Facebook, I thought we liked each other?
The fear of leaving: how Facebook has become the abusive partner in our relationship.
We’ve all been there: that moment of sheer panic and heart-dropping anxiety when you press send on a message only to realise the recipient is the completely wrong person.
Best case scenario? You can laugh it off. Worst case scenario? You desperately pretend your cat has trampled over your keyboard to make a coherent, yet completely unintended, message.
I was reminded of this terrifying sensation last Friday night when I accidentally messaged the wrong person on Facebook an embarrassing, private conversation.
Palms sweaty, knees weak, regret was heavy: I was mortified. I had the overwhelming desire to throw my phone into the Brisbane river, jump straight in after it, and swim to the Himalayas to start a new life.
Quitting Facebook though? Impossible.
Imperceptibly, the platform has carved out such an ingrained and seemingly important role in my life, that even when I wanted to ditch it and run for the hills, I was truly scared of the consequences.
How would I talk to my friends? How would I keep up-to-date with acquaintances? But, most importantly: when did I become so dependent on a digital platform that just the thought of leaving was unthinkable?
The experience made me reflect on the relationship I have with Facebook: has it empowered me or overpowered me?
Facebook, we have much to discuss.
Monopoly: all fun and games until one person owns everything.
Pre-Facebook, traditional media industries relied on a one-to-many mass marketing business structure, preventing personalized, targeted advertising. Imagine it like The Bachelor: sure, the bachelor might be dreamy, but it’s highly unlikely he will be perfectly suited to every single contestant.
While experiencing a long-run of success, this conventional business model ultimately fails to offer the treasure trove of consumer information and precision-based advertising digital platforms afford. To put it simply: every tag, like, comment, share and react is encoded and tracked on Facebook. Newspapers and TV though? We are a mere stranger to them.
The unparalleled connectivity of online platforms has enabled them to completely disrupt the traditional media business model and forever change the means of social interactions. Forget phone calls and written letters — mindless meme-tagging and investigative profile stalking have become the new social norms.
But beware: Facebook is not simply the next ‘stepping stone’ in media industries. Rather, the architecture of the platform reflects a transition to a whole new paradigm of commodified and monopolised social interactions.
And are we ok with that?
But…can we still be friends?
Just like KFC, Facebook has its own secret sauce that has enabled the platform to develop the world’s most effective business model, boasting the Holy Trinity of success: high scale, high growth and high-profit margins. Except, rather than 11 secret spices there is only one ingredient in Facebook’s savvy recipe: social data.
The platform’s insatiable appetite for your personal data is driven by its business model. Basically, increased consumer data allows for better-targeted advertisements, resulting in higher advertising spends on Facebook.
As our data becomes Facebook’s sole revenue maker, the platform’s aim becomes clear: to dominate our time, our communication and our media consumption patterns.
Facebook may have started out as a simple platform for social interaction, but the product is no longer building friendships…
…the product is us.
Break up with your platform, I’m bored.
During Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s 2018 Congressional Testimony, he maintained Facebook’s primary purpose is to provide a free platform to:
“…give people the power to build a community and bring people closer together”.
But, while Zuckerberg remains adamant the platform will always remain free for consumers, what is the quid pro quo of this ‘free’ platform?
Sure, like any other market-based service the consumer is free to not use the platform if the terms of service are unacceptable. But is it realistic for consumers to not have access to Facebook when this communication mode is ubiquitous throughout all facets of society with no viable alternative?
Facebook has grown so necessary for us to interact that without deliberate external checks and balances it no longer empowers but overpowers us.
If 10 years ago we heard about an online platform that would monopolise communication, commodify basic human interactions, collect an intrusive amount of personal information, sell it to others and control the way you operate online, would you sign up?
I wouldn’t.
What started out as a brilliant idea has now morphed into a corporation financially bigger than many nations with massive societal power and little in the way of regulation.
Recognise the new digital paradigm we have entered and take back control: we should not be a product without the rights to control our personal information.
