble, you should guest post on other sites, participate in events, host a podcast, publish an article, or improve your video content.

You should explore as many formats as possible, as every consumer reacts differently to different forms. If you aim for all of them, you will broaden your base, something Ronn Torossian is very familiar with.

Be Yourself

Authenticity is a key aspect of thought leadership. After a while, fake public personas break down because they're hard to maintain. Oprah and Taylor Swift continue to attract attention because they are unapologetically themselves at all times. Genuine people attract everyone in one way or another..

Content that feels authentic and is authentic will benefit your brand. When you believe in what you are saying, thought leadership is at its best, and staying true to its principles makes that possible.

About Ronn:

Ronn Torossian is one of the strongest PR professionals in the business. With over two decades of experience under his belt, fine-tuning tools like thought leadership, he founded his first company in 2003 and watched it grow into a top global agency. In addition to being named Metropolitan Magazine's Most Influential New Yorker, Ronn Torossian has been named Crain's New York 2021 Most Notable in Marketing and PR and the American Business Awards' PR Executive of the Year twice.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or the management of EconoTimes

See the article here:
Ronn Torossian PR Guru on the Importance of Thought Leadership - EconoTimes

In the age of selfies, snaps, likes and shares, the internet and social media have transformed the way in which people communicate. In early 2019, global internet penetration reached 57 percent, or 4.4 billion users, and the overall number of mobile social media users reached 42 percent, or 3.2 billion people. This means that people are able to share ideas, communicate and interact more rapidly than ever before, including with audiences on the other side of the world. Terrorist groups have certainly leveraged these new mechanisms and platforms for communicating amongst themselves and to potential recruits. Terrorist groups have been known for producing sleek videos circulated on YouTube and Twitter, and have mastered new and emerging technologies and social media platforms, such as Telegram; all to promote its messages in cyberspace. Social media and the internet have accelerated the speed and reduced the cost of sharing information. This has supported the process of many terrorist organisations to reorganise themselves into a network style structure and enhanced the capacity of each cell to operate independently, especially for the dissemination of the organisations messages.

faceless terrorists

The internet is a fertile breeding ground where faceless terrorists communicate hatred and intolerance, which manifests in carnage and death. A survey by the International Journal on Cyber Warfare stated that there were 50 million tweets globally by eight million users with the keywords ISIS and ISIL. The new trend is e-terrorism extending to multidimensional propaganda. ISIS leaders post videos on YouTube glorifying the actions of their cadres worldwide. The internet can be accessed by anyone remotely. There is no need for facial interaction. It is an invisible cyber battleground. Modern terrorist networks typically consist of widely distributed, smaller cells who communicate and coordinate their campaigns in an interweaving fashion.

In our rapidly changing world, it takes a coordinated effort of the public and private sectors to identify new threats on the horizon and ensure both police and society are prepared to face them. The illicit sale of drugs, firearms and explosives; people smuggling; money laundering; terrorist activities; and cybercrime can all be facilitated by these technologies. There has been a growth in the use of technologies which provide anonymity to their users. The Darknet the vast portion of the Internet which can only be accessed using specialised software and virtual crypto currencies have many positive benefits, but the focus on anonymity leaves them open to misuse by criminals.

As a partner in the European-Union funded Project Titanium the INTERPOL assisted in the development of a block chain analytics tool called Graph Sense which supports the tracing of crypto currency transactions. This tool allows investigators to search crypto currency addresses, tags and transactions, to identify clusters related to an address and therefore follow the money in support of their investigations. The Practitioner Manual for ASEAN Countries to Counter Terrorism using the Darknet and Crypto currencies will provide law enforcement users with comprehensive guidelines on investigating terrorist activities on the Darknet, including those involving the use of crypto currencies.

Fake websites

Terror groups will often use fake websites that have the look and feel of a legitimate website. Another way of obtaining your personal data (for identity theft) is by sending fake cloned e-mails which may ask for your full name, bank accounts and mobile numbers. A common trick in cybercrime is the use of misspelt URLs and use of sub-domains to deceive and redirect you elsewhere. A new digital threat was found overseas in the form of ransomware this is a malware that encrypts or locks your valuable digital files and then demands a ransom (cash) to release the locked data. Ransomware can thus infiltrate important computer systems and cripple the nations finances, cause mayhem in the stock markets and create havoc on air traffic flight control systems.

