A new analysis by Microsoft researcher Danah Boyd argues that Facebook's success is due in part to "white flight" from MySpace.
We
were talking about the social media practices of her classmates when I asked
her why most of her friends were moving from MySpace to Facebook. Kat grew
noticeably uncomfortable. She began simply, noting that "MySpace is just old
now and it's boring." But then
she paused, looked down at the table, and continued.
"It's
not really racist, but I guess you could say that. I'm not really into racism,
but I think that MySpace now is more like ghetto or whatever."
So
begins the book chapter White Flight in Networked Publics -- How Race and
Class Shaped American Teen
Engagement with MySpace and Facebook (pdf) part of the forthcoming book Digital Race Anthology.
Danah
Boyd, author of the chapter, stirred up controversy once before, in 2007,
by noting that during the period beginning in 2006 when teens began to flock to
Facebook, teens' preference for either MySpace or Facebook appeared to fall
along lines of race and class.
Subsequent
statistical analyses of the characteristics of users of online social networks by researchers, marketers and bloggers, she notes in her
latest work, backed up her claims that white and asian teens who
belonged to higher socieconomic strata (and who aspired to college, with which
Facebook at the time was associated) were attracted to Facebook, while latino, black and working-class teens tended to opt for MySpace. Boyd notes in her chapter:
Analysts
at two unnamed marketing research firms contacted me to say that they witnessed similar patterns with youth
at a national level but they were unable to publicly discuss or publish their finding, but scholars and
bloggers were more willing to
share their findings.
Boyd's
current work argues that MySpace took on many of the aspects of a "digital
ghetto" in the minds of teens who used the site, leading to "white
[and asian] flight" from the site, analogous to the white flight from the
city to the suburbs that took place in the U.S. beginning in the 1960's. Boyd continues:
Consider
the parallels. In some senses, the first teens to move to the "suburbs"
were those who bought into a Teen
Dream of collegiate maturity, namely those who were expressly headed towards dorm-‐based universities and
colleges. They were the elite who
were given land in the new suburbs before plots were broadly available. The
suburbs of Facebook signaled more mature living, complete with digital fences
to keep out strangers. The narrative that these digital suburbs were safer than
the city enhanced its
desirability, particularly for those who had no interest in interacting with people who were different.
Boyd
argues that MySpace's inability to deal with spammers added to the feeling of
urban blight that overtook the site, leaving derelict profiles "covered in
spam, a form of digital graffiti... As MySpace failed to address these issues,
spammers took over like street gangs."
Subsequent
media coverage of the "death of MySpace" was a direct result of this
flight, says Boyd. For example, she cites a 2009 New York Times article that was entitled "Do
You Know Anyone Still on MySpace?" despite the fact that at the time
Facebook and MySpace has roughly equal numbers of users.
"The
New York Times staff was on Facebook and
assumed their readers were too," concludes Boyd.
Intriguingly,
the comments under that news item support Boyd's thesis:
"My
impression is that Myspace is for the riffraff and Facebook is for the
landed gentry."
"Compared
to Facebook, MySpace just seems like the other side of the tracks - I'll go there for fun, but I wouldn't want
to live there."
Boyd's conclusion is that online environments are merely "a reflection of everyday life," and that online communities are immune to the techno-optimist belief that the internet eliminates the deep divisions between people in real life. As Boyd notes in her own responses to earlier critiques of her work, this is either a controversial or an obvious thesis - what do you think?
Follow Christopher Mims on Twitter, or contact him via email.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Comments
* Minorities are too stupid or unsophisticated to want cleaner, spam free environments?
* Worse, Blacks and Latinos are so racist against Whites and Asians that they won't even move to a better environment least they inadvertently interact with those they hate.
* Maybe they actively drove out the Whites and Asians by oppressing them?
* Or, perhaps people just cluster around like interests and there wasn't any moral component to the migration.
