6. 7. 2020
If even the combined power of giant companies like Unilever and Coca-Cola doesn’t scare Mark Zuckerberg, who can hold Facebook accountable?
There is no power in this world that can hold Facebook accountable. No parliament, no judiciary, no regulatory authority. The US Congress has failed. The European Union has failed. When Facebook was fined by the US Federal Trade Commission for a record $ 5 billion for its involvement in the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the value of Facebook shares rose in response.
Which means the current moment is very interesting and maybe epoch-making. If a successful boycott of Facebook by some of the world’s largest companies – Unilever, Coca-Cola, Starbucks, it will only be because it has focused on the only thing Facebook understands – its revenue. And if this boycott also fails, it will be another milestone.
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Because Facebook, it is a company that allowed foreign powers to attack the US presidential election, broadcast the massacre live to millions of people around the world, and helped provoke genocide.
I’ll say it one more time. This company helped provoke genocide. A UN report says Facebook’s use has played a “decisive role” in inciting hatred and violence against the Rohingya tribe in Myanmar. As a result, tens of thousands of people were killed and hundreds of thousands had to flee to save their lives.
I often think of that message. When I watch documentaries in which Facebook employees play ping-pong in the safety of their Menlo Park. When I went there this year and walked down the “normal” street, where Mark Zuckerberg lives his completely normal life as the only person with decision-making powers in a company the world has never experienced before. When I heard that Maria Ressa, a Filipino journalist who had done so much work in warning against the dangers of Facebook, was sentenced to prison. When I read Orwell’s defense, former British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg wrote last week: “Platforms like Facebook set up a mirror for companies,” he wrote.
Facebook is not a mirror. It’s a firearm. It does not require any permission to use it – it is in the hands and homes of 2.6 billion people, it is infiltrated by secret agents working for different states, it is a laboratory for groups that praise the cleansing role of the Holocaust and believe that the 5G system sleep fry the brain.
People sometimes say that if Facebook was a state, it would be bigger than China. But this is the wrong analogy. If Facebook were a state, it would be a rogue state. It would be North Korea. And it’s not a firearm. It’s a nuclear weapon.
Because Facebook is not a company. It is a dictatorship, a global empire ruled by a single person. Who simply chose to ignore his critics around the world.
Instead, Facebook continues to spread ruthlessly incredible, increasingly absurd propaganda, while fully controlling its main distribution channels. And just as DPRK citizens do not have the opportunity to operate outside the state, it is almost impossible today to be alive and to live a life untouched by Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram.
The #StopHateForProfit (Focus on Hate for Profit) campaign focuses on hate speech. This is what has brought together six US civil rights organizations to lobby advertisers to stop running their ads for July. It’s a campaign triggered by Facebook’s decision not to remove Donald Trump’s statement threatening violence against Black Lives Matter protesters: “When looting begins, shooting will begin.”
But this is far more serious than Facebook’s hate problem. And it’s far from outside the United States, although Facebook’s role in the upcoming presidential election will be crucial (and it should be pointed out that the #StopHateForProfit campaign does not call for the blocking of lying in political advertising, which is vital). Facebook is hurting the world globally. Its threat to democracy is existential.
Is it a coincidence that the three countries that have failed to deal with the coronavirus pandemic are those whose campaigns have been used by Facebook’s populist leaders to spread lies on a huge scale? Trump, Bolsonaro, Johnson.
And if you don’t care about democracy, think about coronavirus for a moment. If a vaccine is actually developed against him, will enough people be willing to take it? Facebook is full of vaccine activists, as if infected with anti-Semitism.
Zuckerberg is not Kim Jong-un. Zuckerberg is far, far more powerful. Although 500 companies have joined the boycott of Facebook, the Wall Street Journal reports that this means only a five percent drop in Facebook’s profits. It is possible that Facebook is not just bigger than China. It is probably bigger than capitalism.
After all, it’s all up to us and our wallets and what we say to all these companies. Because the world must realize that no one will save it. Trump and Zuckerberg have formed a strategic alliance. Only the United States has the power to cut Zuckerberg’s wings. And only Facebook has the power to prevent Trump from spreading lies.
Sometimes we just don’t realize key moments in history, and then it’s too late. And sometimes we realize them. It’s not too late. But almost.
Details in English HERE
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