From College Dorms to Data Empires

Think back to the first time you created a social media account. If you were around in the mid-2000's, you probably remember the innocent thrill of opening Facebook. Back then, it was just an exclusive digital directory for college students to poke their friends, share photos from weekend parties, and post status updates about what they were eating for lunch.

A few years later, an app called Burbn pivoted into Instagram, offering a clean, simple grid of square photographs enhanced by vintage Polaroid-style filters. It was a digital sanctuary for photography lovers, chronological, quiet, and completely free of sponsored advertisements.

Around 2014, teenagers discovered Musical.ly, a playful app created for lip-syncing fifteen-second pop songs, which would eventually be swallowed by Chinese tech conglomerate ByteDance in a billion-dollar acquisition and rebranded into the global phenomenon known as TikTok.

In those early days, the promise of social media felt revolutionary. We were told that these platforms existed to make the world more open and connected. We were told that ordinary citizens now possessed a global megaphone that could bypass gatekeeping corporate media, democratize information, and unite distant families.

Because the apps were free, fast, and exciting, humanity signed up by the billions. We…