I finally got my infrequently used facebook account because the people I talk to went there away from my infrequently used myspace account. I shudder to think that I was utterly unaware of being surrounded by unsavory minorities during my time at myspace. I will have to talk with the White and Asian councils about their lack of warning about this situation.
GaryB
07/14/2010
Posts:102
The author notes that:
"Boyd's conclusion is that online environments are merely "a reflection of everyday life," and that online communities are immune to the techno-optimist belief that the internet eliminates the deep divisions between people in real life."
Additionally:
"Analysts at two unnamed marketing research firms contacted me to say that they witnessed similar patterns with youth at a national level but they were unable to publicly discuss or publish their finding, but scholars and bloggers were more willing to share their findings."
You provide no data to support your alternative conclusions. Boyd has done so. In fact, "* Minorities are too stupid or unsophisticated to want cleaner, spam free environments?" is racist conjecture unless you can demonstrate that minorities are more tolerant of spam (and that minority users are more stupid than white social networkers), though I won't indict you for that conjecture by calling you a racist. I think you're just frustrated.
I'm encouraged that you would make such a frank comment in this forum because frank and honest discussions about race would be very beneficial to our society if they could be conducted in a civil manner.
Our society has made much progress in rendering racism as socially unacceptable to most people. Overt forms of racism have markedly declined over the decades yet there may be forms of it which need to be discovered by studies such as Boyd's if we are to continue this progress.
A deeper understanding of racial attitudes is long overdue I think. Contemporary racism is more likely to be manifested as implicit attitudes and behavior than as overt animosity. These types of manifestation could have significant implications pertaining to such behavior as hiring decisions. For instance, if people tend to hire those whom they perceive as most like themselves or those whom are more likely to be within their social network then racial bias in hiring patterns can be expected.
I encourage Boyd's work as well as your response.
Thanks Gary.
bpertum
07/14/2010
Posts:10
You are very nieve.
you assume by removing racism, cultures will intermingle, and their genes will all splice forming a new race of one combined culture with no affinities to any previous religion/culture or perhaps a combination of everything.
Wow you have high hopes.
Racism is not bad, get over your Political correctness it only does civilsation injustice.
The human race is about different cultures, religions, people, colours all interacting for a greater good of all.
Racism at its minimum allows this to happen, by eliminating racism you remove this from ever happening. To take us to one soup if you remove it.
Racism is good, fanatical racism is bad...just like every fanatical belief.
As i said get of PC, racism can work for the good.
Also i hate having the same conversations every 10 years with new people who werent around 10 years ago. The internet is bad for one thing...too many people forget history. Or alternatively great for news people they rehash the same old crap every 10 years and in every blog.
mattgroom
08/07/2010
Posts:198
msgoddesso...
07/14/2010
Posts:2
The other question now of immediate relevance is why there is so much hostility in this blog toward the author, researcher and anyone who is open to her conclusion.
bpertum
07/14/2010
Posts:10
Mandinka
07/14/2010
Posts:1
mrkwst22
07/14/2010
Posts:1
msgoddesso...
07/14/2010
Posts:2
wctopp
07/14/2010
Posts:16
danlgarmst...
07/14/2010
Posts:20
Phineas
07/21/2010
Posts:111
When I looked at both, I started at myspace and quickly moved to facebook as more of my friends could be found there. Later, many people I know who were on myspace moved to facebook - perhaps due to the same reason.
Isn't it possible that facebook simply did a better job?
paulfmeyer
07/14/2010
Posts:16
Facebook was restricted to college students until 2006 so of course it had built up prestige with teens who for years couldn't join. By the time it did open, myspace was already alienating users with their widgets policies (like removing millions of photobucket videos and slideshows) and putting ads up everywhere.
But references to bad corporate policy kinda destroys the racial angle Boyd is playing off, so instead spammers become metaphors for "graffi" and "street gangs", because we all know spam only exists in deepest parts of the internet where mostly blacks frequent. And of course students calling the site "ghetto" has nothing to do with the ads and spam making it look less professional, but instead means more black people are there!
