Complicity

Guest Post by Eric Peters

Government, that supposedly necessary evil, is very hard to get rid of. You’re allowed to vote for the lesser of two evils. Never allowed to vote for no evil at all.

But it would be very easy to get rid of some unnecessary evils – among them Facebook.

We can’t vote Mark Zuckerberg out of an office he was never elected to – one he is trying very hard to assume – that of Decider of our thoughts… should we dare to express them… by making us afraid to express them.

However, we can decide we don’t “like” him – or his digital authoritarianism – and stop using the mechanism by which he was acquired so much power over us. It’s the most powerful form of voting there is – and at least for now, we have this franchise and would be fools not to use it while there is still time.

We are in a position analogous to the moment which existed before the 16th Amendment – or the passage of the equally odious “Patriot” Act. Better positioned, because this time, our fate is directly in our own hands.

We can get rid of Facebook – or at least, put it in its proper place.

If only we will act . . .

It is hard to avoid dealing with Facebook, certainly.

The thing has weirdly and probably not coincidentally penetrated almost every nook and cranny of our lives. It is interesting to speculate how it came to be that so many modern transactions demand – though they still lack the power to require – “signing up” on Facebook in order to proceed. Even dating apps try to make you “sign in” via Facebook, though they are separate businesses and have no other connection with Facebook.

How did it get to be Mark Zuckerberg’s business whom we are interested in romantically?

The supermarket wants you to “sign up.” My dentists’ office asks that patients “like” his practice on Facebook. The local middle school has a digital billboard  encouraging those interested to “look them up” on you-know-where.

It’s as if Facebook is interested in knowing everything about us and profiting from the knowledge, whether financially or – as is becoming increasingly and frighteningly obvious – politically.

Knowledge is, indeed, power. And Facebook is beginning to flex it.

Imagine having to “sign up” on Facebook before you’re allowed to vote for the lesser of two evils – as decided by Mark Zuckerberg.

This is not a postulation to be laughed at.

Zuckerberg is already using Facebook to punish those whose views – not specified, precisely – are, as he styles it, “hateful.” No one knows exactly what this means except that Mark Zuckerberg does not like the views being expressed.

We are to intuit his preferences – or else.

This  unelected kid is becoming the arbiter of what we’re allowed to say by making us afraid to say what we’d like to say by making us fear that we might say something “hateful” or “dangerous”  . . . that is to say, something Mark Zuckerberg considers “hateful” or “dangerous”… whatever that means.

It will probably soon be decreed “dangerous” and “hateful” to not “like” Facebook!

He is erecting something functionally analogous to the social credit/social shaming scheme that the Chinese communists are using to Thought Police their people – not with bayonets this time, but by crippling their ability to function economically.

This creepy kid wants to do the same here – and is doing it. But with the complicity of the people who continue to freely sanction it by continuing to invite Mark Zuckerberg into their lives. It is like the vampire who cannot drain your blood unless you invite him into your home.

And there’s the key!

We can simply decide to not invite the information vampire Zuckerberg into our homes – and our lives – via the simple expedient of not “signing up,” “liking” or posting anything on Facebook.

Just stop going there. Delete the app. Tell merchants/businesses who ask you to “sign up” that you won’t – and then tell them why.

Then tell your friends you wont be “friending” them anymore, but that they are still very much your friends.

We had friends before we “friended” them on Facebook – and will have them if Facebook ceased to exist tomorrow. There are myriad other ways to “keep in touch” – including modern ways – that do not require Mark Zuckerberg as a middleman or Mark Zuckerberg’s permission.

This kid has somehow become a kind of digital dictator who has no real authority except that which we have given him – and which we still have it in our power to rescind any time we wish.

Which power we’d better exercise soon, before this kid acquires new powers. Before he is in a position to force us to “sign up” – and to “like” Facebook –  in order to transact business. Cash or deposit checks. Apply for loans.

Buy groceries.

Before we’re allowed to do anything – possibly even use the bathroom in our own home (imagine a small touchscreen adjacent to the door, requiring you to “sign up” before it will open).

If you have been deemed “hateful” or “dangerous,” it’s the outhouse for you.

It’s time to unfriend Zuckerberg – and the rest of the digital panopticon being erected with almost unreal effrontery, right in front of our faces.

We can be forgiven for having been suckered – at first.

Facebook – a sophomorically named thing – seemed innocuous, initially; a “cool” way to keep in touch with people, to reconnect wth people and to connect with more people. But that bait has been switched and if we continue to nibble at it, we’ll have no one to blame but ourselves when the trap snaps closed.

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