Psychologists agree that terrorists thrive on the oxygen of publicity. Jihadist ideology wants people to show them sympathy and propagates a negative attitude towards those who reject them.

There are 46,000 suspected Twitter accounts (from Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia) that post tweets supporting the ISIS and will also influence radicals following them. Many tweets also originate from the Al-Khansaa Brigade, ISIS All-Women Police Force. Al-Khansaa was a famous Arabian poet decades ago. Social media propaganda can attract viewers as well as present a strong narrative that addresses the push and pull factors of local communities, it is likely to impact the radicalisation process of vulnerable individuals.

Electronic evidence is a component of almost all criminal activities and digital forensics support is crucial for law enforcement investigations. Electronic evidence can be collected from a wide array of sources, such as computers, smart phones, remote storage, unmanned aerial systems, ship borne equipment, and more. Another modern example of high-quality propaganda is that of the video game Salil- al- Sawarem (The Clanging of Swords): a first-person shooter game that was modeled to gain publicity for - and draw attention to ISIS. Trailers for the game were released on multiple websites and platforms across the internet. In this way, these types of sophisticated communications can easily go viral. The modern appearance assists with translating the terrorists violence into a language that is understandable for the average young viewer, thereby increasing the psychological impact on the target audience.

Online radicalisation

In addition to games, videos, and images, several terrorist groups also publish online magazines, and these publications appear to play an important role in online radicalisation. The accessibility and popularity of sleek online magazines has reportedly contributed towards the successful enlargement of several terrorist organisations, including ISIS, through their magazines Dabiq and Rumiyah, Al-Qaeda via Inspire, and Al-Shabaab through Gaidi Mtaani. The inclusion of images that show fighters in militarized clothing has been shown to attract individuals to violence. Additionally, emphasis on masculinity and bravery has been found to appeal to individuals who desire excitement and are attracted to thrill seeking.

The inclusion of religious quotes, the presentation of members as heroic martyrs glorifying their violent (suicide bomber) deaths as a sacrifice, and the portrayal of a common enemy appeal to diverse readers, and leads towards a philosophical discussion. The ability of terrorist organisations to produce inspiring, high quality propaganda that can be shared on social media and the internet has been of critical importance for their brand management and their approach to radicalization, as well as using mainstream social media, such as those mentioned already, it should also be noted that terrorist groups use a wide range of various other social networking sites, including Flickr, Vimeo, Instagram, and Sound Cloud, as well as their own blogs and websites.

The digital domain is rife with terrorism. It must be fully monitored by law enforcement agencies in every nation.

Read more from the original source:
Extremism and terrorism in the digital domain - Ceylon Daily News

Chris Anyokwu

By Chris Anyokwu

Walter Benjamin, once famously declared in his work, On the Concept of History, that: There is no document of civilisation that is not also a document of barbarism. Man in his restless search for solutions to lifes many imponderables and impedimenta has been able to conquer and harness nature thereby creating culture. Culture in this context designates the sum of humans ways of conducting their day-to-day affairs in their relentless pursuit of felicity and happiness. Even so, it has not always been rosy and smooth-sailing with regard to mans inventions and discoveries. Just like in everything else, there are always unintended consequences.

Take, for instance, motor vehicle technology. The production of vehicles such as cars, lorries, vans and buses has made movement a lot less irksome and has helped in shrinking long distances separating towns and cities, communities and peoples. But the sad obverse is that this modern technological invention has also led to the great loss of life, a curse-blessing which the ancient Greek call pharmakos and a paradoxical quagmire poetised by Wole Soyinka in his mytho-poem, Idanre. Paradisiacal as the carapace cruising on the road might feel, it is often involved in road mishaps due largely to mechanical, electrical or human errors/defects.

