Social Network Facebook: The New Home of the Bourgeois Individual
http://mostlywater.org/social_network_facebook_new_home_bourgeois_indivi...
"...the user as a public persona: the really existing caricature of the bourgeois competitor and market participant.."
But, but, but.... what about the discreet charm of the bourgeoisie? Who's thinking of the poor bourgeoisie? 
neither discreet nor charming...
Excellent post, ElizaQ...
There's a lot in that article. Food for thought.
My first impression, from the first part of the article where he talks about how it is a mechinism where the user chooses how to present themselves to the world, the 'public' personna is that this really isn't a whole lot different then what anyone does on the net where personal, opinions, likes, dislikes etc are written down in text. People do the same thing on babble. Any post is a choice as to what to share with the wider public. It's also really not much different then people chosing what to present to the wider public whenever people step out the door of their home. What we wear, who we talk to, how we talk, the communities of people were choose to associate with in our public lives, what we talk about etc are all choices made as a presentation of our public self. Facebook hasn't created this whole notion of a persons 'public personna' , it has just taken it into another sphere and as the author commented about, taken it to a more global sphere where more people have access and created an sort of all in one spot digital 'summary' so to speak. I'd say that is it a more superficial summary, quickie snippets in most cases, limited by the structures in place for the presentation but similar to non digital life it also provides choices of just how much a person lets people into the more private spheres of their lives.
Whether I like it or not I have a public personna within my community, people know the public me, what I do, who I'm friends with, my opinions. People in public know the more private me to varying degrees depending on how close we are and the nature of our relationships. I find that in a smaller community vs a big one, provides more awareness as to the consquences, both positive and negative, of the public me interacts with all the other public personnas that make up it's sphere of influence. It's a type of an awareness that I just didn't get when living in a much bigger community (city). My personal ideas and feelings about anonimity changed. I can see the same patterns of social interaction happening that the author describes facebook doing just expanded into an even bigger sphere.
One example comes to mind. One time I had pnemonia. I called in sick to work. Found out it was a topic of conversation at the local bridge club. It was acknowledged to the point that a couple of people that I barely knew and one who I had never met (but knew of me through a friend) dropped by with food and once nice man cut my acre of grass. My Aunt, who I hadn't told, phoned me saying she had heard through a person (who I didn't know) who had heard from another person that I was sick. That one call (post) flitted and flew around that social nettwork fast. Another example, in a conversation I made it know publically to a homecare client that I was single. (status). Again it flew around the nettwork. Three consequences occured that I became aware of, one I got two invitations from the sons of people who I sorta knew for dates. One was came from a note directly in the mail box on my road! The other was specualation that maybe I was single because I was homosexual because heck I was a woman who lived alone. The third was I got negative reactions from some other women if I talked to their 'man'. And after one random conversation about gardening soil, dirt and fertlizer in a store with one woman's 'man' I got wind of the rumor that I was really just interested in dirt in order to try to steal him. lol I can't help but see the same patterns occuring in a social digital nettwork. The nasty and negative comments that can occur after a 'post' and the direct mailbox drop message in relation to my public status.
I suppose though what something like facebook does is provide a structure where the user can directly see the reaction to their public choices. Reactions and thoughts that occur to people in the non-digital world whether the person is aware of them or not.
The other aspect which I think is more in point to the title of the OP is the consumer angle. That it makes a personnas public personna more accessible and useful to the consumer business world in the form of an easy, one spot snippets of data to be used and sometimes abused in the search for profit. It brings the products and people who want people to consume them into a much closer relationship and more direct then it has ever been possible before. This is what is new, though the desires behind this relationship isn't.
edited to add: Because of the this more direct relationship, built into the structure itself, the user who may not be or doesn't consider themselves as part of the bourgeis does become a part of the wider economic mechnisms used to service the 'market' and the material interests of our wider society. It is something to be aware of.
Would Sarte have a Facebook account? Camus?
