Seeing Ourselves On Facebook

SEVENTY PERCENT OF AMERICAN ADULTS have a Facebook page, and over a billion worldwide. One hundred and ten percent of American millennials and teenagers spend at least six hours a day staring lovingly into their smart phone screens, and punching their smart keyboards with both thumbs, while walking, driving, or anything else. The market for social media is robust. A nation of narcissists, we delight in taking pictures of ourselves, our lovely upper middle class homes, our well behaved children, our pets, our vacations. We delight even more in posting these for all the world to see, as if the world gives a rat's ass. I have a Facebook page, only because my girlfriend, a generation younger than I, thought it objectionable not to have one, and probably because she wanted to assure herself that I am keeping track of her pets, children, lovely face, and lovely upper middle class home. I'm not, but I won't tell if you won't. Soon as I figure out how to delete my neglected page, I will, and I'll blame it on the Russians or the mainstream liberal media, to deflect responsibility away from me. My primary objection to Facebook, other than the narcissistic behavior it enables, is that by becoming a member, a member voluntarily, usually unwittingly, turns into a commodity to be marketed to large corporations for purposes of advertising. your pretty house and kids, all the info you post, analyzed, scrutinized, neatly plugged into patterns of consumption to determine the best approaches to separate one from one's money. Now a new and even more serious and nefarious problem is revealed" Facebook, it seems, was a primary vehicle through which Russian intelligence agencies displayed advertising designed to assist in the election of Donald Trump. the Russians wanted Trump elected because they perceived, strangely, that he is a nit wit, easily manipulated. The Russians spent hundreds of thousands of dollars disseminating what used to be called "false advertising", or "bullshit", but is now called "fake news". Fake news all targeted at Hillary Clinton, to show the American Facebook electorate what an evil, law breaking, communist, or whatever, she truly is, in the world of the right wing imagination. The FBI is all over this, and Mr. Zuckerberg confirms it, having previously denied it. Its easy to place ads on Facebook, and easy for Facebook to tacitly allow any kind of ad to appear. You just design the ad, submit it, and in it goes, without much prior examination of it by censors. Ads go where they will have the greatest impact, according to computer programs. Facebook, now under scrutiny by congress, has pledged to upgrade it "vetting" process ("vetting" in another of our current word of the month nominees). Unfortunately, this comes too late to prevent a foreign power from influencing and possibly determining the outcome of an important American election, but, better late than never. Too late for Hillary Clinton, too late for the American people to make an intelligent, well informed choice of leadership. All in all, maybe this is a small price to pay for the privilege of showing billions of people, who really don't give a rat's ass, our pretty new curtains in our pretty house.