Among causes of road accidents include burst tyres, overheating, over-speeding, uneven road surfaces, road craters, freak mal-functioning of auto parts while the vehicle is in motion, etc. Ditto for airplanes, ocean-going vessels, among others. We can make the same argument for social media. Perhaps, its reasonable for us to begin our reflection today by briefly taking a look at how it all started and how we got to where we are today. To that extent, therefore, it is useful to remind ourselves that social media sites such as Facebook are the natural consequence of many centuries of social media development. We are reliably informed that the earliest methods of communicating across great distances used written correspondence delivered by hand from one person to another. We are talking specifically about letters (C.550 B.C.). In 1792, the telegraph was invented which invariably meant the conveyance of information encapsulated in short messages. The telegraphic capsules were a revolutionary way to convey news and information back in the day. Then followed what was referred to as the pneumatic post, developed in 1865. This had created another way for letters to be delivered quickly between recipients. A pneumatic post was said to utilise underground pressurised air tubes to carry capsules from one area to another.

The telephone was invented in 1890 and the radio in 1891, both helped mankind to communicate across great distances instantaneously. Technology, to be sure, changed rapidly in the 20th century. After the first supercomputers were created in the 1940s, scientists and engineers began to develop ways to create networks between those computers, and this would lead as time went by to the birth of the internet.

The first recognisable social media site, Six Degrees, was created in 1997. In 1999, the first blogging sites became popular, creating a social media sensation thats still popular today. These blogging sites include myspace, LinkedIn, Photobucket, and Flickrand they all facilitated online photo sharing. Youtube came out in 2005, creating an entirely new way for people to communicate and share with one another across great distances. By 2006, Facebook and twitterbecame available to users throughout the world and other sites such as Tumblr, Spotify, Foursquare and Pinterest beganpopping up to fill in social media niches. Today, there is a tremendous variety of social networking sites, and many of them can be linked to allow cross-posting. This creates an atmosphere where users can reach the maximum number of people without sacrificing the intimacy of person-to-person communication (see Google.com).

The case of person-to-person communication delivered via social media has been achieved at a stiff price, namely our nakedness. And nakedness must be understood in the broadest sense possible. Im certain the invocation of the word nakedness instinctively brings to mind mans primal Act of Shame at Genesis. According to Scripture, Adam and Eve, our progenitors were both originally naked but they were not ashamed. But after they ate of the Tree of Knowledge, we are told that the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked (Genesis Chapter 2). The consequence of the Original Sin of Disobedience, for the primal pair, was grievous and shameful knowledge of their essential abjection, their nakedness, body and soul. Even we, their latter-day progeny, have inherited their nakedness, the so-called Adamic nature ofsin and corruption. Thus, our inheritance of nakedness is comeuppance for our default mode of disobedience. Contextualised and framed within the tramlines of contemporary experience, our nakedness at present is the fall-out of our idolatrous and obsessive reification of social media.

In the world of social media, content is king, but we ask: what kinds of content are on display for all to see and consume? Without filibustering, let us concede straightaway that social media, as posited above, has revolutionised social discourse, speech acts, communicative events and the all-important act/art of communication. We shall come to that in some detail much later. But our concern, for now, are the harmful effects or functions of social media. Take sex, for example. Growing up, the whole thing about sex was carefully and ritualistically shrouded in vague, coded idioms and para-verbal signs and signals. Never was sex spoken of or practised in plain sight as it is done nowadays. It was (and still is!) sacred and must be contemplated and consummated within elaborate rituals of secrecy, gravity and definite purpose. Is it so now? Have you seen children, aged 4 8, gyrating raunchily in the name of dancing at parties? Christmas is upon us, so you will see such belly-aching sights aplenty. Woe betide that parent who does not fall in line by buying his/her primary or secondary school child a smartphone. Are these cell phones for making and receiving calls only? Never, not on your life! Simply put, every schoolboy and girl wants a phone in order to surf the so-called Super-Highway, the internet. What do these tiny tots seek on the internet? Research material? Never! For them, social media is a veritable detour to fabulous worlds of phantasmagoria, fantasy and nirvana. It is a world of escape that is, escape from our humdrum world of objective reality marked as it is by storm and stress and escape into a meretricious and illusory dimension of dubious bliss. The enchantment and the spell of alternate utopias only bring lasting regrets, sometimes, beyond the grave. Pornography, bullying, body-shaming, stalking, anti-social brain-washing and indoctrination and other deleterious acts are some of the negative effects of social media.