Would Sarte have a Facebook account? Camus?
Depends on whether you think someone like sarte would put stock in Facebook friends. I know many people think South Park is low brow humour but they, IMO, hit it right on with the episode "You have 0 Friends".
Facebook is all about the accumulation of "friends". A facebook page with 0 friends is not worth as much as a facebook page with 20,000 friends. People trade friends like wall street. Facebook is human shallowness boiled down to it's most basic element.
Sartre might have had facebook friends if he was trying to promote a book or something. :D
I second Sven, Eliza - great post!
I had over 250 FB friends at one time, but I dumped many that I never communicated with. I never understood the point of having FB friends you don't communicate with.
"Who is greater, the user or the profile".
(Credit to Trey Parker)
Would Sarte have a Facebook account? Camus?
Depends on whether you think someone like sarte would put stock in Facebook friends. I know many people think South Park is low brow humour but they, IMO, hit it right on with the episode "You have 0 Friends".
Facebook is all about the accumulation of "friends". A facebook page with 0 friends is not worth as much as a facebook page with 20,000 friends. People trade friends like wall street. Facebook is human shallowness boiled down to it's most basic element.
I have to disagree that it's only about the accumulation of friends. For some people this may the case and "I have such and such a number of friends I'm cool. woo!" Other people use it to keep in touch with people they actually know. I avoided using it that much and still don't ever post much myself but most of most of my close family and a whole lot of extended family all use it to varying extents and I eventually gave in. I find it great to get little snippets and sharing about what people are doing beyond the 'catch up' that occurs on family holidays. My sister uses it a lot and post pictures and comments around things she and my nephew does. These little things are all things I would know and see when I was living close to her and see her regularly but now we're 4000k apart. It really helps in the feeling that our lives are a bit closer beyond a weekly phonecall. We regularly talk about the events and things she posts about in those phone calls and I can easily see pictures as she's talking.
Sure this could be all done through emails but it is a lot easier to make one post for those interested in seeing and have the subsequent conversation all in one place. I also have more contact with family members that before facebook I only ever saw once every few years. That has all been quite positive. For my family it has evolved into a mini digital hub of sorts where people share the big things as well as little things.
I have it set up with different levels of 'friends' so aquaintences don't necessarily see all the family going on.
I have a group of friends that I only know through online 'playing' in a couple of games. People who I share that particular interest in and it's just nice to see the face behind the text or voice and get small glimpse of other things besides just our common ground. These are people I will probably never meet in person, but would if distance wasn't an issue. In one case, though a sad one person 'disappeared' from the game with no comment. People were concerned. It was through facebook that we discovered that he had been killed in an accident after one of his family members posted about it. His family then recieved messages of condolences from this game realm that they had little idea that he had participated in. His Mom posted that she really appreciated finding out a bit about this part of her son in her time of grief. My life wouldn't have been any worse if I never found out why he disappeared, just one of those internet things that happens, but it was good to find out what had happened to this person that I had had contact and lots of fun with for over six months, even if it was never a face to face meeting.
That's just one example. I expect that without Facebook that group would find another way to connect beyond the game in the digital realm but Facebook just happens to be set up for that sort of purpose.
Would Sarte have a Facebook account? Camus?
Depends on whether you think someone like sarte would put stock in Facebook friends. I know many people think South Park is low brow humour but they, IMO, hit it right on with the episode "You have 0 Friends".
Facebook is all about the accumulation of "friends". A facebook page with 0 friends is not worth as much as a facebook page with 20,000 friends. People trade friends like wall street. Facebook is human shallowness boiled down to it's most basic element.
I have to disagree that it's only about the accumulation of friends. For some people this may the case and "I have such and such a number of friends I'm cool. woo!" Other people use it to keep in touch with people they actually know. I avoided using it that much and still don't ever post much myself but most of most of my close family and a whole lot of extended family all use it to varying extents and I eventually gave in. I find it great to get little snippets and sharing about what people are doing beyond the 'catch up' that occurs on family holidays. My sister uses it a lot and post pictures and comments around things she and my nephew does. These little things are all things I would know and see when I was living close to her and see her regularly but now we're 4000k apart. It really helps in the feeling that our lives are a bit closer beyond a weekly phonecall. We regularly talk about the events and things she posts about in those phone calls and I can easily see pictures as she's talking.
