The Content Mines Ryan Broderick

We're going deep on TikTok this week. We're talking about Alabama rush week, Couch Guy, LamboGate, and the Puncher Of W 4th Street. If you don't know what any of that means, don't worry, we'll walk you through it all. Our central thesis is this: TikTok is on track to become the biggest social media platform in America and as it gets bigger, things are going to start spinning out of control very fast.

SHOW NOTES:

https://uk.style.yahoo.com/salt-baes-london-restaurant-faces-114700748.html

https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3b3x5/salt-baes-meat-empire-is-rife-with-labor-problems

https://www.curbed.com/2021/10/tiktok-west-4th-street-station-puncher-nyc.html

https://jalopnik.com/lambo-owner-has-patience-of-a-saint-after-getting-rear-1847795574

https://www.al.com/news/2021/08/the-irresistible-allure-of-tiktok-bamarush-and-mocking-southern-accents.html

https://www.technologyreview.com/2010/07/14/202026/did-whites-flee-the-digital-ghetto-of-myspace/

Our dive into the murky waters of Facebook gets even weirder and stranger this week. Right now, there are a handful of seemingly random, most-likely automated Facebook pages about animals that are outperforming some of the biggest publishers on the platform. But the big question is… why?

SHOW NOTES:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DwjwCMtTn0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ob-LfkwSWg

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/saudi-newcastle-soccer-takeover-prompts-sportswashing-concerns-rcna2845

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ob-LfkwSWg

https://twitter.com/brendanllm/status/1446468714375917570?s=21

https://twitter.com/FacebooksTop10/status/1448310727702290436

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/04/technology/facebook-files.html

https://www.facebook.com/dailypawsmag/

https://www.facebook.com/ILovePawsUS/

https://olipmedia.com/

https://methodizemedia.com/

https://www.facebook.com/puppersdoggos

https://www.facebook.com/top13.net/posts/2000955450054377

https://www.facebook.com/top13.net/posts/2000951543388101

This week was a very bad week for Facebook. In fact, it was so bad that at one point it just simply didn't even exist anymore. It seems like the whole world right is wondering how to deal with the site. And now, thanks to a trove of leaked documents, we have the best picture we've ever had at how rotten the company is on the inside. But here's a troubling question: What if we've already missed our chance to untangle ourselves from the platform?



SHOW NOTES:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xk4xxzoabio

https://www.refinery29.com/en-ca/2021/06/10502644/dumping-someone-reddit-relationship-advice

https://xenosagaepisodeone.tumblr.com/post/657600561016963072

https://twitter.com/ianwnm/status/1445122743427637251

https://twitter.com/blameaspartame/status/1445511248968183821

https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10113961365418581

https://twitter.com/miniondeathcult/status/1445148650263367687?s=21

https://twitter.com/joeosborne/status/1445445662867288069/photo/1

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-facebook-files-11631713039

https://www.cbsnews.com/video/facebook-whistleblower-frances-haugen-misinformation-public-60-minutes-video-2021-10-03/#x

https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-instagram-kids-tweens-attract-11632849667

https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-instagram-kids-tweens-attract-11632849667https://pitchfork.com/features/lists-and-guides/pitchfork-reviews-rescored/

https://twitter.com/snopes/status/1445832685134307329

https://www.inputmag.com/features/facebook-public-relations-andy-stone-twitter-whistleblower-controversy

https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/h-and-m-hires-the-29-year-old-facebook-whistleblower-to-mine-its-data-20190201-p50uz0.html

This week's episode is a trip down a very strange rabbit hole. OZY is a wildly sketchy media company that is now being accused of fraud. So Luke and Ryan sat down and went through five years worth of the company's social analytics, across Comscore, CrowdTangle, and SocialBlade. What they discovered was stranger and more confusing than they ever imagined. But they also came very close to getting a full picture of what OZY appears to have been doing for the last few years and why.

This week's big story is about the disappearance of Gabby Petito, a 22-year-old who went missing last month and whose remains were found earlier this week. Her boyfriend is currently missing, after returning from vacation without her. And her social accounts have exploded in activity, becoming one of the biggest trending topics in the country. We're examining the parasocial dimensions to True Crime and how algorithms seize on this kind of content, pushing it to uncomfortable and grim extremes. It's a heavy episode, but it's a good one.

Today we have an extra big episode. It's a project that Luke has been wanting to dive into for a long time. We went through seven years worth of blog posts from the social analytics website Newswhip, which rank the top publishers and content on Facebook. What we discovered was actually far darker than we expected. This is the story of how the modern internet was created and it doesn't have a happy ending. Head over to our Patreon for a full list of the Newswhip blog posts referenced in this episode.