Alright, En Vogue, lets break it down. Lets break this Messenger app outrage on down.... Lets get a few things crystal clear. Facebook is not your friend. It is not a benevolent service provided by people who feel that they owe you anything, or have a moral compunction not to exploit the fact that they have brilliantly woven their platform into the neural networks and businesses of its consumers. Similar to Ma Bell, it would achieve a total monopoly on your ability to communicate if it could. It has ravenously bought up its messaging competition (heyo, Instagram and Whats App!) and tried more than once to replace your email. Whats particularly problematic is the logical fallacy that because Facebook has so much control, and you are so addicted to it, that it has a prerogative to Not Be Evil (thanks for that bullshit, Google.) Facebook has no such prerogative. They are a publicly traded company. They are accountable to their stock holders and no one else. Right! You say, So Im voting with my dollars! Or my...downloads. But Facebook already knows youre just holding your breath until you die, because at this point you have quit Facebook, hated Facebook, resisted Facebook and sworn six ways till Sunday that THIS CHANGE IS THE END. You are finished! You are never EVER getting back together! Youve said this over and over for years. But Facebook has data that proves otherwise. Youre lying to yourself and Facebook knows it. It has your brain on a dopamine hook- you will only put up with so much restlessness, irritability, and discontent until you look for confirmation that enough of your peers have relapsed to justify the download. So, Lily, why are you saying we shouldnt freak out about this? Well, other than the fact that the privacy policy is a run-of-the-mill, ease of use permission setting that a lot of other apps use (check Snopes) I think youre freaking out about the wrong thing. Youre freaking out at your dealer for changing the rules on how you get your fix, because you think that since he got you hooked on the first time is free good stuff he owes you, not his suppliers, anything at all. Youre also uneasy because this guy knows everyone, seems to have a hand in every pie, and appears to be consolidating his influence to make his optional presence in your life mandatory. Lets combine metaphors and call him your crack dealing Boss Tweed. Youre asking for change pretty late in the game, and youre misunderstanding the rules of power. Even if no one downloaded this app, Facebook would not change its behavior, its basic contempt for you. Its reason for existence would not change, and this reason drives its increasingly intelligent, manipulative, and irrefutable hold on your life. It would find another way. You are right to be mad, but youre mad at a tiny red flag waving in the midst of a roaring typhoon. What Im trying to say is, if you are really worried and mad and feeling oppressed, leave. Leave Facebook altogether. You have value Facebook only so long as you agree to be exposed to their advertising. And they know your resistance to this change is temporary and easily eroded IF you continue to use Facebook. So if you want to vote with your actions, influence the behemoth, you have to stop engaging with it at all. For myself, I understand the rules. I dont demand primetime TV without ads. I dont demand morality from Facebook. I use a free service to enhance my life and business, and at which point it stops being tolerable I remember that the world functioned fine before smart phones, texting, messaging and I certainly functioned better. There are alternatives; they just dont flood my synapses with dopamine as regularly as I am accustomed to. If you do business with a company that restricts its communication to Facebook, find alternatives. Take your business elsewhere, or at least add in a contingency plan. Facebook is not a public service. It is not your friend. It is not a grassroots movement. It is a private product. Dont fall for the sunny marketing. Know it for what it is and direct your outrage accordingly.
Posted on: Mon, 11 Aug 2014 19:37:42 +0000
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