Pious: Why Meta’s Business Model Drives Intolerance

Abstract

The rise of social media parallels a rise in distorted identity politics. The past decade has seen an increase in cases of ethnic fraud, polarizing populism, and corporate solidarity statements critiqued for capitalizing on social issues. While many critics blame these social phenomena on opportunistic individuals and businesses, this dissertation studies the role played by social media platforms: their business models, advertising datasets and ranking algorithms. I focus on Meta as a blueprint for subsequent social media platforms. I begin with my autobiography as a former QTBIPOC influencer, as a microcosm of the distorted identity politics amplified by social media infrastructures. I conduct a walkthrough of the Meta Detailed Targeting Tool (MDTT), paying close attention to how this tool fetishizes social difference: by stripping behaviors, interests and demographics down to fungible exchange value and market optimization. I argue that this process of fetishization rewards and conditions grammars of action that inherit the techniques, and problematic social dynamics, of Christian colonialism. This dissertation brings The Black Radical Tradition and anti-colonial critique to bear on social media scholarship, in order to investigate the following questions: 1) How does the MDTT shape behavior? 2) What are the motivations that compel identity politics? 3) Why have “morals” become so important to business? and 4) How can the framework of “piety” offer new theories and solutions for negative social media dynamics?