As I write this post, I feel prophetic. In a 2014 post, I suggested that businesses should reduce their social media dependency to minimize business continuity risk. It felt like common sense at that time.

Fast-forward to now.

As events played out in real-time, Twitter banned the most powerful man in the world, the President of the United States!

AWS, Amazon’s cloud infrastructure service, followed suit. It pulled the plug on Parler, an influential right-wing social media platform, essentially putting them out of business.

Lesson learned.

You don’t want to violate your service provider’s policies and get banned. They have the last say.

That brings up the question, will your business survive a ban?

In my view, the actions taken by Twitter and Amazon were justified. Organizations and individuals that incite violence and extremism should face the consequences of their actions.

However, the fact that technology companies have become the moral guardians of our society is troubling.

It’s a wake-up call for businesses and individuals who leverage social media to grow their presence and influence. The larger your dependency on social media and proprietary technology companies, the larger your risk.

Contrary to popular wisdom, it’s time to start worrying about the things that you cannot control. Your level of social media dependency and reliance on public cloud infrastructure can impact your business’s seamless operation.

If you are wondering how we got here, blame it on the drug dealer model.

Fledgling social media companies that got you hooked with free versions of their ware have gone on to become multi-billion-dollar conglomerates. They now have your personal information and know your vulnerabilities. You have made them integral to your marketing strategy. Free services have evolved into freemium models. The services that you really want are no longer free.

If your company’s critical business applications run on a single provider’s public cloud infrastructure, that should give you pause for thought.

Just in the past few months, there have been many unilateral changes made by social media companies that have impacted businesses and individual users. Shown below are a few examples.

WhatsApp

WhatsApp’s recent privacy policy update has created a furor within its user community. The take-it-or-leave-it policy will require users to allow for the sharing of their information among Facebook’s other digital platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger.

Failure to comply could result in the deletion of your account. That sounds drastic.

YouTube

Late in 2020, YouTube introduced its “Right to monetize” clause under its Terms of Service. This change allows YouTube to display random advertisements in the middle of your uploaded videos without any compensation to you. High-traffic channels that participate in YouTube’s Partner Program will see a portion of the ad revenue based on eligibility criteria set by YouTube.

You cannot opt out of the monetization clause. It is mandatory.

Google

Recent changes to Google’s cloud storage policy that kicks in on June 1st, 2021 will impact a number of consumers and small businesses. Google’s decision to end its unlimited free storage service for Google Photos came out of the blue. Unless you are a Pixel phone user, your account’s 15 GB total storage limit will now include your photos. Any additional storage will come at a cost, not something you may have planned for.

Social media giveth and social media taketh away!

The policy changes listed above may not have impacted you, but you get the drift.

Shunning technology and social media is not an option. Unicorns are born in the cloud. If you have any doubts, check out this list.

The cloud and social media are here to stay. However, if you don’t have control over your IT infrastructure or your communications, you can end up like Parler.

Dead.

You should not be putting all your eggs in a single basket anyway.

Now may be a good time to reassess your digital assets and social media dependencies. As for IT infrastructure, hybrid clouds, and multi-cloud solutions let you spread your risk. It’s up to you to decide if a degraded service is better than no service.

Lesson learned. There is a limit to free speech.

For now, it’s up to the technology companies to decide if you are in breach of their policies.

You cannot prevent a ban.

You can limit your social media dependency.

For perspective, here’s the link to the original post from 2014.