In my perspective (whom never used
social media sites), Facebook seems to be more than a formation of a virtual
nation, it is perhaps an evolutionary human enhancement. The physical act of
calling and meeting someone face to face has drastically changed as the
enhancement social media connecting one another in virtual space such as Skype with
little effort. In some sense, Facebook is a human encyclopedia of an individual
and their thoughts/feelings through their comments at a given moment. You don’t
need mind reading abilities to understand someone, you jut have to look at
their page. In contrast with the physical world, people on social media seemed
to be more trusting to the Internet by saying things they would probably never
say in a real situation. A great quote from the Andrew reading, “Unlike Vegas,
what happens in Facebook doesn’t stay in Facebook.” Thus as I previously stated
that this is analogous to an encyclopedia, future generation will probably find
an individual’s primary information about their depth of thinking because once
online, always online.
Facebook is an independent company that the
government cant control, and today’s governments around the world are having a
difficult time deciding how it can influence Facebook in providing some “laws”
that can be placed within the site. The Nation of Facebook seems to be only
dictated by those who created it, and in some sense shows no democracy. They
made the system, and they make the rules of that system. Although the
government probably can’t influence Facebook much, what can influence it are
the people who use it. An indirect democracy can cause major change from
Facebook and other social media sites. If there is an aspect, such as making
your friends list public, that the majority of the people dislike, this may lead
to excessive complaints to the social media site headquarters and even
abandoning the site. In most cases, people do have the power.
Some good points here, Syed. I like that you were attentive to the idea that Facebook is, ultimately, software--if there is one thing that the week on games should have taught us, it is that code and algorithm structure the way that we may operate in a software environment, be it a game or no. Youmans and York make this point, using Lessig, but they also suggest that social media companies can be unduly influenced by state governments. If the ultimate drive is to make money, concessions will be made to avoid legal embroilment and to gain access to closed markets (think of Google in China).
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