DISCLAIMER :

Since this was published as my Thesis in May 2026, many updates to the topics I’m discussing have been made, and therefore I would prefer if you looked at this paper as a time capsule capturing my fears and observations at the time.

My opinions on some aspects have also changed as of publishing this. Still, I chose not to edit anything (aside from format and adding a couple of Oxford commas) so this could stay as true to my thesis paper as possible.

I wrote this in the U.S. while thinking in Indian English; some parts may not flow perfectly, so I apologize in advance.

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ABSTRACT

The Internet is a complex and dynamic space that shapes, and is shaped by, the social, political, and economic realities of human existence, and that is reflected even in its structure. “Reality” is largely defined by what we can touch, see, breathe, hear, and move through. Psychologists Michael W. Eysenck and Mark T. Keane defined perception as the cognitive activity through which humans become aware of their environment and receive¹, and interpret the information around them². So, it is easy to disregard a world that cannot be sensed in these ways – a world that exists not in physical space but in code, data, and invisible connections… and the Internet is such a world. But could it also be something more intricate – an extension, a reflection, or even something that informs the reality we inhabit offline?

The language we use to describe our relationship with the Internet already hints at this. Terms like netizen, digital native, and digital immigrant draw directly from vocabularies of citizenship, belonging, and migration. Such language implies that the Internet is a kind of country of its own, complete with imagined borders, infrastructures, communities, and systems of governance. If we follow this metaphor, the digital world begins to resemble a complex geopolitical landscape. Within it, there are perceived regions and territories: Social Media platforms, forums, and online marketplaces that function like cities or states, each governed by its own norms, hierarchies, and economies. I will use such urban planning analogies within this paper to highlight the parallel inequities between the Internet and real life. In fact, I will go a step further and reason that here now exists an economic system online that monetarily rewards attention, with a currency built off user data, and the labour of interaction within Social Media platforms; and within this job’s “training period”, the public becomes more polarized and radicalized.

INTRODUCTION

On an average day, I spend about 6 hours on Social Media and YouTube, 5 hours on assignments drafted and submitted online, about 3 hours spent on work as an employee, and 2 hours on online gaming. Spending 16 out of 24 hours in a day online is hardly the behavior of an average person, and I by no means claim to not be chronically online. However, excluding the 8 hours I spend on leisure, that’s still 8 hours I spend online being a student and a professional.

The hours I spend asleep are probably the only hours when I’m not online, which makes me wonder if I even exist in the real world anymore.

Nearly everyone I know has undergone an Internet detox at some point in their lives. They go offline for days at a stretch to focus on other pressing matters happening in their real lives, prompted by concerns over how much time they might spend online (typically on Social Media), unless they need to use these services for work³.

However, this transition isn’t smooth. Recent research suggests that nearly 54% of adults are getting their news from Meta, X, or YouTube⁴. Gen Z, specifically, is also pioneering a preference in sending and receiving voice notes, images and text through messaging services over conventional forms of communication through phone calls⁵. There’s also a growing trend of sharing Social Media handles over personal phone numbers for messaging purposes⁶, implying that once someone deletes one of these Social Media apps from their phones, they cannot be contacted in that way for emergency situations anymore.

So what can incentivize people to go off Social Media without worrying about losing track of events happening in their lives? Let’s say someone decides to go to work and log into their work computer to work on an assignment. If they need to pull up some cross-referential material online, can we continue to pretend that the pop-ups aren’t targeted? Over a coffee with coworkers, they might discuss the news, potentially sourced from X, Facebook or Instagram. And these are examples that don’t account for the advertisements all around using website links and QR codes.

The influence of the Internet (especially Social Media) is present in nearly every aspect of our lives. The world has changed its infrastructure, information design, and architecture to match the Internet user’s needs. You may wonder – how did we get here? How did humanity arrive at this moment, in which nearly every aspect of our lives, from work and education to intimacy and leisure, passes through invisible networks of information?

Perhaps it simply is for the convenience of communication. With the goal of transmitting information, human innovation within communication has grown from employing carrier pigeons to inventing AI chatbots. According to scientific estimates, language developed around 40,000 years ago⁷.

And while civilized human settlements appeared around 6000 years ago, early written scripts and symbols can be traced to roughly 5000 years ago⁸. In Communication: An Introduction, Karl Erik Rosengren writes, “The word ‘communicate’ is historically related to the word ‘common’. It stems from the Latin verb communicare, which means ‘to share’, ‘to make common’, and which in turn is related to the Latin word for common: communis.”⁹

At first glance, the Internet might appear to be the culmination of this long history of communicative progress; a truly democratic platform where anyone, regardless of identity or background, can access information and participate equally to create community. The very structure of the web seems to suggest openness and freedom: countless websites and platforms available to all at the click of a button. To the average user, this gives the impression that the Internet exists outside traditional forms of inequality. If most of its spaces are free to enter, then surely it must be a level playing field which is unburdened by hierarchies such as race, class, or geography. However, this perception of digital democracy conceals a much more complex reality. The Internet is not, and has never been, truly “free.”

Every act of connection begins with a transaction. Devices must be purchased, service providers must be paid, and data must be maintained through privately owned infrastructures. Access to the Internet is mediated by financial capacity, and therefore, by class¹⁰. For individuals who already occupy positions of economic privilege, the Internet serves as an extension of mobility, opportunity, and labor efficiency. Those who work in corporate or digital sectors tend to rely on constant online connectivity as part of their professional lives, whereas workers in blue-collar, agricultural, or domestic roles are often excluded from such dependence, and consequently, from the same access to digital capital. But what about people without jobs? What prompts people who are unable to pay for groceries or meals to pay for a phone or an Internet connection? Remember how the Internet is slowly being inserted into every aspect of daily life; it is not merely a convenience but a necessary gateway to social inclusion, job opportunities, and basic communication. To be disconnected is, in many ways, to be marginalized from modern society itself.

THE WORLD AND ITS DISPARITIES

It is important to note that not everyone globally has access to the Internet even if an individual has the money to buy a phone and WiFi connection. Internet access is geographical as well, as visible in the data below.

Map of the percentage of population in each global
region that has managed to adopt the Internet ¹¹

Map that highlights the century in which certain
countries were liberated from colonization ¹²

While 97.7% of the population in Northern Europe has been able to adopt Internet usage, the same is visible in only 26% of the population in East Africa, 33.5% of Central Africa and 42.9% of West Africa.¹¹ Correlations can be seen in countries colonized as of the 20th century and countries with low network connectivity in the 21st century.¹²Presently, many countries across the Global South are still being exploited by foreign powers to build the very Internet infrastructure that these countries cannot access.

For example, the Democratic Republic of Congo is victim to modern-day slavery and illegal mining carried out by foreign companies to source metals like cobalt for rechargeable electronic batteries. ¹³ About 500K-2M Congolese people make a living off the highly unsafe, unregulated and informal Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining industry, which provides 90% of the world’s cobalt. ¹⁴ As of 2025, only 30.5% of the DRC’s population can access the internet. ¹⁵

In 2021, UN Secretary General António Guterres called for Internet access to be treated as a “basic human right”, speaking to not just this global digital divide but also regimes that propagate the lack of Internet access through shutdowns.

The #KeepItOn campaign was launched in 2016 to bring together hundreds of civil society organizations and our allies from around the world: in government, international institutions, media, the private sector, and beyond, to fight for an end to internet shutdowns. Aside from shutdowns, there is also an additional divide caused by the inability to source devices through which to connect to the Internet. In conversation with Global Citizen, #KeepItOn organizer Felicia Anthonio emphasized that shutdowns are also more likely to impact poorer people and communities, women, and people with disabilities.¹⁶

Given this, I am extremely lucky as an Indian woman to be born into a caste and class privilege where I’m able to access the Internet, and with it, higher education in a country where the risk minimises even further. As a reader of this paper, statistically, you can also use the Internet “freely”. For you and me, our immediate problems lie less with the tangible barriers affecting our ability to participate online, and more to do with the systemic barriers within the digital world.