Sure this could be all done through emails but it is a lot easier to make one post for those interested in seeing and have the subsequent conversation all in one place. I also have more contact with family members that before facebook I only ever saw once every few years. That has all been quite positive. For my family it has evolved into a mini digital hub of sorts where people share the big things as well as little things.
I have it set up with different levels of 'friends' so aquaintences don't necessarily see all the family going on.
I have a group of friends that I only know through online 'playing' in a couple of games. People who I share that particular interest in and it's just nice to see the face behind the text or voice and get small glimpse of other things besides just our common ground. These are people I will probably never meet in person, but would if distance wasn't an issue. In one case, though a sad one person 'disappeared' from the game with no comment. People were concerned. It was through facebook that we discovered that he had been killed in an accident after one of his family members posted about it. His family then recieved messages of condolences from this game realm that they had little idea that he had participated in. His Mom posted that she really appreciated finding out a bit about this part of her son in her time of grief. My life wouldn't have been any worse if I never found out why he disappeared, just one of those internet things that happens, but it was good to find out what had happened to this person that I had had contact and lots of fun with for over six months, even if it was never a face to face meeting.
That's just one example. I expect that without Facebook that group would find another way to connect beyond the game in the digital realm but Facebook just happens to be set up for that sort of purpose.
Do you have a virtual farm I can visit?
Do you have a virual farm I can visit?
lol Um I have one that may still exist from a couple of years ago. Dunno. The games I'm refering to are MMOs, one main one, not connected with facebook.
I was friends with Frantz Fanon for a while. We'd poke each other.
I was friends with Frantz Fanon for a while. We'd poke each other.
Thanks Maysie. Without a Facebook account, I might never have known.
I'm more pure than you are, rr. I got off facebook months ago! Nyah nyah.
I'm more pure than you are, rr. I got off facebook months ago! Nyah nyah.
You definitely get points for that...but I actually use my Diaspora* account
I'm more pure than you are, rr. I got off facebook months ago! Nyah nyah.
You definitely get points for that...but I actually use my Diaspora* account
LOL. I figured someone must be using Diaspora*. I signed up maybe a year ago, but there didn't appear to be anyone else to interact with.
We need to change social networking so that to the greatest extent possible the users control it.
Why don't you set up and promote an alternative social networking site that is a user-controlled site?
I signed up [for Diaspora*] maybe a year ago, but there didn't appear to be anyone else to interact with.
And what might that tell you about the level of interest people have in Diaspora*?
Kinda like the first year of Christianity or Islam, sven. Takes at least 18 months to go viral.
We need to change social networking so that to the greatest extent possible the users control it.
Why don't you set up and promote an alternative social networking site that is a user-controlled site?
Well to tell you the truth putting up a Diaspora* server is one of the things I'd like to work on when I get the time...as part of a self-learning and training exercise. Little things like having a job get in the way...but hey...you put up six months worth of my salary and I'll get to it. In the meantime though I've made donations to both the Diaspora* project and the Freedom Box Foundation because I think they're both good things to do.
LOL. I figured someone must be using Diaspora*. I signed up maybe a year ago, but there didn't appear to be anyone else to interact with.
I signed up with similar results. Mind you, I kinda lost faith when I found out that [url=https://www.facebook.com/pages/Diaspora/110637498985405]Diaspora* has a Facebook page!!!!![/url].
RR, aren't time and money two of the critical inputs needed to create a social network that would be even 1% of the size of Facebook?
The choice for users is, largely, this: Use Facebook for free or financially support an alternative (non-commercial) system. Because you're right: A meaningful alternative to FB would require huge amounts of time and money to create and maintain.
