Facebook Is Dangerous

It's rare for me to link to an article without having much more to add, but Tom Hodgkinson in the Guardian does every human being involved in internet anything (and possibly more people than that) a massive service by writing this article on Facebook. It's a superb exposé / deconstruction of the reason for Facebook's existence, it's modus operandi, and the scary political vision of Peter Theil, the "real face behind Facebook".

This little taster from their website will give you an idea of their vision for the world: "TheVanguard.Org is an online community of Americans who believe in conservative values, the free market and limited government as the best means to bring hope and ever-increasing opportunity to everyone, especially the poorest among us." Their aim is to promote policies that will "reshape America and the globe". TheVanguard describes its politics as "Reaganite/Thatcherite". The chairman's message says: "Today we'll teach MoveOn [the liberal website], Hillary and the leftwing media some lessons they never imagined."

So, Thiel's politics are not in doubt. What about his philosophy? I listened to a podcast of an address Thiel gave about his ideas for the future. His philosophy, briefly, is this: since the 17th century, certain enlightened thinkers have been taking the world away from the old-fashioned nature-bound life, and here he quotes Thomas Hobbes' famous characterisation of life as "nasty, brutish and short", and towards a new virtual world where we have conquered nature. Value now exists in imaginary things. Thiel says that PayPal was motivated by this belief: that you can find value not in real manufactured objects, but in the relations between human beings. PayPal was a way of moving money around the world with no restriction. Bloomberg Markets puts it like this: "For Thiel, PayPal was all about freedom: it would enable people to skirt currency controls and move money around the globe."

Clearly, Facebook is another uber-capitalist experiment: can you make money out of friendship? Can you create communities free of national boundaries - and then sell Coca-Cola to them? Facebook is profoundly uncreative. It makes nothing at all. It simply mediates in relationships that were happening anyway.

This social media revolution is all about "sharing" we are often told, but what does that mean? As Tom says, "Share" is Facebookspeak for "advertise". In this context, share is all about survival of the kind of open society we enjoy - read his article, come to your own conclusions.

I previously wrote about Facebook here. I collect links on Facebook here: http://del.icio.us/deekdeekster/Facebook/

Facebook Fallout

Just as my most conservative and least impressable friends are finally lured into Facebook's shiny blue garden, I'm observing a sea-change among the restless seekers and taste-makers of internet fun - people are beginning to complain of being bored, and even leave, deleting their profiles. My favourite quote (anonymous for the purposes of this blog) was the marvellous, "Facebook is currently experiencing technical difficulties". What, that everyone's bored of it already?"

The Terms of Service state that Facebook not only own all content you put there, but also that they will own the archive of your content, deleted or not. Add this to the fact that they will also collect data about you from "newspapers and other sources such as instant messages" (it's the "such as" which concerns me), plus the very real CIA connections from the top down and you have the world's most spooky social network. They have been taken to task recently by bloggers when they refused to acknowledge the right to a pseudonym - Article 15 of the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works.

Before Facebook caved in and allowed him back in (to take his place alongside 500 people named Jesus Christ), "Jon Swift" wrote:

By banning bloggers who use pseudonyms Facebook has declared war on the blogosphere. More and more bloggers have been using Facebook as a social networking tool, but how useful will it be if so many bloggers will be left out. I know a number of prominent pseudonymous bloggers who still have profiles on Facebook but apparently their days as Facebook members are numbered. I'm not going to rat them out to Facebook's jack-booted thugs, however, even if they threaten to torture me.

Some of these prominent bloggers used to be among my more than 200 Facebook friends. I wonder if my Facebook friends have noticed yet that I am gone. I wonder how many of them have sent their zombies to bite me only to have them return unsated. Oh, how I miss being poked and being invited to join silly groups and causes and to install buggy widgets on my profile page that I then have to immediately uninstall.

This socially and politically conservative business has been hugely successful since opening itself up to people outside its orginal college constituency, and allowing third party application writers to come into the garden and make hay from its nicely manicured lawns. But in all probability, Facebook's very popularity contains its downfall. What nobody likes to say is totally obvious - there is a limit to success, and I sense that Facebook is nearer to that limit than people currently imagine.

What happens when an exclusive, fashionable club becomes well known? As their dancefloor fills with the great unwashed, the movers and shakers move elsewhere. Unconcerned by the links with the CIA, sufficiently savvy to create plausible fictions in order to maintain discreet privacy, they are are already regrouping in places beyond the reach of Mark Zuckerberg and his latest investors, in places far more interesting, where new forms of self-expression are being enabled without fratboy rules, and new dances are being danced which will make the Facebook foxtrot soon seem very dated and ordinary.

Facebook, and others within the current spate of dazzling new media webshows, will shortly be learning the lesson that the music business, the film business, showbusiness have all known for a long time - nobody likes last year's fashion.

Like my kind actor friend once said to me, as I shared a pint with him after a particularly good gig, "Don't be too hot, for once your moment in the limelight has passed, you will forever struggle to recapture that sweet moment of success and popularity; and the consequent chill is very cold indeed."

Facebook, Fascistbook, Fastbuck

In Facebook, love costs just one dollar, which is either very cheap indeed, or massively over-priced, depending on your views. I've recently become fascinated with the fascination that other people are showing for this fast-growing social networking site. Apparently sane and intelligent people seem to enjoy this "walled garden" so much that businesses are banning its use in the workplace.

Facebook is indeed the educated person's MySpace -its clean lines and regulated interface a contrast to the teenage-bedroom style of similar websites. But, the dark side of Facebook is beginning to emerge. Is it actually amoral, in that Facebook allows groups such the far right BNP to operate unchecked, and contains groups encouraging anorexia in young people? And is this walled garden so very secure and safe? Recent glitches meant that emails and instant messages, none of which are supposed to leave the site, ended up in the wrong place, and caused real emotional problems and at least one relationship breakdown.

Internally, Facebook seems to be full of geeks in a fever of video messaging, crowing about the wonder of the system, the "traction", the "community" - micro-media exponents galore, commenting glibly one after another on the cleverness of their own high-tech take on this new world. I find myself on a deep level uneasy about this activity - are there not more important things to be concerned about than which tech conference to visit next and who to drink with when you are there?

Yesterday, it was announced that the Yangtse River dolphin was "probably extinct". I've not seen any webcam flash videos posted up in Facebook on this sad ending of life, an issue which most Facebookers seem to be failing to recognise, let alone take action, but then, maybe I've joined the wrong groups.

For me, Facebook is fraught with issues which mean I cannot trust it. Not only are there real issues about the ownership of content you create within the site - they own it, you don't, and even if you delete your account, they own the archive - the incredible amount of personal detail people are prepared to divulge, tantamount to saying, "I'm just popping out now, keys are under the porch" indicate a level of security unconsciousness which I find scary.

But joining groups within Facebook which relate to my real concerns? I don't think so. I don't mind belonging to "Bring Back Les Dawson" or starting a cause called "Podcasting", but, we live in the era of surveillance, and I live in the middle of the most surveilled society in the world. "They" already know too much about me, as far as I am concerned - and I'm not doing anything I need to hide. It feels so safe inside this walled garden - despite the holes - and this provides the same illusory sense of security as the developed world's wealth does. So, we feel safe, and we are safe, until the next regime change, when dissidents, free-thinkers and intellectuals will be only too easy to find, round up, and remove in the name of security.

I think it was Spike Milligan who said, "Just because I'm paranoid, doesn't mean they aren't after me."

Read more about Facebook by looking at my del.icio.us links