You’ve probably heard this one: BuzzFeed reporter Ryan Broderick creates an ’empty’ Facebook profile and sees where the algorith takes him = down the rabbithole into a twilight zone of soft-porn, neo-Nazis, Trump-worshipper memes, and alt-right hate groups.
Kaitlyn Tiffany, staff writer at The Atlantic, replicated the experiment but with even less personal information, and reports that “Facebook has started to resemble something undead” and that even if you avoid politics, you still get sucked into the abyss. Seems like the experience drove her drink and doxxing:
While I’m certain we’re all reassured that Mark Zuckerberg feels responsible for giving QAnon, Covid-denialists, and the incel movement a place to call home, his plans aren’t to evict paying tenants, just to make it harder for shipwrecked users to drift to their island on the algorithmic current.
Because a feature of the juvenile exposé, and Facebook’s defence to the universally negative imputations, is that Broderick and Tiffany and all the other kids out there looking for their “Gotcha!” moments aren’t using Facemash right. It’s all about connecting with friends and family, and rating hot chicks.
Which is why I’m not on there. My family is right here, and I have no friends. But if you are a real human as defined in the end-user agreements of all social meda platforms, then why would you fuck with your own future by gaming Facebook for some stupid article?
Especially if it’s already been done??
It isn’t just the evil agents of the consumer cult that are stalking you.
Prospective employers check your Facebook. Potential life-partners check your Facebook. Your mum checks your Facebook! If you’ve ever been detained at an airport, you know they check your social media before they snap on the blue gloves.
I have a Facebook page that links to this blog, otherwise it’s inactive. I have a Twitter account which provokes an occasional outburst. Instagram isfull of advertising and inane pap. Pinterest scared me off by constantly sending me boards full of white lace Oriental wedding dresses wtf.
Anyhoo, on my next undercover mission to Zagorsk-6 to confirm it was Vladdy and not Emperor Xi who created SARS-CoV (258 million cases, 5 million deaths, and counting) I’ll pass undetected through customs at Sheremetyevo with my banal social-media activities.
But if my Facebook account was flagged as ‘fake’, don’t you think the politsia will look even harder?
Everyone is hating on Facebook at the moment (sorry, can’t bring myself to call it Meta), but I’m not joining the Millenial stampede to heap scorn on a platform where sad ladies in their 50’s share photos of puppies and grandkids who don’t visit.
Not because I have empathy for ladies or puppies, or because I plan to travel to Russia. It’s just that (sorry Mark Z) I don’t care what happens to Facebook.