LOL. I figured someone must be using Diaspora*. I signed up maybe a year ago, but there didn't appear to be anyone else to interact with.
I signed up with similar results. Mind you, I kinda lost faith when I found out that [url=https://www.facebook.com/pages/Diaspora/110637498985405]Diaspora has a Facebook page!!!!![/url].Hey don't feel bad...I still have a Facebook page...but I often use it to promote things that are "anti-Facebook". Diaspora* has about maybe 300,000 users world-wide right now...small by world standards, but nothing to sneeze at considering that it started up with four university kids from NYU with an idea and about $200,000 raised on Kickstarter.
Moglen talks about it probably taking about ten years to dethrone Facebook. The trick will be to make it fairly seemless to move from one corporate network to a non-corporate network. Will it work? Who knows but it's well worth trying.
It took many years but Pinochet, Mubarak, Somoza and lots of other nasty folks and their regimes are gone now. The regime of Zuckerburg is worth trying to overthrow as well.
RR, what features does Diaspora* offer a user which are unavailable elsewhere? Most people are not going drop FB for political reasons.
Zuckerburg = Pinochet, Mubarak, etc.?
Are...you...bloody...serious?!?
I knew Eben at Columbia. He's great.
Zuckerburg = Pinochet, Mubarak, etc.?
Are...you...bloody...serious?!?
You're right. His spying machine is actually much better and more efficient. He doesn't need to torture people to get them to reveal their secrets. He gets them to do it voluntarily.
RR, what features does Diaspora* offer a user which are unavailable elsewhere? Most people are not going drop FB for political reasons.
For starters, no spying and no tracking of your movements around the net. There is NO central server. The people who started it up don't control it. You store your data on a server you trust. If you don't trust anyone at all, you could if you had the time and the skill, or the willingness to develop the skill put up your own pod server to host your own data...or get a geeky friend to do it.
It's incredibly easy with Diaspora to separate your "friends" into different categories of friends (they're called "aspects)...much easier than Facebook and because of that, you can much more easily control who sees what. Actually, Google+ kind of copied this feature from Diaspora*
You don't have to use your real name. If you want to call yourself "inkypinky807" you can do that. Facebook and Google+ have a "real names" policy. If you happen to be a political dissident living in a repressive regime, the ability to be anonymous can save your life. Or, if you just happen to be a civil servant and want to leak something bad that a government is doing, it's a relatively safe place to do it.
You can cross post to Facebook, Twitter and Tumblir from Diaspora*. You can't yet do things the other way around, but Diaspora* developers are working on this. This is part of the process of allowing people to eventually seemlessly move off of the corporate controlled networks.
There's no advertising clutter on your page...because no one is mining your personal info to sell to advertisers.
There are little things that I find that I like better. I find that I don't have to be quite so careful starting a new line in a longer post the way I do on FB. On FB, I've often had to delete a post because I happen to have accidently hit the "enter" button at the end of a line and then have had to re-post.
If you decide to quit Diaspora*, it's easy. You click on one button to download all of your personal data from the server. You click another button to close your account forever.
Quitting Facebook is really hard. It takes at least two weeks. Michelle did it...and you have to be careful not to even accidently click on anything Facebook related on any site on the net...otherwise your account is re-activated.
Also, you never really know whether or not FB has deleted the information you've uploaded to their servers. You just have to trust them.
If you want to play around with Diaspora* you can try this server. They're taking on new users. Get a few of your friends together and try it out.
RR, aren't time and money two of the critical inputs needed to create a social network that would be even 1% of the size of Facebook?
The choice for users is, largely, this: Use Facebook for free or financially support an alternative (non-commercial) system. Because you're right: A meaningful alternative to FB would require huge amounts of time and money to create and maintain.
Time yes, but not as much money as you would think.