The most globally pervasive social media platforms are primarily American in origin. Companies such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and WhatsApp have established the foundational infrastructure for global online communication. The early expansion of American platforms resulted in a “soft monopoly,” as widespread adoption was reinforced by network effects, global branding, and integration into economic and cultural systems. TikTok, a Chinese company, constitutes the most significant global challenger to this dominance.

Take Google, for example, which remains the most widely used search engine in the world. It is owned and operated by Alphabet Inc., a massive private conglomerate that also oversees YouTube, Android, and a host of other products and services that shape the digital landscape. I have personally always felt like the Internet is very American, that being one of the many reasons I found it easy to integrate into American society as an international student when I entered the U.S. a few years ago. However, this also means that any major political change in the U.S. affects the way users interact with the Internet. Their influence extends not only through the technologies created by Big Tech but also through their direct financial contributions to political campaigns, lobbying efforts, and partnerships with government agencies.

In 2020, Public Citizen reported that during the 2020 cycle, Big Tech companies spent $124 million in lobbying and campaign contributions, breaking its own records from past election cycles. Amazon’s spending increased by 30%, and Facebook’s spending jumped an astounding 56%. Also, Facebook, Amazon, Google, and Apple together added 40 new lobbyists in the 2020 cycle, up from 293 in 2018 to a new total of 333.¹⁷

Beyond their technological reach, Big Tech companies like Google, Amazon, Meta, and Apple have increasingly expanded their involvement in U.S. politics, aligning their corporate interests with national and geopolitical agendas.

More recently, Google donated $1 Million to President Donald Trump’s inauguration fund, signaling not only its willingness to participate in political processes but also its investment in maintaining access to those in power ¹⁸. So if these Big Tech CEOs aren’t in the Internet’s “government”, perhaps their role in this economic-political climate is that of feudal lords. They own properties within this land, and make their own rules and regulations within these spaces. And in that sense, we are their digital peasants that live and work under them.

In fact, this thought process has branched an entire field of study, through the lens of the term Technofeudalism. Early thinkers like Vasilis Kostakis and Michel Bauwens, in Network Society and Future Scenarios for a Collaborative Economy (2014), argued that large online platforms allow users to create and share content while the platforms keep most of the profits. Later, Yanis Varoufakis, in Technofeudalism : What Killed Capitalism (2023)¹⁹ popularised the idea by claiming that companies such as Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple no longer just compete in markets but increasingly control them, similar to how feudal lords once controlled land and resources in medieval societies. Thus, this idea has a strong basis in present Internet studies. However, the term feudalism at its core is itself contested among historians and linguists because it has been used to describe such a vast umbrella of societies that it perhaps means nothing at all²⁰.

Historically, the roots of this inequality trace back to the very origins of the Internet. The precursor to today’s web, the ARPANET, was a project funded by the U.S. Department of Defense during the Cold War. Its initial purpose was not open communication but military research and national security ²¹.

This militarized birth shaped both the structure and ideology of early network systems, which privileged certain institutions and regions over others; with this America-forward thinking being a key player in the pervasive global presence of American companies Google, IBM, Apple, Amazon, Meta and Twitter/X.

While this may explain the Internet’s early geographic limitations, it does not justify the persistence of inequality today. Even in a supposedly globalized world, the Internet’s reach continues to reflect political and economic hierarchies. ²² Companies such as Starlink, for instance, prioritize expanding networks in North America and Europe rather than investing in regions across Africa, South Asia, or Latin America – areas perceived as less profitable due to economic instability or weaker infrastructure.

This pattern exemplifies that the same capitalist logic that drives global markets also governs access to the digital world. For a prolonged period, American platforms benefited from higher levels of global trust and acceptance compared to newer or regionally confined alternatives. Regional competitors tend to gain prominence only under specific conditions, such as addressing unique cultural or linguistic requirements or when political, economic, or social resistance to American platforms arises.

These conditions are as such²³ :

• government restrictions or bans on foreign platforms, as demonstrated by Weibo, Douyin, and WeChat in China, where services such as Facebook and X are inaccessible.

• local platforms establish themselves before American competitors, as observed with VK in Russia.

• sustained support from governments and mainstream media, as seen in Weibo in China.

• platforms become deeply integrated into daily life by expanding beyond social networking into payments, services, or public infrastructure, such as LINE in Japan.

THE COUNTRY AND ITS GOVERNMENT

The term “Internet user” might seem redundant to dwellers of urban neoliberal societies in the West, since the Internet has fully engulfed our lives, across personal and professional spaces. It’s almost like calling someone in a monetary economy a “money user” or someone with a car a “petroleum user”.

We do have more specific terms when it comes to Internet usage as well. Maybe if you are closer in age to me, or even younger (I was born in 2004) you might identify as a digital native, as opposed to your parents’ generation (mine were born in the 1970s) who might choose to identify more with the term digital immigrant.

Both terms were coined by Marc Prensky, who described them in an article in On the Horizon²⁴. When asked to distinguish the importance of such technology in an interview, he clarified: “The distinction between digital natives and digital immigrants is important because it is more cultural than technology-knowledge-based. Digital Immigrants grew up in a non-digital, pre-Internet culture before they experienced the digital one. Digital Natives know only the digital culture”²⁵.

If you’re an avid user of the Internet, you might think of yourself as a netizen.

The term netizen was coined by Michael Hauben in 1993 to describe an Internet user who actively contributes towards the development of the Net and acts as a citizen of the Net and of the world. He further explores this concept along with his predictions on Internet usage in the future in his book Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet²⁶.

These terms imply that the Internet is a country. And if the Internet is a country, then what about country-specific forums, platforms, or communities that exist within it? Is a country made up of other countries?

The term “country” itself doesn’t have a standard definition, usually assumed to be synonymous with state, nation, nation state, or other political entities.“Any attempt to find a clear definition of a country soon runs into a thicket of exceptions and anomalies”²⁷

So technically, the notions of immigration, citizenship, and nativity might help the Internet fit the “definition” of a country simply because there is a lack of a definition. How about we look at the government then? The Internet, famously, has no government, and thus that’s one thing less to worry about in terms of whether it is democratic or authoritarian. Internet governance is decentralized, relying on collaboration among multiple stakeholders – including governments, private companies, academic institutions, civil society, and international organizations.

This is similar to the way Antarctica functions. Together, these groups develop shared policies and technical standards to ensure the Internet remains functional, open, and globally accessible. Although no single entity governs the Internet as a whole, certain essential elements – such as the management of domain names and core infrastructure – are coordinated by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), based in Los Angeles, California, to maintain overall interoperability and stability.

However, most of the platforms that dominate our online experience operate as self-governing entities, effectively functioning as private ecosystems within the broader, decentralized structure of the Internet.

Each of these platforms is responsible for creating and enforcing its own policies, guidelines, and ethical standards – often with minimal oversight from any global regulatory body.

It is helpful to reconsider the global digital divide through this lens. The Western bias in Internet access is already significant, but the picture becomes even more complex when we acknowledge the rising frequency of Internet shutdowns around the world.

Depending on your geographic location, your ability to “travel” to this digital country is not guaranteed. In some places, like Denmark, this access almost presents itself like holding a strong passport which grants visa-free entry to numerous nations. In contrast, citizens of highly restricted states, such as North Korea, are effectively barred from entering the Internet “country” altogether. Here, purchasing a connected device becomes the equivalent of buying a travel ticket: it grants you the possibility of entry, but only if your local government permits it. Fast bandwidth then determines how frequently and smoothly you can “fly” to and through this country. Those with slow connections or limited infrastructure experience Internet access as infrequent, delayed, or heavily constrained travel.

Governments worldwide reinforce these disparities by imposing periodic restrictions, effectively closing the borders to the digital country whenever it suits political interests. Internet shutdowns (targeted or nationwide) function as travel bans, preventing entire populations from accessing essential communication channels, information, and global discourse.

In just 2024, there were approximately 300 documented shutdowns globally, a stark reminder of how vulnerable digital access remains to political control, and how unevenly distributed the right to participate in the Internet’s global community is.