On a daily basis, we are assaulted and assailed by the downright execrable, the incredibly creepy and weird, the heart-stoppingly unprintable on social media as folks put on display the very worst in human deviancy and depravity. The idea is that the more creepy, the more forbidden, the more unprintable the better for social media ventilation. The scandalous is the oxygen of social media Father rapes pre-teen daughter; Mom and son tie the knot, Parents eat their children, etc. Things along those lines.The banal equally trend online: How I share my panties with my mother. How my Dad and I measure our manhood, My Boobs are bigger than yours! In vain do we seek to capture and comprehend the scope and scale of profanity, pejorism, the bizarre that constitute the content of social media. Traditionally, the family, the school, church/mosque, the media (print and electronic) and peer group are considered the main agents of socialisation. But these agents of socialisation have now paled into insignificance compared to the overwhelming influence of social media today. What weight does parental control carry in the face of SM? Doesnt the Man of God sound and look old-fashioned in the eyes of these young ones? Hasnt SM taken away the ethical element from our media, leaving it emptied of meaning and drained of relevance? In this Social Media Age, the youth are a demographic time-bomb waiting to blast civilisation as we know it to smithereens. They have abandoned the terrestrial world to us, old-school types, and have smartly relocated onto virtual space. They are no longer citizens, but netizens! And in their world, vices such as rebellion, subversiveness, violence, vandalism, arson, cannibalism, mischief, fake news, pranking, and radicalism are the currency of conversation. Cultism and the occult also thrive therein.

Also, in this parallel world, mentorship and role-modelling revolve around trolls, spooks, online masters/mistresses, doppelgangers, gods and goddesses. And since language is the vector of culture, netizens have also devised their own unique lingo. Ever heard of the word encryption? That is the essence of their language in their ecosystem. Encryption is the method by which information is converted into secret code that hides the informations true meaning. In computing, unencrypted data is also known as plaintext, and encrypted data is called ciphertext. The formulae used to encode and decode messages are called encryptionalgorithms or ciphers. In the essay entitled Social Media and the English Language, Reuben Abati inimitably and brilliantly explores the use of digital slang by Nigerian youth. He writes: Texting and tweeting is producing a generation of users of English [] who cannot write grammatically successful sentences. Abati notes further that these youths cannot tell the difference between a comma and a colon. They have no regard for punctuation. They mix up pronouns, cannibalise verbs and adverbs, ignore punctuation; and violate all rules of lexis and syntax. They seem to rely more on sound rather than formal meaning. Abati tells us that the domains of choice for our netizens are Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. He vouchsafes and furnishes a few examples of their digital sociolect as follows: For [4], forget [4get] or [4git]; see [c], straight[str8], first[fess], will [wee], help [epp], etc. Abati adds thus: Oftentimes, this special prose arrives amidst a number of other confusing symbols, emoticons, memes, acronyms and abbreviations, looking like a photographic combination of English and hieroglyphics. New words such as bae, boo, finz, famzing, Yaaay, 420 (marijuana) 143(I love you) 182(I hate you) Idaful (wonderful) 53x (sex) PAW(parents are watching), ADIDAS (All Day I Dream About Sex) litter the discursive topography of our netizens. Whilst this unorthodox orthography, according to Abati, implies a fascination with speed, secrecy, and privacy, it equally highlights the disturbing fact that users are increasingly socialised into not knowing the difference between correct and incorrect English grammar and usage. It exemplifies the lack of rigour and propriety and organisation. The point really is: think clearly, write clearly. In this regard, the role of critical thinking and logic cannot be overstated. Netizens spend a lot of time on websites, on apps, giving rise to a rash of pathological issues, some we are already familiar with, others waiting to be discovered to our dismay. Digitally savvy children are, by the same token, moral liabilities to their parents and society. The interface between man and technology has been beneficial to a degree as argued earlier on but its negative effects far outweigh the positive ones. Yes, neologisms such as textspeak, texting, sextexting, twitter troll, tweeps, emoticons, emojis, tweeterati, blogging, tweet, re-tweet, hashtag tendto keep lexicographers happy, but, the fact of the matter is that social media if left unchecked or unregulated will yet set the world on fire.