It's very expensive to run a highly centralized system like FB where you have a single corporate overlord. A decentralized system requires a lot of people to do alot of little things. Diaspora* is a federated social network. A server can sit in a union office, someone's basement or wherever.
Also, Diaspora* isn't the only attempt at building a non-corporate social network with free software. There are a few others. And because all of these networks are using free software, they all have the ability to share code between them. If one project comes up with a nifty new way to do something then another project can incorporate what's been learned into their own project and vice versa.
If one free software social networking system totally flops, the code from that project is never "dead" the way it is with closed proprietary software. Someone else can pick and choose the bits that worked well and start something totally new.
For myself, if for example I wanted to do my own little Diaspora* pod server the only real costs I would have would be for a static IP. I have spare hardware kicking around, and the Diaspora* software is not only "free as in freedom" but also "free as in free beer". The only requirement is time. So if I could quit my day job, I could probably figure it all out and get it done. But since I can't, it'll get done whenever I'm in the mood to get uber-geeky.
If you watch the video that I linked to (and I'm not sure that you have), the trick will be to gradually and seemlessly move people from the centralized corporate controlled networks to the decentralized non corporate networks. Will it take work? Yes indeed. Is it worth doing? Definitely.
Eben Moglen on Facebook, Google and Government Surveillance (Youtube video from Publica Conference in Berlin May, 2012)
Eben Moglen is someone progressives should get to know when looking at net issues. He's the head of the Software Freedom Law Centre, a law professor at Columbia University (who worked for legendary progressive U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall), a leftie and a geek.
Moglen has provided the inspiration for projects like Diaspora* and the "Freedom Box"
He's my kind of people 
And no he doesn't have a Facebook page.
There's nothing wrong with social networking at all...and whether you want to use it to organize demonstrations...or to post cute pictures of your cat.
The question is who is controlling the network? And for what purpose? Right now things like Facebook are basically data mining services that profile the users in order to serve them customized advertising content.
We need to change social networking so that to the greatest extent possible the users control it. Moglen offers up ideas on how we can collectively do that.
I have a profile on Diaspora. radiorahim got me to do it. I never go there though. No cool games yet.
Kinda like the first year of Christianity or Islam, sven. Takes at least 18 months to go viral.
I knew there was a reason I felt itchy.
Zuckerburg = Pinochet, Mubarak, etc.?
Are...you...bloody...serious?!?
You're right. His spying machine is actually much better and more efficient. He doesn't need to torture people to get them to reveal their secrets. He gets them to do it voluntarily.
Unionist, if you're on Diaspora, look me up. I just downloaded it to my Android phone (and no, it doesn't ask for any permissions other than access to internet!), so I'm hoping to be a lot more active on it.
The thing I've missed about Facebook is not being able to share photos with friends and family. If I can get my family to get onto Diaspora, then hopefully I'll be able to at least share stuff with them that way.
And what I do like about Diaspora is how easy it is to put people in your contacts into categories (called "aspects") and to not mistakenly post something publicly that you only want, say, family to see, or activists to see, or whatever. And you can put people into more than one category or all of them or just one, so that if you post a picture you only want family and close friends to see, the activist friend-of-a-friend that you don't know personally won't see it. And if you want to post something political, you can choose your "activist" category only and only those contacts of yours that you have checked off on that list will see it, while your troglodyte third cousin George the dickwad baiter who makes holiday dinners a misery won't see it.
I know Facebook allows you to categorize your friends as well, but I remember it not being anywhere near as easy to filter your posts there. Not to mention that Diaspora doesn't have those annoying sidebars that compromise your privacy when friends comment on your post, showing your post to their friends if you don't have convoluted privacy settings set perfectly.
The privacy settings on Diaspora are easy. Those who you have checked off see your posts. Those you don't have checked off don't see them. Period.
I have a profile on Diaspora. radiorahim got me to do it. I never go there though. No cool games yet.
Most of the cool games on FB also spy on you. So, play the games if you want to, as long as you're aware of the spying.