According to AccessNow : “India(n)...authorities…still imposed no fewer than 84 shutdowns – the most for a democracy. At the very top of the list was Myanmar, where at least six perpetrators, led predominantly by the military regime, imposed 85 shutdowns on a population that has continued bravely resisting an increasingly oppressive dictatorship four years after the junta seized power in a violent coup. Pakistan imposed 21 shutdowns, the highest number ever for the country, while Russia imposed 19 shutdowns, including seven in Ukraine as part of its ongoing full-scale invasion ²⁸.”

THE CITY AND ITS ECONOMY

If we consider the Internet as a country, it is worth examining what its cities might resemble. Historically, civilizations developed near water sources, supporting agricultural communities. Following the Industrial Revolution, settlements formed around production sites, allowing workers and employers to live near their workplaces. This shift led to cities where people from different economic backgrounds lived and worked in close proximity, creating concentrated centers of production. Roger W Caves defines cities in the following way : “Cities are the biggest things human beings make that actually work. A permanent and densely settled place with boundaries that are administratively defined, a city is the accomplishment of a population whose members work primarily on non-agricultural tasks.”²⁹

Many major Social Media platforms can be considered digital cities, as they feature large, dense user bases that interact within defined website boundaries and generate data through their activities within these platforms (such as posting, commenting, liking, and sharing content).

The multiple nuclei model was created by Chauncy Harris
and Edward Ullman in “The Nature of Cities”, 1945

Let’s take Facebook as an example. In its early years, the platform functioned almost like a small settlement growing along a “river of connections,” where those connections were primarily real-life acquaintances. The entire structure of Facebook was built around familiarity and verification: you were expected to use your real name, list your real school or workplace, and connect with people you genuinely knew. As more users joined, Facebook began to monetize this network through highly targeted advertising. These ads were not random; they were carefully tailored using the vast amount of personal information that users voluntarily entered into their profiles as well as their interactions with other posts. Over time, this data-driven model allowed Facebook to transform from a simple directory of people into a powerful advertising ecosystem, one that relies heavily on extracting value from the connections and identities that users bring with them from the offline world.

The popularity of Facebook marked an era where users started to voluntarily give up their information in order to allow the platform to suggest connections and homepage content.³⁰ This is also visible in non-partnered apps such as Twitter/X and Tiktok. Meta’s acquisition of platforms such as WhatsApp and Instagram enabled Facebook to expand its digital domain into a broader “Meta state.” Previously, each platform functioned as a distinct cultural space with its own identity and social norms. Following integration, these platforms became unified under a common infrastructure of data collection, algorithmic management, and advertising logic.

Cross-platform integrations serve as highways between the cities. Instagram exemplifies this transformation. Initially, the platform was conceived as a casual, intimate space for sharing unpolished photos and brief moments from daily life. Early Instagram prioritized immediacy and authenticity, with posts that were spontaneous, minimally edited, and intended for small groups of friends.

After its integration into Meta’s ecosystem, Instagram increasingly adopted Facebook’s algorithmic filtering strategies, especially in curating its homepage feed. These algorithms, which aim to maximize user engagement for advertising, gradually redirected the platform from its original purpose. As scholars and cultural commentators have noted³¹, Instagram has grown into a hyper-curated environment shaped no longer by personal relevance but by mass engagement metrics.

The homepage, once a chronological feed of images from people users intentionally chose to follow, is now dominated by suggested content selected by the algorithm. These recommendations typically prioritize advertisements, influencer promotions, news snippets, and meme accounts that appeal to interactions from large audiences rather than individual users’ preferences.

As a result, many people find themselves consuming more content from strangers than from friends, fundamentally altering how the platform feels and functions. The combined pressures of performance and the presence of specific tools created by the platform itself – that include business analytics and advertising power – have prompted many users to divide their online identities across multiple accounts. Individuals may curate a polished, public-facing main account while maintaining a separate professional profile for creative or entrepreneurial activities³².

Concurrently, users often operate “finsta” or spam accounts to share candid, humorous, or personal content with a close network of trusted friends³³. Some create additional niche accounts dedicated to hobbies or anonymous browsing. This proliferation of accounts illustrates the fragmented self-presentation encouraged by Instagram’s algorithmic and economic systems. The saying “if the product is free, you are the product” ³⁴ is exemplified by Instagram. The platform depends entirely on user participation; every photo posted, story viewed, comment typed, hashtag followed, and video liked contributes to a vast repository of behavioural data.

Instagram’s business model is sustained by the continuous activity of its users, whose interactions generate the raw material necessary for the platform’s operations. This user-generated data is systematically analyzed, categorized, and subsequently sold or shared with third-party companies aiming to optimize their advertising strategies. Consequently, Instagram’s economic structure positions each user as a labourer, a product, and a source of income. Users provide labour by creating content and engaging with the platform, become the product when their data is monetised, and generate revenue for the company through exposure to targeted advertisements. ³⁵

With the economy established, it’s time to understand the structure of Instagram city. Cities created in the modern period tend to have a relatively consistent layout which includes multiple business districts, manufacturing zones, residential areas, and suburbs. In a reductionist generalization, persons who make more money tend to live in better housing and tend to work less laborious roles within society. On Instagram, this translates to users whose algorithms are well-trained: they find what they want on their feed quickly and interact less because the “work” of shaping their homepage was done early.

Users who log on only for specific tasks, such as posting, are like suburban commuters who enter the “city” briefly and leave right after. By contrast, bot farms and interaction-spamming accounts resemble the heavy industries doing repetitive labour that keeps the system running ³⁶. These users experience a kind of upward mobility within the platform. This sense of accomplishment gives users something to strive towards, even if each new platform update pulls users backward by forcing them to redo the labour of re-training the algorithm. We just all happen to work from home.

This dynamic also appears in the physical world. Cities like Los Angeles attract online content creators who choose to live near one another to collaborate and merge their audiences. This is especially because Los Angeles, aside from being the home to TikTok’s American headquarters, is already home to sister industries such as those of film, TV and music.

A well-known example of this phenomenon is the Hype House ³⁷, a mansion where several TikTok creators lived together to produce content collectively. Some of its most famous early members include Daisy Keech, Thomas Petrou, Chase Hudson (aka Lil Huddy), Alex Warren, Charli D’Amelio, Dixie D’Amelio, Addison Rae, the Lopez brothers, Avani Gregg, and Kouvr Annon.

Spaces like these function almost as offline extensions of digital platforms, where proximity becomes a strategic tool for visibility. By gathering in one location, creators can accelerate their growth, streamline collaborations, and maintain a continuous workflow that mirrors the constant pace of online engagement.

Access determines what people learn to value. Individuals with more resources are exposed earlier to museums, literature, travel, and specialized hobbies, which gradually shape their sense of what counts as “good” or “refined.”

Time, money, and stability make it easier to explore creative interests, develop niche preferences, or engage with cultural experiences that demand leisure. Institutions such as schools, museums, and media organizations reinforce these patterns by centering the tastes of elite groups.

Taste then becomes a subtle marker of class, and what is deemed “tasteless” is often tied to marginalized or working-class communities. On Instagram, image quality functions as one of the strongest indicators that a post is meant to be taken seriously. High-resolution photos, careful color grading, and typography that feels both contemporary and distinctive all signal a level of polish associated with “good taste.” ³⁸

Within this system of good taste, the algorithm further pushes what the users wish to see. For example, posts by individuals who don’t necessarily wish to sell something in particular may do well because of the presence of tasteful items regardless, such as a fancy dinner, images from concerts, well-curated outfits, consumption of high art, etc. Similarly, videos with rehearsed, steady delivery and clean, well-modulated audio tend to perform better than content that appears hurried or unrefined.

Furthermore, even if the content promoted is “tasteless” to some, it might be tasteful to others, as we see in the popularity of “sexy” content, where there is still a popularity of women who fit current beauty standards, wear expensive lingerie, and do their makeup in a way that best suits their features; all of these being carefully built and being predominantly their main source of income considering how risky it is to be employed after the public primarily perceives them in such a way.

