Cory Doctorow, discussed in a previous post as someone whose “net to dissident’s advantage in revolutions” point of view is about half way to digital utopianism, discusses in this Guardian video a fundamental drawback to social media’s potential in MENA uprisings: lack of privacy at present.
Doctorow’s topic here is privacy more generally. I think his idea that kids should be instilled with a respect for their own privacy as opposed to a fear of transgressing the internet bounds their parents set for them is absolutely the right one. It is a way to train a generation which will be socially conditioned to have a much narrower sense of privacy even than my generation does to be skeptical of coercion into submission of information.
On revolutions, Doctorow has very immediate fear that regimes will data mine effectively enough to really put down a wide swath of resistance that would otherwise be vital to organizing effectively. We’ve studied internet shutdowns and IP address registration and tracking (which has made true anonymity a quaint dream for bloggers under rulers such as Mubarak), but the debate over social media and revolution always seems to be about relative impact of those media as a whole, and not about how particular platforms of dissent such as possibly Facebook are still subject to manipulation due to privacy.
The most cynical, but ultimately true, statement Doctorow makes is that Facebook is not built as a safe place for revolutionaries, and for as big and global a brand as Facebook, as for any other giant, multinational corporation, the object is good PR and a steadily good bottom line. Even before Facebook opened itself up to advertisers with their eyes on marketing directly to individuals, no one ever envisioned its most fitting use was political, and so it appears to have been difficult to adapt its settings quickly when thousands in the Middle East are dependent on this happening.
It can’t be all Facebook’s responsibility, as Doctorow points out. Activists and revolutionaries need to take the same precautions as anyone else dispensing information over the internet, and one of those precautions may be choosing networks other than Facebook. Doctorow is ultimately quite positive about progress being made towards protecting these users, but I wonder whether this is something Facebook can prioritize as it has little bearing on its larger goals (that is until it becomes visible enough to create a PR nightmare). If not, perhaps activists will look elsewhere for a platform of organization which fits their needs.
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