Things are moving faster than I anticipated. The Facebook Files or Papers (eg, WaPo) are causing bipartisan political outrage in Europe and especially in USA. A part of this outrage is political theater. The other part is probably rooted in emotions like revenge & retaliation. Facebook managed to alienate almost everyone.
These Files or Papers evidence that the business model of “social” media is about stirring up our primal emotions and leveraging on the increase in internet traffic (eg, more visitors = more advertisers = more profit). Hence, asocial is more appropriate than social. Facebook’s day of reckoning might be near.
Facebook is not alone. All over the world, Big Tech is attracting headwinds. Why? Big Tech and (big) Data are the new players in the Power domain of the 7 Belief systems (ie, 2015 original and 2019 update). Religion is out. Politics is almost irrelevant due to its “impotence” (eg, US partisanship, European erosion of the middle).
The combination of the 3 belief systems (big) Data, (big) Money and (big) Tech fits well in structures like monism, nationalism and/or authoritarianism. It is slowly taking over from the old Power combination of Money, Politics and Religion. Moreover, it fits well in ancient Greek philosopher Plato’s 5 regime types (eg, my 2021 blog).
China is showing governments all over the world how to reign in the powerful combination of (big) Data, (big) Money and (big) Tech. However, their severe anti-Tech measures are already coming at the expense of their economic growth. Hence, many other countries will not dare to kill the goose that laid the golden eggs.
Facebook is an exception as it does not create anything of value. Killing Facebook would not jeopardize (inter-) national economic growth. Also see the quote below from a recent Bloomberg article.
“It may be that, while all giant companies are in some sense putting profits over people, Facebook itself is uniquely vulnerable to this critique. Its core product is not tangible, like Apple’s or Amazon’s, and not obviously useful, like Google’s. If that is the case, then a smaller, less influential Facebook might be a net benefit for the world.”
Matthew Yglesias in Bloomberg and a copy in my recent blog.
I suppose regulating Facebook (and its equivalents) is inevitable. I wouldn’t mind. I only use Facebook (and LinkedIn) to promote my blogs. Actually, I dislike Facebook and its CEO/founder. If Facebook would disappear from our lives then that event would probably constitute a micro loss (for some), and a macro gain (for others).
One (2019) by Lewis Capaldi
artist, lyrics, video, Wiki-1, Wiki-2
[Chorus]
I wish I could say
“Thank you for all the mistakes
Thank you for all of the pain”
I guess somebody else’s loss is another’s gain
Note: all markings (bold, italic, underlining) by LO unless stated otherwise.
Usually I do not learn post on blogs, but I wish to say that this write-up very forced me to take a look at