Myspace died down because it was over commercialized by Murdoch, not because white children started to see mythical gang bangers behind every spam post. This guy is following the Rush Limbaugh/glen beck method of making money = use whatever public platform you can to racebait, making sure the charges are so ludicrous people stop just to see if they heard you right, and then offer them a book. I wouldn't waste my time.
nizzo
07/14/2010
Posts:3
randhawp
07/14/2010
Posts:11
nizzo
07/14/2010
Posts:3
TheWaltonF...
07/14/2010
Posts:3
nizzo
07/14/2010
Posts:3
rsanchez1
07/14/2010
Posts:127
A study of the initial adoption of MySpace, contrasted against this study may also be illuminating. My hypothesis is we would see a similar demographic adoption of MySpace as the "shift" to Facebook. Further, I think you could probably show similar trends to non-social networking technologies, such as iPhone/iPads etc.
As previous commenters stated, I think Facebook is a superior product and ultimately its features won out. Myspace failed to react quickly enough to the competition and suffered as a result. Great study and article.
Pyle
07/14/2010
Posts:5
bpertum
07/14/2010
Posts:10
I think it's really grasping at straws to search for some "white flight" analogy here. Objectively, why wouldn't anyone abandon the swamp of suckitude that is MySpace for the vastly better Facebook?
Bohemond
07/14/2010
Posts:1
Also, comparing advertisement spam to street gangs? Really?
crashbuist
07/14/2010
Posts:1
MySpace always had a garish, highly commercialized, often tawdry look and feel. When Rupert Murdoch's News Corp (the nice folks who own Fox) took it over, that went through the roof, with roving cyber-bands of what appeared to be trying to appear to be Russian hookers (who knows what their game was? -- well, I'll bet there are a few sorry fools who do) and scam artists, and oceans of robo-driven 'viral marketing' (you knew it in a former lifetime as spam).
MySpace also always had poor security and generally horrible infrastructure and user interfaces. (Not that Facebook has great security, by a stretch.)
And it was ugly as hell.
Facebook, OTOH, did have the code-enforced, orderly sameness of a planned suburban community. The first time I visited -- signing up, of course, because it's in my DNA to jump every cyber-trend (ask me about Friendster) I thought to myself... how incredibly boring -- but at least there are no Russian hookers.
Still, the most depressing thing about FB is that all your friends are on it. And you find out how incredbily boring and normal they are. I could not believe that I knew people who played Mafia Wars and Farmville -- after those games were explained to me. Oh. My. Gosh.
ks2problem...
07/14/2010
Posts:1
durs
07/30/2010
Posts:40
What is left at myspace more accurately reflects the demographics of the under class than any particular race.
You can also argue that Myspace was more friendly to urban life with all the music pages. Facebook has now caught up in that respect, I think.
But this is not a racial issue.
It is ridiculous to read articles that pretend facebook users being more educated is considered a news story. Consider the obvious skew in facebooks beginnings when for years only university email owners could gain access, then consider the racial makeup of our universities. Then think of older people, I would venture to say that parents of college educated people are more likely to be online.. blah blah blah and this article even overlooks the obviousness of those articles. For what point? scandal? this is silly
nicocaland...
07/15/2010
Posts:1
And yeah, obviously people still need to talk about race as we move within technology. Though there are fundamental diferences when we communicate through social networks, we still bring who we are - wherever you go, there you are. We still have a long way to go. And you have to talk about it. It WOULD be nice if we could just scream really loudly that it doesn't matter, and that would be the end of it. But I don't hear black people say this, only white folks.
scatterlin...
07/15/2010
Posts:1
dtzulu
07/15/2010
Posts:1
Secondly, comparing it to "White/Asian-flight" seems like a gasp for attention to me, especially when you lump Asians in with Whites. Failing to note that modern day Asian Americans are different from native Asians or Whites and face a number of different issues, such as major generational gaps that White Americans don't ever think about is way too lax for good research in my opinion.