Other examples would include content made by more “realistic” individuals who the audience may see themselves in, where the perceived fame of the content creator is attributed instead to confidence, making the “right” purchases, having a better personality, taking “risks”, etc. which become easier to achieve after also devoting time away from the “grind” of working a daily low-wage job and taking care of a family without the help of a community willing to support them with these choices. Faced with this overwhelming stream of highly curated posts, many users become more hesitant to share casual content of themselves, worrying that doing so might expose a perceived “lack of taste” in comparison to the posts visible on their feeds.

THE APARTMENT AND ITS HOMES

If Instagram is imagined as a city within the larger state of Meta, then each user’s account functions like their personal home within that city. Yet, unlike real property, users rent these digital homes; they do not own them. They occupy the space, personalize it, and invest time and emotional labour into maintaining it, but the platform ultimately holds the power to change the rules, alter the environment, or even evict them without warning. The home houses one’s online persona, giving them a sense of shelter, and they can perform certain activities within this home, such as posting, interacting, or just lurking.

Within this framework, professional accounts resemble commercial properties that are public-facing spaces designed for business, branding, or marketing; meanwhile, personal accounts operate more like private residences where users share aspects of their daily lives. Despite the difference in purpose, the “landlord” remains the same: Mark Zuckerberg, the “owner” of Meta, governs the conditions, access, and stability of both types of accounts. Switching between multiple accounts, then, becomes comparable to moving between different districts of the city, each with its own norms, expectations, and social functions. This fluid movement highlights how users navigate distinct roles within the same overarching system, adjusting their presence depending on the digital neighborhood they choose to inhabit. In a similar vein, having accounts across platforms would then be considered renting property across cities within the Internet country.

I personally inhabit properties within Instagram, WhatsApp, and Twitter/X, with my rent being a combination of the product of my interactions and the income I generate through purchasing products and services for third-party advertisers who then return this income to my landlord: Mark Zuckerberg. In the case of influencers and larger accounts, they also make an income themselves by allowing for advertisers to exist within their “offices”. It’s also possible that some of these homes are built to be mixed-use in the case of platforms which include advertisements (unless the user pays for a premium or pro version of the platform). It’s similar to living above a store, or a series of commercial spaces.

This becomes more obvious when it comes to interest-based platforms, where the ad behavior becomes more interesting. Platforms like Letterboxd, where users log and rate the films they watch, attract advertisers that are closely aligned with the platform’s purpose, most often major movie studios and television production companies seeking to promote their latest releases. In this ecosystem, user activity creates a valuable audience segment made up of cinephiles whose habits, tastes, and viewing patterns can be easily marketed to. When we look at subscription-based platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, or Spotify Premium, a slightly different model appears. Here, users can pay a monetary “rent” in the form of monthly fees to bypass conventional advertising altogether.

This creates the impression that the platform is free from outside influence; however, the absence of traditional ads does not mean the absence of promotional content. These platforms still allow advertisers, or sometimes their own in-house studios, to pay for visibility by spotlighting certain films, shows, or albums on the homepage. In addition, each of these platforms relies heavily on its own proprietary algorithm, which shapes what users see by predicting preferences, prioritizing certain genres, and elevating content with high engagement. As a result, even paid platforms subtly guide user behavior through algorithmic curation and sponsored placement, demonstrating that advertising influence never fully disappears. Instead, it becomes more integrated into the structure of the platform itself.

The Instagram home can be imagined as a series of rooms with glass walls. Most content users post is designed for public consumption, and most accounts begin as outward-facing spaces, inviting people to monetize their presence through the platform’s built-in professional tools. If users want privacy, they can draw the curtains, switching to a private account that shields their interior from outside view. The “home” itself is filled with the content posted on the platform, arranged close to these glass walls like items placed deliberately on display.

The living room, which is open, central, and visible to all, represents the posts shared to the main feed. Instagram Stories, more fleeting yet often more intimate, function like a dining table where temporary moments are briefly shared before disappearing. In this sense, scrolling through your homepage becomes akin to walking through a city: passing by illuminated rooms, catching glimpses into the curated lives of others. Public accounts remain fully visible, their curtains open, making it effortless for any passerby to look in. Private accounts that let others follow them then basically open up these curtains for a select few people, or perhaps give them the keys to allow them to enter as they please. With this added sense of seclusion, posts and stories might feel more intimate on smaller private accounts than larger public accounts. So why do some accounts do better than others? Posts that attract more interactions are more likely to appear frequently in users’ feeds. Accounts with larger followings tend to attract greater engagement, and so does content that stimulates discussion or encourages sharing. This dynamic explains the frequent appearance of news pages, brand announcements, major life updates, and other posts specifically designed to elicit responses. Accounts that have consistently generated strong engagement are more likely to be promoted to wider audiences in the future. This process establishes a feedback loop: increased visibility leads to more interactions, which further enhances visibility.

The platform benefits from this cycle, as each interaction contributes to a growing pool of user data that supports Instagram’s algorithmic ecosystem. This dynamic functions almost like a system of social credit, where larger users occupy the equivalent of penthouse apartments that are visible on Instagram’s skyline from far away, while smaller users are pushed into the equivalent of crowded shanties below. I would like to point out again that it is very rare for individuals to benefit from the algorithm without an existing privilege. Posts tend to do better when they are tasteful, and taste is a product of privilege.³⁸ With a private account, most of my interaction with the broader Instagram community comes through likes and replies on the comments I leave under popular posts. In these moments, I’m essentially piggybacking on the visibility that the post itself has already earned by winning the algorithmic lottery. If I’m not actively invited into someone’s home, it is possible for us to at least speak to each other in the corridors of our shared apartments, or in the crossroads that connect us even though we inhabit different parts of the city. The most basic of interactions serve primarily as a way to show approval or disapproval of something.

Likes could function as silent side-eyes or smiles, and comments could function as actual conversations. Instagram functions as a platform where national borders appear to dissolve. Although the app uses my location to curate content aligned with my language and culture, this does not prevent me from engaging with users worldwide. I frequently interact with individuals from various countries, particularly in the comment sections of the work of celebrities, artists, and public intellectuals who attract global audiences.

This open environment benefits Instagram as well, since these prominent accounts serve as focal points that unite people from diverse backgrounds to exchange and view content. The platform thus becomes a global meeting space, enabling individuals who might never encounter each other in person to share perspectives, humor, and emotional responses to events that extend beyond their everyday experiences. If Instagram were to impose strict national boundaries, this dynamic would be lost. The vibrancy of the platform’s culture depends on the unrestricted flow of information across borders, making it both possible and essential for strangers from different regions to interact and sustain Instagram’s community. In fact, after involving Meta AI translations within posts, content which could have been hidden from me by the algorithm because of my inability to understand it is now visible to me because a degree of separation between me and the creator has been dissolved.

Perhaps the apartments we live in are more architecturally similar to (in the real world) social housing, where there is an emphasis put onto standardization. Looking specifically at the larger and more popular version of this in ex-Soviet projects, it is clear that there was an emphasis on a good quality of life, access to greenery, proximity to public transportation, and appropriate floor space; even if the apartments appeared soulless or bland because of the modularity, lack of ornamentation, or the fast pace at which these homes were built³⁹. When I think of the similarly modular user interface of Instagram, it seems as if enough consideration was put into the design of the profile, feed, homepage, and explore page to entice people to start using the app. This standardization also appears to have created an initial user behavior that we now look back on with a sense of nostalgia, characterized by celebrities posting what would now be considered as random (perhaps even incriminating) because of the casual, thoughtless, everyday nature of this content. Media training was probably less important then since social media was seen as intrinsically different from mass media. ⁴⁰

However, there is a visible difference in the way the platform is used now, more obvious as of the 2025 Instagram Rings Awards. 25 Top creators from across the world were awarded certain features on their profiles, including but not limited to a custom gold ring around their profile pictures, a color assigned to the profile, the ability to make custom like buttons, and even an actual gold ring sent to them in person ⁴¹.

One could assume that these individuals have been awarded penthouse suites within the platform for their contributions and as a reward for their “creativity”.

