Baym, N. K. (2026). It’s Bad: What Now?. Social Media + Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051261432484
Summary
In this anniversary reflection for Social Media + Society, Nancy Baym revisits her 2015 manifesto “Social Media and the Struggle for Society” and takes stock of the decade since. She had identified four threats—wealth inequality, opaque algorithmic feeds, precarious creative labor, and unchecked data extraction—and concludes bluntly that all four have worsened despite an outpouring of critical scholarship. Tech “broligarchs” have converted concentrated wealth into political power, generative AI now appropriates user-generated content wholesale, and platforms continue to amplify outrage. Baym’s central move is self-critical: the field has produced abundant critique yet failed to shape platform outcomes, and she calls for a reorientation toward interdisciplinary, cross-sector collaboration capable of actually influencing more just sociotechnical futures.
Key Contributions
- A longitudinal, personal-scholarly reassessment of social media’s trajectory as chronicled by Social Media + Society over its first decade.
- A self-critical challenge to internet research: critique-for-its-own-sake and celebration alike have failed to move platforms, and the field must change approach.
- An argument for engaged, collaborative research spanning disciplines and sectors—NGOs, governments, worker organizations, and platforms themselves.
- Naming of emerging priorities: the broligarchy, generative AI’s appropriation of user data, and a broad crisis of authenticity.
Methods
A reflective essay that revisits and reassesses the author’s own 2015 manifesto. It synthesizes prior scholarship (Baym; Burgess & Baym; Phillips; Dean’s “communicative capitalism”; Gillespie’s diagnostic approach) with contemporary illustrative examples—Forbes billionaire rankings, Musk’s acquisition of Twitter/X, and Grok-generated deepfakes—rather than presenting new empirical data.
Findings
- Wealth concentration has accelerated dramatically: Zuckerberg’s net worth grew from 216B (2026), with Brin at 730.6B.
- Twitter/X shifted from fostering ephemeral connection to amplifying outrage even before its rebranding.
- Generative AI tools like Grok are producing non-consensual violent imagery of women and children drawn from social media data.
- Covert AI content is eroding trust in feeds, fostering skepticism about the authenticity of even mundane material.
- Glimmers of alternatives persist in decentralized platforms (Mastodon, BlueSky), mutual aid networks, and enduring communities of care.
Connections
Baym’s diagnosis of generative AI appropriating user data and fueling an authenticity crisis anchors the political-economy end of the generative-ai-disinformation register, connecting to work on synthetic media and platform influence such as Emilio2026-ik and Bak-Coleman2026-mk. As an anniversary essay reckoning with the limits of platform critique, it shares its reflective, field-assessing stance with companion pieces in the same register including Boyd2026-op and Marwick2026-ss.
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