Thirdly, @bpertum, please pontificate as to why you didn't bombast Pyle for his lack of "data to support [his] alternative conclusions"? "I think you could probably show similar ..." isn't exactly a formal research study. Yet you shrilly dissected Gary B's comment. Was it because he got in the first comment, or were you assuming he wasn't as smart as you because he offered his hypothesis in a bulleted format using raw language? Wouldn't that be a form of web-based, non-race profiling? To me, it sounds like you've spent too much time reading data in a lab and not enough time actually experiencing the diverse cultural capital on display everyday, pretty much everywhere.
Racism in America is unfortunately still alive and well, I just wish we had more of our smart people speaking out about what happens all too often on our streets instead of reviewing social media. I guess it all comes down to the bottom line though, right?. Companies want to know where to spend their advertising money, so we get lame studies like this, when in our tangible society people still racially profile and spew hate. It would only make everyones life better if education were a higher civic priority, but it wouldn't help an advertisers bottom line, so we'll have to get to that later I guess.
m_drazic
07/15/2010
Posts:1
What bothers me in the context of the mySpace v Facebook and possible "flight" and continued racism, is that three women who assisted the officers while they lay dying on the street, have been threatened, condemned, and even blamed for the eventual arrest of the suspect in the case. Their actions transcended racism yet they are vilified for coming to the aid of other human beings. That unfortunately, is one facet of racism which rarely receives the public scrutiny it should, and these ladies are now living in fear of their lives from people of their own race. Proximity to that sort of reaction by people of color can repel others from their social circles, which turns out looking like White Flight. If mySpace has turned out to be the place where you are expected to act like you live in the ghetto, and Facebook the place where the intellectuals hang out, then it is partly a reflection of real life.
starranger...
07/15/2010
Posts:1
your description was rather misleading,which is why you didnt mention or link the story to put your on spin on it. yes there is the "dont get involved" crowd and one woman had a fear "somebody might do something" but that is NOT the way you pictured it.
the "i dont get involved" crowd is a fairly common reaction in my types of societies, and not a peculiar aspect of the black community.
black on white violence reported is not some rare occurrence and rush limbaugh, tea party activists, glenn beck often enough comment on it.
to twist the bounds of logic by implying that whites and asians were "scared" off of Myspace is absolutely laughable and self indulgent.
the actual reason these kids left is probably quite varied, but the scientists fail to reconized what is going on, namely its "hip" for whites and asians to ridicule black culture/images/people.
socialtalk...
07/20/2010
Posts:1
Perhaps I missed it, but I didn't view any of the statements within Pyle's comment as a conclusion, which is why I characterized them as views. GaryB characterized his own statements as alternative conclusions while Pyle stated a "hypothesis."
You are correct in pointing out that I was less critical of Pyle than GaryB. The remark that I shared his views does seem to imply that I agreed with everything he said which is not the case. Probably it was because the tenor of his argument was closer to my opinions. I believe that Pyle recognized (implicitly in his first paragraph) that it is the racial disparity in migration patterns that was at issue not the comparitive quality of the two social networking services. Good catch on your part though.
I disagree that an attempt to communicate my views as clearly as I can is "bombast." Unfortunately you chose to criticize my style of writing rather than to make a substantive critique of my arguments. I hope we can avoid ad hominem attacks.
I respect GaryB for his candor and wit. I decided to comment on this article because I felt that another point of view was in order for the sake of balance after reading the other comments.
I agree with the gist and spirit of your final statement that:
"It would only make everyones life better if education were a higher civic priority, but it wouldn't help an advertisers bottom line, so we'll have to get to that later I guess."
bpertum
07/15/2010
Posts:10
Why?
Cause I used my old computer to logon to NIGGERSPACE!
FACEBOOK IS WHIT AND PURE! I LIKE TO FUCK ZOO ANIMALS IN THEIR SHITHOLES! FUCK YOU BUNCH OF BUTTFUCKERS!
satansex66...