However, once again, these individuals have spent a considerable amount of time and money, even more so if they’re from the Global South, to reach the level of “taste” favored by the platform at large. The winners include 13 creators from the U.S. : comedian Elyse Myers, comedian Zarna Garg, skateboarder Tyshawn Jones, BMX rider Nigel Sylvester, NBA trainer Chris Brickley, director Cole Bennett, beauty influencer Golloria, registered dietitian & homesteader Katie Krejci, graffiti artist Futura, fashion it-couple Aki and Koichi, food reviewer Brian Lindo, filmmaker Adrian Per, and beatmaker Ari Miller; 3 creators from the U.K. : singer-songwriter Olivia Dean, photographer/filmmaker Gabriel Moses and DJ Ashley Gordon; 2 from Sweden : visual artist Sebastian Jern and food photographer Linda Lomelino; Canadian makeup artist Mimi Choi; Icelandic musician Laufey; Emirati twins Mohammed & Humaid Hadban; Japanese photographer Mika Ninagawa; Brazilian sisters “Two Lost Kids” Thalita and Gabriela Zukeram; Indian creator Dolly Singh; and global account @lifeonfilm. ^{42 43}

Clearly, there is an inherent bias towards the West, primarily US-based content, with half the winners being American, and 7 more from the Western countries of the U.K., Sweden, Iceland and Canada. Even @lifeonfilm, an account that documents life from across the world, is run by Americans Grant Weintrob, Christian Baiocco and Griffin Katz. Only 3 accounts from the Global South were considered, one from Brazil, one from the UAE, and one from India.

This could mean nothing, but the idea of rewarding merit in an unequal setting seems nearly reminiscent of the idea of the American Dream, which is as Western an idea as it gets. Thus, I wonder if this implies a turn away from the idea of un-democratizing the platform, going back to giving creators from the West a preferential treatment in ways that are far more subtle and justifiable than ever before. Aside from the ornamentation of their profile, I wonder if there is an additional algorithmic push these accounts receive – since I have been seeing a lot more content from these creators on my own feed regardless of whether I’ve even encountered them.

THE LANDLORD AND HIS LEASE

Who exactly are our landlords? It’s easy to name some of them based on the claims of this paper. For example, for my Instagram account, my landlord would be Mark Zuckerberg; and perhaps this ends up answering the rhetorical question posed in the title of this paper. However, through the same logic, most Tech CEOs in charge of similar popular platforms can qualify as landlords. This includes individuals such as Elon Musk (X), Sundar Pichai (Google), Bill Gates (Microsoft), Jeff Bezos (Amazon), etc.

Aside from the fact that many of the world’s most powerful technology companies are headquartered in the United States, it is also important to examine who leads them and the social conditions that enabled these leaders’ success. Tech CEOs themselves often embody narratives closely tied to the idea of the “American Dream,” but those narratives are shaped by structural advantages. Among American-born tech leaders, a significant number are cisgender white men who were raised in financially secure or well-connected families, giving them early access to education, networks, and opportunities that are not universally available.

For immigrant CEOs, their paths also tend to reflect forms of privilege. Many came to the United States through higher education, which requires substantial financial resources, institutional access, or both. As an international student in the United States for higher education, I would know.

Leaders such as Sundar Pichai and Satya Nadella, for example, benefited not only from elite technical education but also from their upper-caste Hindu backgrounds in India, which historically correlate with greater access to social and educational capital. Similarly,

Elon Musk’s early life was shaped in part by the economic advantages his family held during apartheid-era South Africa, a system that structurally privileged white citizens. Taken together, these patterns suggest that while the tech industry often promotes itself as a meritocracy, the leadership of major companies still reflects broader global inequalities related to race, class, nationality, and historical systems of power.

Additionally, this extends to the very idea of connectivity. In August 2013, Facebook, Samsung, Ericsson, MediaTek, Opera Software, Nokia and Qualcomm partnered to create Internet.org, later renamed Free Basics. This program is owned and operated by Meta Platforms. This initiative aimed to provide affordable access to selected Internet services to countries with lower-income economies ⁴⁴. This move was widely criticised by the governments of various countries, and worries arose surrounding net neutrality – since Mark Zuckerberg still controlled exactly which platforms were included within this program. Simply put, this program didn’t make all of the internet accessible for cheap, it just created a very small channel of information from select platforms.

There also tend to be major lawsuits against these companies for various reasons, ranging from social, economic, political, and privacy-related concerns. Major controversies tend to surround opaque privacy laws, monopolies in their respective industries, the use of their platforms as tools for propaganda (where sometimes the political bias of the CEO is platformed further), etc.

Federal Trade Commission v. Meta Platforms, Inc. (formerly Federal Trade Commission v. Facebook, Inc.) is an antitrust lawsuit brought by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) against Facebook parent company Meta Platforms. ⁴⁵ The lawsuit alleged that Meta has accumulated monopoly power via anti-competitive mergers, with the suit centering on the acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp. Snap Inc. faced a lawsuit for allegedly collecting and using users’ biometric data through Snapchat filters and lenses without proper consent, violating Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA). ⁴⁶

An important case study at this point would be Peter Thiel. He was born in Germany and moved across apartheid South Africa and Namibia in his youth; his early education in Swakopmund, Namibia is also interesting because of its German community being tied to Nazi ideology in a post-Hitler world ⁴⁷. His career began with PayPal. PayPal began in December 1998 as Fieldlink, founded by Thiel, Max Levchin, and Luke Nosek. Renamed Confinity, the company initially developed security software for handheld devices before shifting to digital wallet services. The first PayPal electronic payment system launched in 1999. In March 2000, Confinity merged with X.com, an online financial company founded by Elon Musk and partners. After strategic disagreements, X.com focused solely on payments. Musk was replaced by Thiel as CEO in 2000, the company became PayPal in 2001 and went public in 2002. He later founded Palantir and Founders Fund and became Facebook’s first outside investor.

Many individuals associated with the rise of PayPal were referred to as the “PayPal Mafia”, a nickname for former PayPal founders and employees who later created or helped grow many successful Silicon Valley companies, including PayPal Mafia members behind LinkedIn, Palantir Technologies, SpaceX, Affirm, YouTube, Yelp, and Yammer. Many of these people studied at Stanford University or University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Elon Musk co-founded Zip2, founded X.com, helped create PayPal through its merger with Confinity, and later founded SpaceX, OpenAI, Neuralink, and The Boring Company while also buying Tesla Motors and Twitter, which he renamed X. David O. Sacks served as PayPal’s COO and later founded Geni.com and Yammer. Max Levchin was PayPal’s founder and chief technology officer and later became CEO of Affirm and co-founded Glow. Scott Banister worked as an early advisor and board member at PayPal. Roelof Botha served as PayPal’s CFO and later became a partner at Sequoia Capital. Steve Chen worked as a PayPal engineer before co-founding YouTube. Reid Hoffman was PayPal’s executive vice president before founding LinkedIn, investing early in Facebook and Aviary, and joining Microsoft’s board ⁴⁸.

Evidently, a large chunk of the current Internet monopolies, ranging from social media, to payment platforms, to employment, and to surveillance, are controlled by a group of individuals with close personal connections to each other.

THE TENANT, HIS RIGHTS AND HIS DUTIES

But of course, if we were to bring up the idea of landlords, it would be impossible to further this conversation without discussing the tenant. And beyond that, their leasing agreement.

As discussed earlier, the tenant serves as inferior to the technofeudal lord, performing the labor of scrolling on their homepage, generating user data as the product of this labor, and further contributing to this economy by purchasing products and services from targeted advertising. Additionally, there is a focus on content generation, with the users being in charge of building what would essentially be the public art, landmarks, trends, and events. What does it mean to be a good tenant? What does it mean to be a bad one? How likely are you to get evicted in a system that yearns for as many housed tenants as possible?

In most platforms, the leasing agreement would manifest as a Terms of Use, or End User License Agreement, or something else using other jargon within this realm. Let’s dissect Instagram’s Terms of Use specifically.⁴⁹

A summary of that would look like this : According to the Terms of Use, as accessed in early May 2026, Instagram offers “personalized opportunities to create, connect, communicate, discover and share”; fosters a “positive, inclusive, and safe environment”; focuses on research and development alongside other elements of the Meta Suite to build new technologies to “constantly serve [their] growing community”; ensures an access to Meta services and a seamless connection between all of their products; and “connects [the user] with brands, products, and services in ways [they] care about.”

