Is a 'white flight' from social media on the horizon?

OPINION - A little thing called App.net that has many buzzing in the tech world might be the latest manifestation of white people's fear of a black planet..

Luther Vandross was outed as gay after his death.

The confluence of such quotes and conditions has created speculation that App.net may be the harbinger of the rise of digital exclusivity based on socio-economic parameters, masked as a business model choice.

Are such accusations fair?

“If [it’s] true that [people of color out-index on Twitter], it doesn’t surprise me to learn that white people might find [such platforms] ‘too black,'” Dr. Jessie Daniels, professor at City University of New York and author of Cyber Racism, told theGrio. “And, perhaps more to the point, white people in the U.S. have a long and consistent history of finding racially integrated spaces uncomfortable and then fleeing as a response. There are lots of examples of this, but racial integration in housing is maybe the most telling. Research indicates that when the percentage of blacks in a previously all-white neighborhood reaches about 7 percent, whites consistently begin to vote with moving vans and flee the neighborhood.”

It seems inevitable that the first-class versus coach approach of dividing the world would extend to the web through the socialization of mostly middle-class white male developers — and the desires of similar consumers — shaping social media.  The issue, therefore, is much greater than the App.net platform and its business model. A race and class-divided App.net would simply be a microcosm of the socio-economic imbalances that are omnipresent.

App.net’s model — just like the lack of diversity policies at tech companies or minority representation on their boards — is the by-product of deeply rooted thought patterns in global society. Noted sociologist C. Wright Mills, author of The Power Elite, theorized in 1945 that class structure/exclusion is often reinforced via the schools and professional/social clubs to which one can gain admission. He called such vehicles “status elevators” enabling elite insiders to thrive based on their networks, and thus outshine the masses.  So it should be no surprise that in 2012, the virtual equivalent to this social segmentation is being born online.

Can this be stopped? Daniels believes, “This is going to be a real dilemma… basically figuring out how to engineer around white people’s bias for all-white (or, mostly white) spaces. Part of what’s happening… is that the formerly predominantly white enclaves of neighborhoods, workplaces, mainstream media, and higher education are now much more porous.”

The larger question App.net raises is how to create greater balance in the real world, overall, so that we can then find equality in a digi-society. This is a question many of us are not yet ready to ponder, because it would require getting off of our social media apps and doing something.

In defense of App.net, however, one could say that a for-fee model is more indicative of the fact that we are moving away from quantity to quality in digital social interaction. Making people pay weeds people out who don’t want a quality experience. Yet, even if the motive is more sinister, do we have the right to dictate to another human being what to create and for whom, even if it blatantly excludes others?

Rather than debate this quandary, we might be better served to use the advent of this new social platform to decide how to create a future that is a little more fair for all — both on and off the computer screen.

Lauren DeLisa Coleman is part of the new technorati-to-watch.  She is a mobile strategy specialist and analyst specializing in the convergence of Gen X, Y with hip tech platforms, and the author of the new e-book, Rise of the Smart Power Class. Follow her on Twitter at @mediaempress.

(This article has been updated to include links to studies regarding people of color over indexing on social media use.)

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