Early social media enthusiasm drowned out critics of its corporate structure.

Evidence

It was only a tiny minority of people, mostly drowned out by cheerleaders for these companies or ignored by well-funded government and nongovernment organizations, who pointed out that we were not dealing with pure technology; that these were a set of tools, and a set of powerful for-profit firms, that had taken shape in very particular historical circumstances. — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn, 286

Categorization

• XREF: Prefigures the later chapters’ thesis that protest movements were co-opted by the very platforms that amplified them. — connects to: Social media originally appealed through collective joy, now threatened by commercial management — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 633; Early Facebook users protested News Feed as invasive but later embraced it — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1461; Capitalist realism structurally prevents the emergence of popular enthusiasm — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1855

Broader Connections

• Social media originally appealed through collective joy, now threatened by commercial management #corroborates (0.78) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 633
• Early Facebook users protested News Feed as invasive but later embraced it #exemplifies (0.75) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1461
• Capitalist realism structurally prevents the emergence of popular enthusiasm #complicates (0.74) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1855