In return, Instagram demands : the user must be over the age of 13, unrestricted by local law to use these services, hasn’t been banned from the account on prior occasions, and isn’t a convicted sex offender. If none of this applies to the user, they are allowed to roam freely on the platform, keeping a few additional guidelines in mind to not get banned in the future.

These are directly quoted from the official Terms⁴⁹ :

• You can’t impersonate others or provide inaccurate information.

• You can’t do anything unlawful, misleading, or fraudulent or for an illegal or unauthorized purpose.

• You can’t violate (or help or encourage others to violate) these Terms or our policies, including in particular the Community Standards, Meta Platform Terms and Developer Policies, and Music Guidelines.

• You can’t do anything to interfere with or impair the intended operation of the Service.

• You can’t attempt to create accounts or access or collect information in unauthorized ways.

• You can’t sell, license, or purchase any account or data obtained from us or our Service, regardless of whether such data was obtained while logged-in to an Instagram account.

• You can’t post someone else’s private or confidential information without permission or do anything that violates someone else’s rights, including intellectual property rights (e.g., copyright infringement, trademark infringement, counterfeit, or pirated goods).

• You can’t modify, translate, create derivative works of, or reverse engineer our products or their components.

• You can’t use a domain name or URL in your username without our prior written consent.

• You can’t do, or attempt to do, anything to circumvent, by-pass, or override any technological measures that control or limit access to the Service or data.

All of these guidelines further restrict the kind of content and general account behavior that can exist within such a platform. At this point, one would question what the safety of the actual apartment looks like. Are there any fire escapes, is there any security? Aside from the password to one’s account effectively functioning as the locks on the door, is there any specific part of the agreement that focuses on what happens in case an account is hacked, or mass reported, or raided with an influx of negative comments or direct messages? If the platform functions as a space where people can freely interact with each other, it creates a system where the users, for the most part, have to fend for themselves. Instagram created an optional end-to-end encryption setting for their direct messages feature within the app/website. Most users were either unaware that they had to opt into this feature, or didn’t use it because of how hard it was to set it up. As of May 08, 2026, this feature has been disabled due to minimal use, and many users find this decision to be in direct contradiction to ethics concerning privacy and surveillance.

Furthermore, with the tenants, there is an additional social capital that exists within these platforms that can be monetized as well. Content creators or influencers make up a large portion of the userbase of any social media platform that is anonymous and focuses on convincing at best, and manipulating at worst, the general user behavior based on the social constructs of this online society. Technically, everyone is a content creator. Each individual on social media functions as a billboard, advertising any lifestyle they wish to curate their account to. Some just commit to this role more strongly than others.

The most popular accounts on platforms like Instagram, TikTok or YouTube fit primarily into two categories : people who built a strong fan following outside of these platforms, by virtue of being celebrities in film, sports, or other avenues of fame in mainstream media; or, content creators that got popular on the platform. However, now that these platforms are also considered to be in the mainstream over the past decade, we have reached this really interesting point in society where the source of a person’s fame isn’t as relevant anymore.

Content creators who choose to monetize their platforms are able to further convert this online fame into tangible social power. Being invited to events like Coachella, hosting red carpet journalistic content for ceremonies like the Oscars or Golden Globes, and attending Fashion Weeks or the MET Gala can further help them get in the same room as individuals who are looking for new talent that also double as advertising for future endeavors.

Quenlin Blackwell’s entry into modelling after a successful YouTube career, Addison Rae’s entry into music after a successful TikTok career, and Dylan O’Brien’s entry into acting after a successful YouTube career, are all products of the internet doing its work and getting them these connections. On the flip side, popular musician Jason Derulo was also able to use his fandom to gain a following on TikTok and create posts tailored to the platform, to an extent where many younger users of the platform may know him as a TikToker primarily, and may even be unaware of the career that gained him this popularity.

Thus, there exists a sweet spot in current social dynamics where users with real-life monetary and social power can make it big on social media, and users who made it big on social media can benefit through the gaining of real-life monetary and social power. The connection between both also creates a dynamic where celebrities or content creators can pivot from their main career to social media as a way of gaining additional social power in this attention economy.

However, the tenant needs to constantly pay their rent. At some point, it’s possible that the tenant has exhausted all of their personal data. The landlord might eventually figure out their politics, their interests, their purchase patterns, their usual hangout locations, and other things that could build their full likeness.

It’s at this point that I start looking at what some recent trends look like. There are a bunch of trends focusing on creating AI-generated content using one’s own likeness, using primarily the OpenAI platform ChatGPT. For example, recent trends include: converting a photo of oneself into a Studio Ghibli-style portrait, inspired by the Japanese animation studio; converting an image into scribbles mimicking a toddler’s drawing ability (including both image and text); creating a generic caricature of oneself; and perhaps the most concerning, uploading an image of your palm to ChatGPT to get a palm reading.

All of these trends function by giving ChatGPT access to what is essentially biometric data, many kinds of which have been hard for public surveillance to capture in the past. The use of platforms like Twitter/X, Instagram, Facebook, etc. to propagate this helps both the social media and AI platform to generate enough user data at varying levels, and further filter users by a new kind of ideology: openness to accepting mindless AI usage.

EVICTION AND HOMELESSNESS

What does it mean to lose access to your home? So far, we have established that on Instagram, you are a user “tenant” living in your account “home” with Mark Zuckerberg being your Tech CEO “landlord”, and the Community Guidelines and Terms and Conditions being your rental agreement. Being a bad tenant puts you at risk of eviction. Most rule violations are usually treated as minor mistakes, and users may just receive a warning or have a post removed. However, if someone repeatedly breaks the rules, their account could be permanently deleted, and in some cases, the platform might even block their IP address, preventing them from creating new accounts.

Instagram enforces comprehensive content and behavioral guidelines to maintain safety, authenticity, and legal compliance. The community guidelines account for policies regarding Violence and Incitement; Dangerous Individuals and Organizations; Coordinating Harm and Promoting Crime; Restricted Goods and Services; Fraud and Deception; Suicide and Self-Injury; Child Sexual Exploitation, Abuse and Nudity; Adult Sexual Exploitation; Bullying and Harassment; Human Exploitation; Privacy Violations; Hateful Conduct; Violent and Graphic Content; Adult Nudity and Sexual Activity; Sexual Solicitation; Account Integrity; Authentic Identity Representation; Spam; Cybersecurity; Inauthentic Behavior; Misinformation; Memorialization; Intellectual Property; User Requests; and Additional Protection of Minors.⁵⁰

To summarize, users must post only original or properly licensed content, and uploading someone else’s material without authorization violates intellectual property policies. The platform prohibits explicit nudity, sexual content, graphic violence, hate speech, harassment, and material that promotes self-harm or disordered eating. Posts that threaten or degrade individuals based on protected characteristics such as race, religion, gender, sexuality, or disability are also banned. Additionally, the sale of regulated or illegal goods and the promotion of terrorism or criminal activity are forbidden. Instagram restricts inauthentic behavior, including mass-liking, mass-following, repetitive generic commenting, and use of third-party services promising guaranteed engagement. Accounts engaging in such activity risk reduced visibility, suspension, or removal. Hashtag usage is also monitored; banned or overused hashtags can limit post reach or visibility. Advertising on the platform must also comply with content guidelines, avoid discrimination, and handle sensitive information according to strict standards.

Thus, it is possible to be evicted from your Instagram account. While some users may see losing an account as a small inconvenience, for others, particularly those who rely on Instagram for professional or personal purposes, the consequences can be severe. Although technically anyone can create a new account with a different email address, rebuilding social connections, followers, and visibility can be slow and challenging. For individuals who depend on Social Media for information, community, or income, starting over may appear nearly insurmountable.

As Bree McEwan noted in Psychology Today in 2019, voluntarily quitting Social Media is perceived as nearly impossible for many: “Leaving Facebook isn’t about leaving Mark Zuckerberg, it’s about leaving Aunt Rose ⁵¹.” Removal from platforms like Instagram severs these relationships, which can be both painful and disruptive. Professional accounts may experience immediate loss of income or opportunities following a ban.