*Chris Anyokwu writes from the University of Lagos

Follow this link:
Social Media and the Price of Civilisation - The News

A new forecast has dubbed TikTok as the worlds third-largest social network, just behind Facebook and Instagram. In its inaugural forecast on TikToks global install base, Insider Intelligence the firm previously known as eMarketer predicts that TikTok will reach 755.0 million monthly users in 2022, after seeing 59.8% growth in 2020, followed by 40.8% growth in 2021.

Facebook, as of its most recent earnings, reported 2.91 million monthly active users after seeing 6% year-over-year growth. And recently, Instagram employees leaked its network had surpassed 2 billion monthly users, up from the 1 billion monthly user milestone reported in June 2018.

However, Insider Intelligences forecast is referencing its own 2022 predictions, which uses a slightly different set of calculations. The firm has its own definition of a monthly active user that may differ from those of each company it analyzes. For example, it only counts users who log in at least once a month consistently over a calendar year period, and it attempts to weed out the fake accounts from its estimates. This is meant to provide clients with a more consistent apples to apples comparison across all platforms.

According to the firms estimates, Facebook will reach 2.1 billion monthly users in 2022, followed by Instagram with 1.28 billion users. TikTok will follow with its 755 million monthly users, ahead of Snap and Twitter.

Image Credits: Insider Intelligence

TikTok, over the past couple of years, has been growing quickly.

App intelligence firm Sensor Tower reported the short-form video app crossed 2 billion downloads across the App Store and Google Play in the first quarter of 2020. A separate report by App Annie later found TikTok saw 325% growth in 2020, and the monthly time spent per user also grew faster than any other app including by 65% in the U.S., surpassing Facebook.

In July 2021, Sensor Tower noted TikTok (including sister app Douyin in China) had become the first non-Facebook mobile app (outside of games) to reach 3 billion downloads globally across the App Store and Google Play, while TikTok consumer spending surpassed $2.5 billion globally. This put the app in the company of only a handful of others that had reached that milestone, including Tinder, Netflix, YouTube, and Tencent Video.

While other firms had predicted TikToks monthly active user base would top 1 billion in 2021, Insider Intelligences forecast is a bit more conservative due to its methodology. But it does expect the app to continue to grow, if at a slower rate of 15.1% in 2022.

As a result of its growth, TikToks share of overall social networking users is also climbing upwards. Insider Intelligences forecast believes TikTok will surpass a 20% share for the first time and will approach a one-quarter share by 2024.

The rise of TikTok is especially challenging for Snapchat, with which it competes head-to-head for the youth audience, remarked Insider Intelligence principal analyst, Debra Aho Williamson. Although TikTok does not share much similarity to Twitter, its massive size relative to the moreestablished platform is a clear reflection of the addictive nature of TikToks content, she said.

Theres still plenty of room for TikToks future growth, the firm also pointed out, as next year, 3.57 billion people will use a social networking app at least once per month.

See original here:
TikTok to rank as the third largest social network, 2022 forecast notes - TechCrunch

The debate around social medias impact on mental health is hardly new, but the conversation has recaptured the worlds attention in light of reports this fall that suggest Facebook has been well aware of the toxic mental health consequences of its platforms for teens.

While this data and the knowledge that Facebook ignored these concerns is troubling, understanding social medias impact on mental health isnt all that simple. In fact, theres a strong argument to be made that social media can offer safe, affirming spaces and connections for young people on the journey to discover themselves and their identities.

These benefits are too often pushed aside while the dark consequences of social media rage on. The fact is that todays popular social networking platforms, like Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook and more, are designed with monetization as a top priority. At their core, these apps encourage excessive use because more user hours on the app equal more ad support.

The tech industry has an opportunity and a responsibility to make space for platforms that arent dependent on ad dollars.

