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Feeding Evil

Interesting essay on why we use Facebook even if we know it's evil and doing way more harm than good in the world. The author identifies a few reasons why:

"...Like eating meat, ordering cheap clothes or buying Chinese products, the use of Facebook also has advantages. Through Facebook people renew ties or maintain contact; through it interest groups can be created that coalesce around a particular subject or cause; people can be made aware of new ideas; shared activities can be coordinated; alternative voices can be heard. Not everyone has access to the massive amplifiers of mass media, and Facebook allows each person to make their voice heard.

There are small businesses that reach a larger and more diverse audience and potential clientele by advertising on Facebook. There are people who specialize in creating and managing online campaigns using the platform – people who do it for a living..."

There is I think another reason - with Facebook people found a way to create meaning out of the most mundane business of their life, it fed their need for self-aggrandization, see and be counted as consequential. Depending on how many are in a person's network, they could with the right kind of effort, attain celebrity status within that group. It gives the ordinary person a  chance to experience (albeit on a microscopic scale) what it is to have paparazzi on their tail 24/7. No one wants to live their life unnoticed, irrelevant and inconsequential. 

Facebook is the platform to remedy all of that and so people stay and engage - it makes them visible. There is a parallel to buying the Chinese luxury brand knock-offs - not low-priced no-brand street fashion. It sells only because people aspire to a lifestyle well out of their reach. An alternative platform if and when it comes about will need to embrace some of the same evilness that makes Facebook work.


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