In many instances, users may be banned despite adhering to Instagram’s stated guidelines. The platform relies extensively on automated moderation systems, which frequently lack the ability to interpret nuance. When specific words or phrases are flagged without contextual analysis, Instagram’s automated systems may erroneously remove content or entire accounts. Such actions often leave users confused and frustrated, with minimal explanation regarding the cause of the ban.

Perhaps then, let’s look at what it’s like to not have a home anymore, or what it’s like to never have had a home within the platform to begin with. There is a difference between being homeless and living in an “empty home”. Having “no activity” on a Social Media account isn’t the same as having no Social Media account. Algorithms can learn about a user from how long they spend looking at a video, or how long they take to scroll away from a text post, or if they even just decide to open the comment section. None of these are active interactions, but are still quantifiable.

However, if you don’t have an account on these platforms, it becomes harder for them to understand your user activity since you didn’t necessarily consent to your data being studied in this manner. Accessing an Instagram post on a platform such as Google Chrome gives Google all the data regarding what you looked up or the kind of content you needed, and not necessarily Instagram; and then Google can decide to sell this data to Instagram, which will be the less profitable choice to Instagram.

To combat this, many Social Media platforms now restrict the amount of content accessible to non-users. Twitter/X, for example, prevents anyone without an account from viewing tweets entirely. Instagram and Facebook adopt a somewhat less restrictive approach, offering limited visibility but still directing viewers toward account creation.

For instance, when I search for a profile on Google and access their Instagram page, I am able to view only basic information: the total number of posts, followers, followings, and the user’s bio. I can scroll through the first twelve posts on the main feed before Instagram prompts me to log in, and I can view up to twenty-four posts on the Reels tab before encountering the same restriction. Beyond these initial limitations, the restrictions become increasingly apparent. I am unable to view posts in which the user has been tagged, any stories they have posted or saved in highlights, or any external links included in their bio. Additionally, I cannot access individual posts from the grid view without being prompted to log in. While I can circumvent this by opening a post in a new browser tab, which allows me to see the image or video, caption, comments, likes, and tagged individuals, I remain unable to access the profiles of those who are tagged.

These progressive barriers show how platforms incentivize account creation by purposefully restricting non-user access. This experience is deliberately incomplete, reinforcing the notion that viewers remain outsiders until they log in. This dynamic closely resembles the way paywalls function on many news websites and academic journal platforms.

Paywalls are a straightforward mechanism for creators, publishers, and institutions to generate revenue from their work, positioning their content as something of monetary value. However, for many viewers, the presence of a paywall creates an immediate barrier. They may question whether the information they want is truly worth paying for, especially when they only need a small portion of the content or are browsing casually rather than conducting in-depth research. As a result, users often seek alternative ways to access similar information without committing to a subscription. They may turn to platforms that provide partial access through summaries, excerpts, or small previews without requiring payment, with the most popular ones being Social Media platforms.

These typically allow users to log in for free using an email address, giving the illusion of unrestricted access. In reality, the “cost” of this access is not monetary, but informational: users pay with their data, their browsing habits, and their attention, which become valuable assets for targeted advertising and algorithmic profiling. It’s almost similar to filling out a log at an apartment building to visit a friend, where they ask for your name, contact info, who you wish to visit, the time you enter, and the time you leave; except on an online platform, you also include information surrounding your interests, your location, and potentially your bank account information.

Since the Internet has infinite “retail space”, platforms actively encourage users to “rent” multiple properties across the Internet. They then try their best to ensure user retention and active use of these platforms through cross-platform sharing, email reminders, involvement in other forms of media (such as TV), and ads in real life. Cross-platform content actually helps all platforms involved.

I might engage with Instagram accounts that repost Tweets from Twitter/X, and notice that I really like the content of this one user on Twitter/X, prompting me to create an account on Twitter/X and follow them directly; upon creating a Twitter/X account, I might discover someone who reposts their TikToks, however, I might decide that I prefer the viewing experience on TikTok itself, prompting me to create a TikTok account and follow them directly; upon creating a TikTok account, I might see clips from larger YouTube videos, and may decide to go to YouTube directly to watch the videos in full, in which case I might decide to subscribe to the account on YouTube, which would require me to create a YouTube account; upon subscribing to this YouTube channel and consuming their content, I might see that they take user suggestions for future videos through Instagram direct messages, bringing me back to Instagram. This helps me consume the content I want on the platform I want, helps the creators pull in viewers from multiple platforms, and ultimately helps the platforms gain as much user data as possible.

CONCLUSION

In this paper, I’ve established that Social Media is structured like cities, that in turn may exist within their own regions of parent companies. These cities are governed by feudal landlords in the form of Tech CEOs, who typically don’t have to answer to any specific governing body, considering that the Internet is governed through a decentralized, collaborative “multistakeholder model” that involves various international organizations, non-profits, governments, and private companies.

The Internet country is made inaccessible to people through a combination of targeted and general issues related to Internet blackouts as well as intentional focus on the North and Western Hemispheres as centres with access to higher Internet speeds.

Within this system under a neoliberal framework, the economy relies on an unpaid system of labour where the peasant users produce their own data through a series of tasks relating to interactions within the platform (such as posting, commenting, sharing, saving or even reporting content). The platforms profit through the sale of this data, thus completing all economic transactions without having to pay users for their time and effort. The algorithms use this user data not just as a way to help targeted advertisers, but also to build algorithms that offer content suggestions to the users based on what they might want to see.

The ownership of major Social Media platforms is still concentrated in the hands of cisgender white American men. Their perspectives and values shape the design of these platforms, influencing what users see, how content is moderated, and what is considered acceptable behavior online. Because these companies are based in the United States, they also tend to respond more seriously to criticism from the American government than from governments in other parts of the world. This creates an uneven balance of power, where the concerns of other countries, especially in the global south, are often ignored or deprioritized.

As with other systems built on overconsumption, the environmental and social consequences of running these massive platforms fall hardest on exploited countries. From the energy required to power data centers to the mining of materials for electronic devices, the burden is rarely shared equally. People who benefit the least from global tech economies often carry the heaviest costs.

If you’ve made it to the end of this paper, thank you for taking the time to consider these ideas. My hope is that this helped you see how modern digital spaces remain tied to older histories of exploitation and labor.

I encourage you to be mindful of how you use these platforms and to explore alternatives within your local, real-life communities. I’m not suggesting that quitting Social Media is easy or even possible for everyone. If you cannot step away entirely, then take time to reflect on why these platforms feel so essential to you.

It’s likely that by 2030, having some form of online presence will be unavoidable in many parts of the world. If that becomes reality, what support systems will you have outside the Internet? Are there libraries, cafes, clubs, parks, bars, workshops, or community spaces where you can exist offline with others? Do you have access to newspapers, zines, or local sources of information that you trust? Can you build habits that protect your mental health without resorting to doomscrolling or endless arguments online? A digital detox requires a supportive environment; it can’t happen in isolation.

Additionally for some people, Social Media is their only platform for expression. They may lack political power, face violence or oppression, or have no other safe way to share their experiences and ask for help. They may not have the privilege of critiquing the system while being able to step away from it. Some believe these platforms can be changed from the inside, while others argue that they must be completely replaced. Given the world we live in now, it’s possible that a more ethical, community-centered platform could be built outside mainstream Social Media. If that happens, the challenge will be ensuring that power doesn’t simply reappear in the same exploitative forms; because again, as this paper highlights, exploitation is cyclical, and it almost seems like those with power wish to default to a system of feudal power.

* * *

CITATIONS

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¹³ Gross, Terry. “How ‘modern-Day Slavery’ in the Congo Powers the Rechargeable Battery Economy.” NPR, February 1, 2023. https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/02/01/1152893248/red-cobalt-congo-drc-mining-siddharth-kara.

¹⁴ Villegas, Eileen. “Cobalt Mining Is Ruining the Democratic Republic of Congo.” ThinkLandscape, June 16, 2025. https://thinklandscape.globallandscapesforum.org/73584/cobalt-mining-dr-congo-green-transition/.