While some have responded to the latest backlash by declaring that spaces like Instagram should be strictly reserved for adults, I strongly believe that its possible to build a social media environment that is beneficial for teenagers one that helps them discover themselves and affirm who they are; one that lets them explore their identities freely; and one that comforts them in times of darkness and helps them know they are not alone.

Im not sure this future can be cultivated by reactive features alone, but there is potential for social media giants to team up with other organizations and nonprofits to make social media a safer place for all people.

While its difficult to imagine a world where for-profit social media is not a monopoly, it doesnt have to be this way. It may not be realistic to eliminate ad-supported social media apps completely, but the tech industry does have an opportunity and responsibility to make space for platforms that arent dependent on ad dollars.

If the number of views, clicks and ads were secondary to peoples wants and needs, we could revolutionize the way social media platforms work. Together, we could build communities that users can come to on their own terms whether to escape pressure from other apps, connect with peers or find an accepting place where they can be themselves.

While a handful of ad-free social media spaces already exist such as Ello and TrevorSpace, The Trevor Projects social networking site for LGBTQ+ young people they are much smaller and have fewer features, and therefore may not attract the high volume of users who are accustomed to the bells and whistles that come with social media apps such as Instagram.

There also needs to be a space online for young people to explore their identities anonymously, which is nearly impossible when social media companies prioritize ad support over their users mental health and well-being. Advertisers want to know exactly who is spending time on social media so they can target users based on their age, gender, behavior and identities. This becomes especially problematic for young users who want to use social media as a vehicle for figuring out who they are but cant do so discreetly.

In order to overcome this, the industry as a whole needs to make more investments in social media spaces whose purpose isnt profit. Over the past few years, tech giants have made incredible strides in product innovation, which could be applied to other sites that give users a safe place to express themselves and find supportive communities.

Theres a time and place for Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and other ad-supported apps, but theres also a clear need and want for online spaces that arent driven by revenue. It doesnt have to be one or the other, and we can work together to make room for both.

With TrevorSpace, for example, weve invested in research to better understand our users wants and needs, without the added pressure of meeting specific revenue goals. Through this research, weve learned that our users look to the internet to explore their identities and value having a safe space where they can express themselves.

Beyond investing in more nonprofit social media platforms, theres also an opportunity for tech companies to apply their leading-edge AI developments to improve the user experience on social media and alleviate some of the mental health stressors caused by spending too much time online.

Social media sites currently use machine learning to inform algorithms that encourage people to spend more time online, but its possibilities extend far beyond that. We know that technology has the power to support peoples mental health instead of exacerbating mental illness, so what if we used AI to give users newfound control over social media?

Imagine if AI could help people find what they really need in a given moment like guiding users to content that makes them laugh when they want to laugh or cry when they want to cry, facilitating connections between like-minded users that build positive relationships, or suggesting resources that give them skills or knowledge that positively impact their life.

The majority of social media apps today use AI to determine our feeds, for you pages and timelines for us. However, if we instead used AI to let people guide their own journeys on social media, we could foster a fundamentally different emotional experience one that supported their wants and needs instead of simply monopolizing their time and attention.

This sounds like a no-brainer, and some may even believe this is already happening. However, as recently bolstered by former Facebook product manager Frances Haugens testimony, this is simply not how the content we see is curated in the current hands of social media leaders. That must change.

Thanks to unprecedented innovations and research in social media, we have the technology needed to create sites that are conducive to our well-being; its just a matter of investing time and resources in developing them and creating space for nonprofit apps to coexist with major ad-supported apps.

Looking ahead, I see the potential for social media companies to partner with nonprofit companies to develop AI that gives users control over the content they see and how they interact with it, but it would take major time, investment and collaboration from both parties. It would also require social media giants to be OK with making room for much-needed alternative apps in the space.

Making social media safer and healthier for all people is a goal that many nonprofits, including The Trevor Project, are dedicated to realizing, and we would greatly benefit from social media companies help making it happen.

Read more here:
Nonprofits have the answers to improve social media: Big Tech has the resources to make it happen - TechCrunch