Actually, what I like about Diaspora is that there are no games there (as far as I know). The privacy issues were one reason I left Facebook, but the main reason is because the games were so damned addictive and such a time suck. I don't miss the games at all, not even a little bit.
Facebook games are kind of like a casino. Most of them force you to accumulate points or items or game plays by either harassing your friends to participate constantly, or by paying money, or by logging in regularly and building them over the length of time you play the game or are logged in. It's completely addictive, encourages you to spend so much time doing it, and pestering your friends to do it too.
Now I am back to just playing some of my tried-and-true games on my own computer that I play for a while until they get boring. Then I turn my computer off and get on with real life, something I found myself doing less and less of, the more I got sucked into Facebook and their stupid, spying, addictive games.
Hey thanks for the info on Dispora! I have an account now. Going to work at getting my some of my facebook 'friends' to get on it too. I already know several that will be into the non-corporate thing.
Actually, what I like about Diaspora is that there are no games there (as far as I know). The privacy issues were one reason I left Facebook, but the main reason is because the games were so damned addictive and such a time suck. I don't miss the games at all, not even a little bit.
Facebook games are kind of like a casino. Most of them force you to accumulate points or items or game plays by either harassing your friends to participate constantly, or by paying money, or by logging in regularly and building them over the length of time you play the game or are logged in. It's completely addictive, encourages you to spend so much time doing it, and pestering your friends to do it too.
Now I am back to just playing some of my tried-and-true games on my own computer that I play for a while until they get boring. Then I turn my computer off and get on with real life, something I found myself doing less and less of, the more I got sucked into Facebook and their stupid, spying, addictive games.
There are a couple of games I occasionally play. I know what you're talking about though. My Mom plays quite a bit and got me to try the ones she did and blam...I was spending way too long playing these things. I love games so it wasn't hard sell. Never paid real money though. I never bugged my rl friends though unless they were already playing. I ended up getting lots of random people, stuck them in a 'games' list with privacy settings and played with them. I ended up just stopping one day and deleteing all the games. Now I have two games I play which at any one time give maybe 10 mins of play in a go. I find them perfect for taking a small break with a cup of tea during the day. My other non Facebook games are not good for short spurts of play lol. I start them and then suddenly it's an hour later.
I just figured out a plus to my facebook game mini-addiction though. I still have tons of the 'game' people sitting around on my list. Now they'll all get to see my Dispora posts which I'll be sharing on Facebook. lol
Hey thanks for the info on Dispora! I have an account now. Going to work at getting my some of my facebook 'friends' to get on it too. I already know several that will be into the non-corporate thing.
Right now you'll find that most Diaspora* users tend to be on the lefty side and so you'll feel quite at home! Come on aboard and play...and be one of the really really cool kids
That's a good point, about the games, Eliza! I never friended people on Facebook that I didn't know either in real life, or from long acquaintence on babble, because I am picky about my privacy. So I didn't have "just gaming" friends. I probably would have been more successful at the games if I had! :)
P.S. I just posted a cute cat photo of rr and the cat. See, this is what I missed about Facebook! :D
Ok radiorahim, or whoever else would like to tackle this question:
Can you give me a [i]very[/i] quick blurb that I can send my innumerable Facebook and other friends along with a link to Diaspora*? I mean like 140 characters or less?
I want to be part of a freer future.
"Hi all! I'm moving over to Diaspora*, where privacy actually means something. All the sharing, none of the spying, and filled with non-corporate, open source, free software goodness!"
And I believe this pod is accepting new accounts, so you can give them this link:
https://diasp.org/users/sign_in
I tried to create an account, but my ISP is really slow tonight - can't even get on Facebook right now, although all my other regular pages are downloading okay. Will try again tomorrow. Dialup is a drag.
ps: got an email from a friend earlier that said Win8 will cost $40.00 to upgrade from Win7!
Thanks, Michelle!
dp
Michelle, I will try it! if others want to get in touch with me there, just let me know.
