Disturbing High Modernism? More like disturbing high mindedness. The author here is making claims that can be summarized to "I don't like Facebook and it's di

Disturbing High Modernism? More like disturbing high mindedness. The author here is making claims that can be summarized to "I don't like Facebook and it's different from how we've usually done things, therefore we need to get rid of Facebook-like services." The author, in other words, is trying to argue that, because they think that other people can't handle Facebook's "frictionless communication", no one should be able to use it because it'll do something bad to society. What that bad thing is isn't clearly specified, instead the author only claims that "tribalism, authoritarianism, extremism, disinformation, and hyperbolic outrage" has increased on these platforms, and implies that they think this outweighs the positives these platforms have also provided or that this is a change relative to how a world without Facebook would operate. The author makes no concrete or quantifiable argument in this piece, only parrots the opinions of others they consider authorities. This text is the same sort of technopanic rhetoric that was used by luddites to oppose things like the printing press and electricity. We can argue about the ethics behind Facebook's method of funding itself, but the author here is conflating that with an argument against free communication.