¹⁵ Kemp, Simon. “Digital 2026: The Democratic Republic of the Congo - Datareportal – Global Digital Insights.” DataReportal, November 8, 2025. https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2026-democratic-republic-of-the-congo.

¹⁶ Mhlungu, Gugulethu. “Why Internet Access Needs to Be Considered a Basic Human Right.” Global Citizen, July 14, 2022. https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/internet-access-basic-human-right/.

¹⁷ Rosen, David. “Exposed: Big Tech Tops Corporate Lobbying Spenders.” Public Citizen, August 20, 2021. https://www.citizen.org/news/exposed-big-tech-tops-corporate-lobbying-spenders/.

¹⁸ Overly, Steven. “Google Gives $1 Million to Trump Inauguration .” Politico, January 9, 2025. https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2025/01/09/congress/google-donation-donald-trump-inauguration-00197233.

¹⁹ Varoufakis, Yanis. Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism. (United Kingdom: Random House, 2023.)

²⁰ Brown , Elizabeth A.R. “Feudalism .” Britannica, May 1, 2026. https://www.britannica.com/topic/feudalism.

²¹ Hauben, Michael, and Ronda Hauben. 1998. “Behind the Net: The Untold Story of the ARPANET and Computer Science (Chapter 7)”. First Monday 3 (8). https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v3i8.612.

²² Tarnoff, Ben. “How the Internet Was Invented.” The Guardian , July 15, 2016. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/15/how-the-internet-was-invented-1976-arpa-kahn-cerf.

²³ Cardillo, Anthony. “What Social Media Apps Have Been Banned?” Exploding Topics, January 15, 2026. https://explodingtopics.com/blog/banned-social-media-apps.

²⁴ Prensky, Marc. “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants.” On the Horizon: Vol. 9, No. 5, (Bingley, West Yorkshire, U.K. : MCB University Press, 2001.), 1–6.

²⁵ “The Net Generation, Unplugged.” Economist, March 6, 2010. https://www.economist.com/technology-quarterly/2010/03/06/the-net-generation-unplugged.

²⁶ Hauben, Michael. “Preface: What Is a Netizen?” First Monday 3, no. 7, (Chicago, IL, U.S. : First Monday, 1998.)

²⁷ “In Quite a State.” Economist, April 8, 2010. https://www.economist.com/international/2010/04/08/in-quite-a-state.

²⁸ Anthonio, Felicia, and Zach Rosson. “Lives on Hold: Internet Shutdowns in 2024.” Access Now, February 24, 2025. https://www.accessnow.org/internet-shutdowns-2024/.

²⁹ Caves, R.W. (Ed.) Encyclopedia of the City (1st ed.). (U.K.: Routledge, 2004.)

³⁰ Hern, Alex. “Why Have We given up Our Privacy to Facebook and Other Sites so Willingly?” The Guardian, March 21, 2018. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/21/why-have-we-given-up-our-privacy-to-facebook-and-other-sites-so-willingly.

³¹ “The Social Media Meta Has Changed Forever: Instagram as King and Tik Tok as Queen.” ProjectCOR, July 5, 2024. https://projectcor.com/blog/the-social-media-meta-has-changed-forever-instagram-as-king-and-tik-tok-as-queen/.

³² Rancea. “Instagram Personal vs Business vs Creator Account: Which One Is for You?” Instacopy, January 18, 2025. https://instacopy.ai/blog/instagram-personal-vs-business-vs-creator/.

³³ Delaney Ruston, MD, and Person. “Screenagers Blog: Rinsta vs. Insta, Why Do Teens Have so Many IG Accounts?” RSS, December 20, 2025. https://www.screenagersmovie.com/blog/rinsta-vs-insta-why-do-teens-have-so-many-ig-accounts.

³⁴ Goodson, Scott. “If You’re Not Paying for It, You Become the Product.” Forbes, October 12, 2022. https://www.forbes.com/sites/marketshare/2012/03/05/if-youre-not-paying-for-it-you-become-the-product/.

³⁵ Kitay, Kat. “The Dialectic of Doomscrolling.” The Dialectic of Doomscrolling, May 2025. https://itp.nyu.edu/adjacent/issue-11/the-dialectic-of-doomscrolling/.

³⁶ Vittie, Lori Mac. “The New Bot War: Everyone You Know Might Be Fake.” F5, Inc., May 13, 2025. https://www.f5.com/company/blog/the-new-bot-war-everyone-you-know-might-be-fake.

³⁷ Lorenz, Taylor. “Hype House and the Los Angeles TikTok Mansion Gold Rush .” NYT, January 3, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/03/style/hype-house-los-angeles-tik-tok.html.

³⁸ Ziqi. “All You Need to Know about Aesthetic Taste (Pt. 1): The Hierarchy of Taste .” Medium, January 30, 2024. https://medium.com/salt-pepper-and-art/on-the-judgement-of-taste-pt-1-the-hierarchy-of-taste-136379406e8e.

³⁹ Holland, Oscar, Martynna Sobecka, Mikhail Kalarashan, Alexander Veryovkin & Giorgi Zatiashvili, David Navarro, and Giorgi Zatiashvili. “What’s It like Living in Soviet-Era Housing Today?” CNN, July 26, 2022. https://www.cnn.com/style/article/what-is-it-like-living-in-soviet-era-housing-today.

⁴⁰ Stopera, Matt. “48 Things You Totally Forgot Happened 10 Years Ago on Instagram Because Everything Is so, so Different Now.” BuzzFeed, September 28, 2022. https://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/2002-instagram-pics.

⁴¹ “Introducing Instagram Rings: A New Award Celebrating Creativity.” Instagram for Creators. Accessed May 10, 2026. https://creators.instagram.com/blog/introducing-instagram-rings.

⁴² Boulet, Paul. “Instagram Rings Award 2025: Winners, Categories & 2026 Guide.” Click Analytic, April 26, 2026. https://www.clickanalytic.com/instagram-rings-award-2025/.

⁴³ Bekele, Isabel. “Introducing Instagram’s 2025 Rings Winners.” Dazed, October 16, 2025. https://www.dazeddigital.com/life-culture/article/68902/1/introducing-instagrams-2025-rings-winners-the-bold-new-faces-of-creativity.

⁴⁴ “Mark Zuckerberg Launches Internet.Org to Connect ‘the next 5 Billion’ | Venturebeat.” VentureBeat, August 20, 2013. https://venturebeat.com/business/mark-zuckerberg-launches-internet-org-to-connect-the-next-5-billion/.

*As of the writing of this paper in 2026, their focus is still aimed primarily at sub-Saharan African countries, with a few exceptions in South America and Asia, although it’s hard to find exact data right now.

⁴⁵ FTC. “Facebook, Inc., FTC V. (FTC v. Meta Platforms, Inc..).” Federal Trade Commission, January 21, 2026. https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/cases-proceedings/191-0134-facebook-inc-ftc-v-ftc-v-meta-platforms-inc.

⁴⁶ “Snapchat Lawsuit in Illinois Leads to $35 Million Settlement.” iubenda, August 31, 2022. https://www.iubenda.com/en/blog/snapchat-lawsuit-of-35-million-in-illinois/.

⁴⁷ McGreal, Chris. “How the Roots of the ‘Paypal Mafia’ Extend to Apartheid South Africa.” The Guardian, January 26, 2025. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/26/elon-musk-peter-thiel-apartheid-south-africa.

⁴⁸ “PayPal Mafia.” Wikipedia, April 20, 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PayPal_Mafia.

⁴⁹ “Instagram – Terms of Use.” Help Center. Accessed May 10, 2026. https://help.instagram.com/termsofuse.

⁵⁰ “Policies.” Transparency Center. Accessed May 10, 2026. https://transparency.meta.com/policies/.

⁵¹ McEwan, Bree. “Can’t Delete: Why We Stay on Social Media.” Psychology Today, December 19, 2019. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-networked-relationship/201912/cant-delete-why-we-stay-social-media.

* * *

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