What really bothers me is how we see this endless cycle of various advocacy groups, organizations, and even major corporations pointing the finger at social media platforms, claiming they are the ones driving society apart. It’s a complete deflection of reality. Everyone seems to be ignoring the fundamental fact that the platforms themselves aren't the root cause—it's the people using them. When you look at it that way, all this posturing and the threats being leveled against companies like Facebook just seem entirely pointless.
Here is an example:Not many people realize that brands like Coca-Cola actually spent years actively promoting and even shaping racism just to cultivate a specific consumer base and maximize their profit margins. They essentially engineered their brand identity to suit whoever was buying, constantly shifting their narrative to stay relevant and palatable to everyone. Now, after decades of influence from giants like Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Riot Games, Epic Games, General Motors, and Ford—to name just a few—we’re seeing the fallout. These corporations have helped raise generations that seem perpetually angry and uneducated. Today, they conveniently blame social media for everything, but that's just a way to deflect attention from the massive, long-term impact these companies have had on the fabric of our society.
It is equally naive to believe that anyone can successfully combat racism through sheer force of will, simply because people aren't robots. Take, for example, a major corporation that manages to "eliminate" 63% of its racist fanbase within just three months. How did they do it? They didn't actually change minds; they simply tweaked the reporting algorithms to sweep everything under the rug. Those individuals are still out there, venting their frustrations on social media just like before. Look at a company like Riot Games. They have hundreds of millions of fans, yet they essentially cultivated a massive segment of angry, intolerant followers across entire generations. Of course, institutions and parents play a role here too, often ignoring the shifts in their children's behavior. That child eventually hits social media and continues exactly the patterns the companies helped instill in them. Then, you see these corporations threatening social media platforms, claiming they will pull their business unless those platforms start effectively dealing with hate speech, intolerance, and racism. It’s a cycle of superficial fixes rather than actual progress.
It feels like everyone is collectively looking the other way, which is a massive oversight. The core of this issue lies primarily with corporations like Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Ford Motor Company, and Riot Games—the very entities that have spent decades shaping the behaviors and habits of entire generations. They laid the groundwork for how kids grow up today. Secondarily, you have our educational institutions and parents to consider, but somehow, the blame is being shifted entirely onto social media platforms. It’s as if we expect big tech to swoop in and fix the damage caused by the previous three pillars, holding them accountable for essentially criminal levels of influence exerted by those much larger structures.
I’ve been boycotting Coca-Cola for over a decade now. To me, they simply don't matter. I don't maintain a presence on social media, and frankly, I find Facebook just as irrelevant. However, when I come across rhetoric like this, it reinforces my belief that modern society has devolved into a collection of collective idiots. People seem to have lost the capacity for clear, objective reasoning to identify the actual root of any problem. The issue isn't the social media platforms themselves; those are merely catalysts for the current state of society. They act as a statistical mirror, reflecting exactly how dysfunctional human behavior has become today.
What are your thoughts on this? ☕
Regarding my assertions that these corporations have fundamentally shaped society through a lens of racism:
The ongoing conversation surrounding racial discrimination at Coca-Cola is something that requires a much more nuanced analysis than the typical social media outcry. If we are going to discuss corporate accountability, we need to look past the surface-level headlines and examine the actual structural issues within the organization. It isn't enough to simply issue a press release or change a logo for a month to signal "progress." Real systemic change requires an overhaul of internal promotion tracks and a transparent audit of how diversity initiatives actually impact the bottom line and the workforce hierarchy. When major American corporations like Coca-Cola face these allegations, it highlights a recurring friction point in our domestic corporate culture: the gap between public branding and private institutional reality. I’ve seen many people jump to conclusions without looking at the data, and frankly, that's a mistake. We have to ask whether these instances are isolated incidents of individual bias or if they represent a deeper, ingrained pattern within the corporate structure itself. Until there is a clear, measurable shift in leadership demographics and pay equity, these discussions will continue to circulate. It’s about more than just optics; it’s about whether the stated values of a massive American institution actually match its day-to-day operations.
Back in November 2000, Coca-Cola reached a massive $192.5 million settlement to resolve a class-action lawsuit centered on racial discrimination. As part of that deal, they committed to overhauling how they manage, promote, and treat minority staff across the US. However, the progress wasn't immediate. By 2003, activists showing up at Coca-Cola’s annual meetings were pointing out serious ongoing issues, claiming that Black professionals were still being passed over for executive roles, facing significant pay gaps compared to their white colleagues, and being terminated at higher rates. It took some time for those systemic changes to actually take root. By 2004, Luke Visconti, one of the founders of DiversityInc—the organization that evaluates corporate diversity initiatives—noted that the legal fallout actually worked in their favor. He pointed out that because of that specific settlement decree, Coca-Cola was essentially forced to implement management practices that eventually propelled them into the top 10 for diversity rankings. It serves as a stark reminder that sometimes, aggressive litigation is the only thing that forces a giant to actually walk the walk.
This is exactly what we are seeing today at Coca-Cola—it's pure irony. Now, these same companies are busy lecturing Facebook and Google.
Riot Games - League of Legends
League of Legends is notorious for having a toxic community. Hopefully, Riot Games can find strategies to provide players with a more fun and fair playing environment. It will be interesting to see how their new plan plays out.
They never actually solved the problem; they just swept it under the rug by implementing algorithms that ignore toxicity. This gave them the false data needed to prevent federal health regulators from breathing down their necks, all while the company bragged about "fixing" behavioral issues for 63% of toxic players in just three months. Anyone with half a brain knows that even the best psychiatrists in the country couldn't achieve those results in such a short timeframe without intensive therapy—but apparently, Riot Games "just did it." Now, they are facing an explosion of racism, fascism, and chauvinism. And, predictably, they blame social media.
Ford Motor Company - Discrimination At Ford Motor Company Continues
In the past 2 years, Ford Motor Company has settled with an EEOC Harassment Investigation for $10.125 Million and in March was ordered to pay $16.8 Million to an ex-employee for discrimination and retaliation. Unfortunately, allegations and lawsuits of discrimination are not new for Ford Motor Company. In fact, if you do a quick Google search, these stories of mistreatment are widespread throughout the company. Even though they have all the policies in place, deep within the roots of the culture at Ford Motor Company is racism and sexism. One might even say that they can’t help it, Henry Ford was a racist openly admired by Adolf Hitler.
And yet, the practice remains unchanged, and just like them, they claim social media and Facebook are to blame.
And so it goes. What is happening is both absurd and mentally pathological. It seems as though the largest corporations have entered a cold war against one another, using the broken generations they themselves created as pawns. To make matters worse, they point the finger at social media for things they can never fix—problems caused by the psychological damage these very companies inflicted on society. There is no need to even mention Amazon; I think most people are already well aware of their approach to fostering a psychologically fractured society.