What if Facebook was a country? Of course, I am not the first nor will I be the last to wonder what kind of society that would be. What would your government be like? And the ruler?
(You may also be interested in: The Wandering President)
To begin with, with 2,740 million ‘inhabitants’, the ‘Republic of Facebook’ would be the most populous country in the world, as it would practically double that of China, which has 1,423 million people. It would be eight times more populous than the United States, where there are barely 329 million inhabitants, and it would be almost thirteen times larger in population than Brazil. And not to mention our country, because the modest 50 million Colombians would represent only one fiftieth of the inhabitants of the ‘methanation’ founded by Zuckerberg, which is equivalent to approximately one third of the current population of the Earth, calculated in about 7.8 billion people. But beware: these figures are not just people.
Like it or not, those of us who access this social network too often or infrequently are just numbers; a few digits that turn us into something worse than a customer; thus very beautiful, original and inspiring names are invented to define us.
It may sound very romantic to say that we belong to a community, when in reality we are a package of data that engineers and Facebook robots use to multiply the income of that company in an enormous way. Not surprisingly, according to reports last month, Facebook reported that between January and September of this year it made profits of $ 29.085 million; an increase 62% higher than the profits of the same period last year.
The Republic of Facebook would be something like a mix between emirate, dictatorship and tax haven, where only what the supreme leader said would be done.
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At this point, it is worth remembering how absurd the suspicion of many people was who, in the midst of the pandemic crisis, protested when they were asked for some data to keep a public record of information. It is paradoxical to see that many of those who armed these tantrums, in order to protect their personal information, are the same ones who record each of their activities on social networks, especially on Facebook, thanks to which this company knows, Among other things, what kind of food do they like, what books interest them, what are their favorite brands when it comes to shopping, who are their friends – including ages, professions and email accounts – and so on.
Rather, what the DAS hounds found out when they illegally shot or followed magistrates, journalists and opponents of the democratic security regime was child’s play when compared to all the information Facebook has about us; with the aggravating circumstance that we ourselves voluntarily give it to them on a silver platter and we always update it. And that’s not the worst.
As has been reported in documentaries, journalistic investigations and even in court, what is worrisome is what Facebook does with all that information, since it not only uses it to direct advertising and recommend things that might interest us, but to sell it to third parties interested in manipulating our conduct, our personal relationships, our professional life, our social life and, by that right, our decisions in political matters, as evidenced by the Trump campaign five years ago.
But, going back to the initial musing, a hypothetical Republic of Facebook would be far from being a democracy. It would be something like a mix between emirate, dictatorship and tax haven, where only what the supreme leader said would be done and where all its inhabitants would monitor each other.
In fact, it would be the materialization of the nightmare portrayed by George Orwell in his novel ‘1984’, which after more than seventy years is still more relevant than ever.
Wait: “would it be?”
VLADDO
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(Read all columns of Vladdo in TIME, here)
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