The defining characteristic of our times is this: everyone wants to tell everyone else what to do.
Especially when it comes to Facebook.
Twitter, too. And TikTok. But mostly Facebook.
Everyone want to fix Facebook.
Here’s why I, for one, would rather leave Facebook alone.
First or Second Class?
When we think about Facebook, we tend to separate humanity into two classes.
There’s the thinking class: people like you and me. We’re the ones who are clever enough to make the rules, who can be trusted to make the right rules.
Then there’s the unthinking class: people we’ve never met. They’re not so clever. They can’t be trusted. They need our help. They’re the ones we’ll be forcing to follow our rules.
Here’s the thing: that second class of humanity doesn’t exist.
I’m with stupid
This isn’t a problem when we’re talking about Facebook: it’s fun to opine that Facebook should do this, Facebook should do that.
It is a problem when we use Facebook.
I know, I know, you’re not on Facebook. Good for you. That makes it easier for you to dream up draconian restrictions: you’ll never suffer the consequences yourself.
3½ billion of us, however, are on Facebook.
Please spare a thought for us.
When Facebook, responding to the barrage of opining from the First Class of humanity, imposes restrictions on us, here’s how it feels.
It feels like we’re being treated like people who can’t think for ourselves, who aren’t so clever, who can’t be trusted.
It feels like we’ve been demoted to that Second Class of humanity.
It feels like our lot in life is to be told what to do by the First Class.
I don’t know whether you’ll like this
Take Instagram likes.
(By the way, in case you missed the memo, Instagram is Facebook. If you’re on Instagram, you’re on Facebook. Sorry.)
Do you have any idea how patronizing it is to be told by a bunch of twenty-something techies in Silicon Valley that we’re not allowed to see numbers of likes?
Thing is, we’re not quite as stupid as the twenty-something techies think we are. Facebook knows how many likes my post gets, and it knows how many likes your post gets. And we know that Facebook knows, and that they’re hiding it from us, because those twenty-something techies think that we can’t be trusted with the truth.
Don’t get any ideas
It’s not just numbers of likes we’re not allowed to see.
We’re not allowed to see ideas that question what the unelected technocrats in Silicon Valley want us to believe. Even if those ideas of what’s going on in the world turn out to be true.
We’re not allowed to see ideas voiced by people the unelected technocrats in Silicon Valley don’t like. Even if the person is an elected President of the United States.
Here’s the problem.
That First Class of humanity – the thinking class, the people like you and me – imposes well-meaning strictures on that Second Class of humanity – the unthinking class, the people we’ve never met – only to discover that – surprise! – there is no Second Class of humanity.
Those irritating strictures aren’t being imposed on unthinking people we’ve never met, they’re being imposed on thinking people like you and me.
People who don’t need the help of clever people like you and me, because they are clever people like you and me.
Last one to leave, please turn out the lights
I don’t know if I’ll persuade you that other people can be trusted with the truth.
But I think you’ll agree that you can be trusted with the truth.
And I think you’ll also agree that if people like you and me aren’t trusted with the truth, if it’s hidden from us – if we’re the ones who are clamouring for the truth to be hidden from ourselves – then the Enlightenment is in serious trouble.
What would happen if we left Facebook alone?
I’ll come clean here: I really don’t like Facebook.
But…
If we start making rules about what Facebook should and shouldn’t do, we’ll only entrench it. Alternatives to Facebook will be suffocated by regulations that dictate what social networks can and can’t do.
If, instead, we leave Facebook to do whatever it likes, we’ll also leave Facebook’s competitors to do whatever they like. Including Facebook competitors that don’t even exist yet. Alternatives to Facebook will thrive, free to be better than Facebook.
It may seem unimaginable that any significant number of those 3½ billion Facebook users will ever use these alternatives.
Yet business history is riddled with companies like IBM, AOL, Yahoo and Kodak – remember Kodak? – whose positions once seemed unassailable.
Let’s leave Facebook alone, free to fail slowly, and exercise our own freedom to invent something better.