In march, at the peak of Facebook popularity, I quit. with four swift clicks of the mouse, I canceled my account. Gone was the entire online persona I had created for myself – profile pictures, interests and activities, work history, friends acquired – all carefully thought out to showcase to the world the very best version of me, all now deleted.
Should Adbusters be anti-Facebook?
- Paul
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- 11 Jun 2008
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- 8 comments
Here at Adbusters we advocate “unmediated experience” and encourage ourselves and others to...you know...take a break from the TV and the computer once and a while. It's not much more complicated than advocating a healthy life. Step away from the Big Mac; take a walk in the woods—that sort of thing. Steering people away from the google box may be uncontroversial wisdom, but personally I don’t take it so far as to ignore the obvious power that sites like Facebook, Digg, and Del.icio.us, and other social web technologies have to promote progressive politics and activist campaigns.
The argument seems to be between those who advocate a purist position ('Facebook is a huge evil corporation that violates people’s privacy and should be avoided like the plague') and a pragmatic position ('we can use Facebook for our own purposes and take steps to address our concerns about privacy'). Among Adbusters staff, there is no consensus. Some of us are on Facebook, some aren’t. Myself, I don’t have a Facebook account, but I have no problem with those who do, and think it’s fine that people have spontaneously created unofficial Adbusters groups on Facebook. I guess that makes me a pragmatist. As far as I’m concerned, groundswell technologies are ideally suited to getting the word out about media rights, alternative economics, the cult of advertising, and so on.
The Digg, Reddit, and Facebook buttons will remain on the bottom of our article pages. Let the debate continue.
Submission
Do You Have Facebook?
Does what happens in the Facebook stay in the Facebook?
- Admin
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- 05 Jun 2008
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- 29 comments
Essay
Facebook Suicide
The more Facebook infringes upon people's privacy, the more people need to kill their connection with the social-networking site.
- Micah M. White
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- 04 Jun 2008
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- 34 comments
You'll never find me on Facebook. You may scoff at my refusal – I used to do the same, rolling my eyes whenever my elders claimed resistance to the latest internet phenomenon – but Facebook is a scary, commercial dead-zone that's killing our real-world relationships.
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