MySpacing Facebook
For the third time, a groundswell of outrage is rising against Facebook's commercialization of friendship. The anti-Facebook movement began in 2007 with their introduction of "Beacon," a feature that gave external commercial websites private information about logged in users for the purposes of targeted advertising. Shocked users launched online petitions, posted angry status updates and filed a class action lawsuit. Officially, Facebook capitulated and Beacon was abandoned nine months ago. But then, only three months after their apparent concession, Facebook committed what has come to be known as "Facebook’s Greatest Betrayal": they retroactively changed their privacy policy, publicly revealing the formally private information of its 400 million members. Again, users got angry and protested but CEO Zuckerberg didn't budge and opposition effectively died. Now, believing that its users have been forced into submission, Facebook has gone for the kill -- reinventing Beacon in its most sinister form.
Deceptively known as "social plug-ins," Facebook's new system for giving commercial websites access to your personal information is to scatter "I like" buttons around the web. These buttons are ostensibly to allow users to identify what they like on the Internet. But the real benefit for the fat-cats at Facebook is the lucrative deals with corporate websites they stand to make because these buttons will give Facebook the ability to grant certain, undisclosed sites access to your Facebook information without your prior consent. If the "like button" is on a site, and you are a Facebook user, then your information will be transmitted automatically to these chosen sites. Your profile, the names of your friends, your favorite books and more will be used to sell you junk. All that data you entered into Facebook has become a goldmine for hungry advertisers looking to "personalize" their ads and Zuckerberg stands to make a mint.
Facebook has irrevocably tarnished its reputation in its bald pursuit of money. It has cashed in on its former reputation as a cool, hip online hangout and is now just another MySpace — a corporate-owned digital swamp of advertising. And while you may expect another round of anger, this time the reaction is eerily different. Past protests were done under the assumption that Facebook was our community and that it could be changed by our demands. But now that myth is shattered and the realization is dawning that the best tactic is not calls for reform but uncooling.
With more and more people coming to the quietly indignant realization that Facebook is lame like Myspace, the site is facing inevitable decline. And as a growing percentage of the site starts to log out, we will see the emergence of a new social networking platform built on non-commercial principles for the benefit of friendship and not consumerism.
Micah White is a Contributing Editor at Adbusters and an independent activist. www.micahmwhite.com or micah (at) adbusters.org
156 comments on the article “MySpacing Facebook”
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Anonymous
You know what.
I think we shouldn't be led out of one cult into another. Adbusters sounds a WHOLE lot like a cult and I really don't trust it. They also contradict themselves so much. They make fun of websites when they HAVE one, they make fun of Facebook when they HAVE one, and they make fun of commercials when they HAVE one. They make fun of Myspace when they HAVE one. Corporate agencies slowly twisting our minds to become mindless consumers. I can buy that. Commercials unleashing mind bombs into our heads called "memes" making us like stuff. Plausible. But everything we've ever worked for in America, has been destroyed by every single corporation there is? Turn off your blinkers and park your mouth on the road. Uh-huh. The place that sells me apples? No. Or maybe Fisher Price is wielding the UNHOLY POWER OF SELLING US CRIBS FOR BABIES!!!!!!!!! Excuse me? But I guess that the fat cats actually are as evil as you say. Like Apple. But if anyone can answer this question, you're smart.
You guys say that only consumer revolution can stop corporations. But corporations are always being beaten all the time by another corporation (i.e Android vrs. Iphone)
Anonymous
You know what.
I think we shouldn't be led out of one cult into another. Adbusters sounds a WHOLE lot like a cult and I really don't trust it. They also contradict themselves so much. They make fun of websites when they HAVE one, they make fun of Facebook when they HAVE one, and they make fun of commercials when they HAVE one. They make fun of Myspace when they HAVE one. Corporate agencies slowly twisting our minds to become mindless consumers. I can buy that. Commercials unleashing mind bombs into our heads called "memes" making us like stuff. Plausible. But everything we've ever worked for in America, has been destroyed by every single corporation there is? Turn off your blinkers and park your mouth on the road. Uh-huh. The place that sells me apples? No. Or maybe Fisher Price is wielding the UNHOLY POWER OF SELLING US CRIBS FOR BABIES!!!!!!!!! Excuse me? But I guess that the fat cats actually are as evil as you say. Like Apple. But if anyone can answer this question, you're smart.
You guys say that only consumer revolution can stop corporations. But corporations are always being beaten all the time by another corporation (i.e Android vrs. Iphone)
a more sensible...
I think the point adbuster's is trying to make is that major companies have too much power, i don't think i have ever seen them attack small or locally owned companies, so if you get your apples from a local producer, who in turn sells their apples to a local grocery co-op, i think they might actually champion that "company".