07/15/2010
Posts:1
HoldEurop
07/16/2010
Posts:1
durs
07/30/2010
Posts:40
As has already been indicated, Facebook started with college students, and this population is disproportionately affluent, white, and Asian (it's unfortunately yet demonstrably true).
However, it's important to note that while most of the traffic to myspace/facebook was happening on desktops and laptops, a considerable portion of activity was happening via mobile phones. T-Mobile, for various reasons, was for many years much more prevalent in urban locations than the other providers, where a bulk of minority populations live. Furthermore, the Sidekick was available exclusively on their network at a lower price point than many other phones. Add the fact that MySpace was incorporated into the Sidekick earlier and in a better way than was Facebook. All of the sudden, Myspace, in conjunction with a T-Mobile sidekick, becomes a no-brainer for the urban, less-affluent consumer, a population that also happens to be more frequently a racial minority.
While it's difficult to measure the effect this would have on the larger picture, it certainly bears mention that mobile provider market penetrance, along with well-priced hardware and tight coupling to a particular service can have dramatic effects on adoption of myspace vs. facebook.
Take this as you will, and I would enjoy hearing counter arguments.
wmqpmw
07/16/2010
Posts:1
When you say "Despite the emphasis placed on the racial aspects of demographic differences, the emphasis should be almost uniformly placed on socioeconomic differences, with race as a confounding factor at best," what is your justification? It doesn't sound like she placed an emphasis on the racial aspect of the success of Facebook but that:
"Online environments are merely "a reflection of everyday life," and that online communities are immune to the techno-optimist belief that the internet eliminates the deep divisions between people in real life." Race is only one of the variables.
Your speculation "that mobile provider market penetrance, along with well-priced hardware and tight coupling to a particular service can have dramatic effects on adoption of myspace vs. facebook" in the context of an explanation for the racial disparity in migration between Facebook and MySpace is a reasonable hypothesis.
What remains to be demonstrated empirically is that although "T-moble was much more prevalent in urban locations than the other providers, where a bulk of minority populations live," that this actually means a higher adoption rate of sidekicks by minorities compared to whites. We don't know anything about the relative adoption rates (and you'd need to quantify "much more prevalent.").
Sidekick's popularity in the minority population may be the reverse of what you'd expect. An example would be that the Sidekick may have more of a "geeky" image in minority communities and so be less popular than amoung white subscribers. In addition to such other possibilities it's still very unlikely that minority subscribers in urban areas constitute a sizeable majority of T-mobile subscribers in those coverage areas, which is what would be necessary for your theory to be valid.
You would also need to demonstrate that the barriers to migration are sufficiently higher for minorities than white social networkers to support your argument. Also you need to determine how significant is the proportion of mobile social networkers in the minority population relative to the total including desktops and laptops.
All this to account for the * disparity in migration * between white and minority social networkers.
I believe Boyd is prepared to back up her conclusion that online environments are merely "a reflection of everyday life," with data. The notion that "online communities are immune to the techno-optimist belief that the internet eliminates the deep divisions between people in real life," seems reasonable unless the internet provides some yet to be demonstrated remedies for these divisions.
I don't know if I'll ultimately agree with Boyd's conclusions since I haven't read her "Digital Race Anthology" yet but I do believe that you and other commenters have identified other factors in addition to race, yet Boyd may be correct that race was "in part" a contributing factor in Facebook's success.
I'm not a techno-optimist yet but I could change.
bpertum
07/16/2010
Posts:10
mySpace -> Facebook <=> seconday school -> college
How does the selection operates in the process? Do we meet more blacks and latinos than whites in college and universities? No.
Therefore it seems there is an equivalence between "social networks demography" and "real life demography".
And facebook was firstly designed for educated people who want to create an "after-college network", which happen to be constituted in majority of whites and asians.
So no racism involved, just "normal" social evolution. That could be questionned, no question about that..
BSmart
07/19/2010
Posts:1
luddite
07/19/2010
Posts:82