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Facebook can't stop the spread of authoritarianism, because it was designed in such a way that it can't help but be the perfect tool for authoritarian elements.

Facebook can't stop the spread of authoritarianism, because it was designed in such a way that it can't help but be the perfect tool for authoritarian elements. They're (arguably wittingly or unwittingly) a digital stasi; listening and collecting everyone's conversations, tracking and collecting social interactions and connections between groups of people, tracking and collecting people's online interests. They've created a tool where you can literally search entire countries for dissidents and demographics and political allegiances. They've given powers that only authoritarian gov'ts have had to upstart authoritarian elements that haven't power in the region they're trying to over-turn. I know this just sounds like sidewalk doomsayer stuff, but we're seeing these effects globally... this is no longer a "what-if" scenario.

cabalamat 8y ago
> Facebook can't stop the spread of authoritarianism, because it was designed in such a way that it can't help but be the perfect tool for authoritarian elements. Centralised networks are a perfect match for authoritarianism. > They're (arguably wittingly or unwittingly) a digital stasi; listening and collecting everyone's conversations, tracking and collecting social interactions and connections between groups of people, tracking and collecting people's online interests. It's definitely wittingly: Facebook's entire business model is based on knowing as much as possible out of people in order to monetise that knowledge.
PavlovsCat 8y ago
> Now the police dreams that one look at the gigantic map on the office wall should suffice at any given moment to establish who is related to whom and in what degree of intimacy; and, theoretically, this dream is not unrealizable although its technical execution is bound to be somewhat difficult. If this map really did exist, not even memory would stand in the way of the totalitarian claim to domination; such a map might make it possible to obliterate people without any traces, as if they had never existed at all. -- Hannah Arendt, "The Origins of Totalitarianism" (1951)
eeZah7Ux 8y ago
Facebook is indeed the epitome of surveillance capitalism. A centralized social network is extremely valuable to an authoritarian government and has little value to a democratic government.

cabalamat 8y ago

> Facebook can't stop the spread of authoritarianism, because it was designed in such a way that it can't help but be the perfect tool for authoritarian elements. Centralised networks are a perfect match for authoritarianism. > They're (arguably wittingly or unwittingly) a digital stasi; listening and collecting everyone's conversations, tracking and collecting social interactions and connections between groups of people, tracking and collecting people's online interests. It's definitely wittingly: Facebook's entire business model is based on knowing as much as possible out of people in order to monetise that knowledge.

PavlovsCat 8y ago

> Now the police dreams that one look at the gigantic map on the office wall should suffice at any given moment to establish who is related to whom and in what degree of intimacy; and, theoretically, this dream is not unrealizable although its technical execution is bound to be somewhat difficult. If this map really did exist, not even memory would stand in the way of the totalitarian claim to domination; such a map might make it possible to obliterate people without any traces, as if they had never existed at all. -- Hannah Arendt, "The Origins of Totalitarianism" (1951)

eeZah7Ux 8y ago

Facebook is indeed the epitome of surveillance capitalism. A centralized social network is extremely valuable to an authoritarian government and has little value to a democratic government.