Now instead of buying from a big box company like fisher price (who while making products for children still employ big box company tactics and policy), why not check your local craigslist, or even your yellow pages, I'm sure you can find a reputable finishing carpenter who would be more then happy to make you a custom hand crafted crib for your baby (or babies) that would last much longer then a plastic big box brand crib at a fraction of the cost.
Corporations don't "beat" other corporations in the same way that a consumer revolution would "beat" a corporation. When one corporation beats another, all that takes place is a dollar shift from one gigantic bank account to another. While if we as consumers beat a corporation and showed as a unified market that we don't support those types of business practice it would be a vastly different type of corporate defeat.
If you feel like "everything America has worked for" is still actually something that you personally feel entitled to, i think you are really missing the point.
a more sensible...
I think the point adbuster's is trying to make is that major companies have too much power, i don't think i have ever seen them attack small or locally owned companies, so if you get your apples from a local producer, who in turn sells their apples to a local grocery co-op, i think they might actually champion that "company".
Now instead of buying from a big box company like fisher price (who while making products for children still employ big box company tactics and policy), why not check your local craigslist, or even your yellow pages, I'm sure you can find a reputable finishing carpenter who would be more then happy to make you a custom hand crafted crib for your baby (or babies) that would last much longer then a plastic big box brand crib at a fraction of the cost.
Corporations don't "beat" other corporations in the same way that a consumer revolution would "beat" a corporation. When one corporation beats another, all that takes place is a dollar shift from one gigantic bank account to another. While if we as consumers beat a corporation and showed as a unified market that we don't support those types of business practice it would be a vastly different type of corporate defeat.
If you feel like "everything America has worked for" is still actually something that you personally feel entitled to, i think you are really missing the point.
Anonymous
I think the big problem here is the "entitlement" you refer to in your last sentence.
Why has Fisher-Price grown so huge? Because everyone wants a new crib when they have a baby. And the only way that everyone can afford one is to have big companies employing the economy-of-scale principle to bring the cost of the crib down to where lower-middle-class folks can afford it. Trust me, if you actually were to call a finish carpenter and ask for a price on a custom wood crib, it would be 5 or 6 times the cost of the mass-produced Fisher-Price model. Much higher quality and durability no doubt, but much more expensive.
And that's the rub. Everyone wants everything. The "average American" cares about the trade deficit, but not enough to actually go without the cheap goods that they couldn't afford if we didn't have big companies mass-producing them in China.
There isn't a whole lot of giant corporations conspiring to destroy America in the name of profits. There's a whole lot of Americans who care more about having more stuff than what it takes to make that stuff affordable to them.
In the end, everybody has to eat. How cool do you think a social media site that is run entirely by unpaid volunteers could be? As a web programmer, I like contributing time to cool projects, but my paying clients come first, as that's how I feed my kids. And buy all my stuff...
Anonymous
I think the big problem here is the "entitlement" you refer to in your last sentence.
Why has Fisher-Price grown so huge? Because everyone wants a new crib when they have a baby. And the only way that everyone can afford one is to have big companies employing the economy-of-scale principle to bring the cost of the crib down to where lower-middle-class folks can afford it. Trust me, if you actually were to call a finish carpenter and ask for a price on a custom wood crib, it would be 5 or 6 times the cost of the mass-produced Fisher-Price model. Much higher quality and durability no doubt, but much more expensive.
And that's the rub. Everyone wants everything. The "average American" cares about the trade deficit, but not enough to actually go without the cheap goods that they couldn't afford if we didn't have big companies mass-producing them in China.
There isn't a whole lot of giant corporations conspiring to destroy America in the name of profits. There's a whole lot of Americans who care more about having more stuff than what it takes to make that stuff affordable to them.
In the end, everybody has to eat. How cool do you think a social media site that is run entirely by unpaid volunteers could be? As a web programmer, I like contributing time to cool projects, but my paying clients come first, as that's how I feed my kids. And buy all my stuff...
Anonymous
I love when Adbusters attacks facebook.
I quit my facebook over a month ago, and I tell you...I feel so much better!
I have had people CALLING me, and wanting to "talk on the phone"
"hang out" "catch up" My boyfriend has been getting phone calls from some mutual friends asking for my number.
THIS RULES!
Anonymous
I love when Adbusters attacks facebook.
I quit my facebook over a month ago, and I tell you...I feel so much better!
I have had people CALLING me, and wanting to "talk on the phone"
"hang out" "catch up" My boyfriend has been getting phone calls from some mutual friends asking for my number.
THIS RULES!
lozers
I really want to delete my facebook, but its the only way for me to update people on my projects, since no one calls me anyways...
lozers
I really want to delete my facebook, but its the only way for me to update people on my projects, since no one calls me anyways...
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