It seems as that human history swings between faith and reason, The time of a crisis is a good time for faith… once reason has failed providing solutions for the capricious masses. Don’t be scared, dear reader, by the old ideologies. We don’t risk falling in to the fanaticism of the 30’s, but a good witch-hunt is still an option.
Persecuting ‘evils’ has always been effective in reinforcing collective faith and the opportunity during this crisis, might come from the least expected – the new places of collective aggregation. Are social networks a new source of ideology and discrimination?
Last week I was banned from Facebook, the most popular of the social networks. My profile was cancelled because I breached some rules. When I tried to log in I received an automatic message. The access was denied. I wrote an email to membership enquiry asking for a more detailed explanation but haven’t got any answer yet. I’ve been ostracized from the community, lost all pictures and contacts without any further explication. I was treated worst than a criminal without any possibility for an appeal!
Friends and colleagues weren’t surprised. They all had a laugh. Some blamed me, confident that I had posted pornographic pictures and calling me a ‘sex pest’. One of them, trusting the rationality of the system, explained my case a casualty of the security systems which protect kids from cyber-peados. Very few expressed solidarity. Another one confessed that he was intrigued. He didn’t know I was on Facebook and would have liked to see the censored pages. Acutally, I guess I just solicited too many strangers for friendship.
What’s the point of social networks if you do not have the opportunity to link to people who you wouldn’t have the opportunity to meet otherwise? Im not interested in Facebook or other social networks to exchange with people I regularly see or can meet face-to-face. Otherwise we would turn electronic communication in to an obsessive duplication of reality or a substitution of it for dysfunctional individuals.
Have I been punished for using Facebook in an appropriate or unusual way? Any infrastructure of communication could be used by everybody in different ways. When the Wright Brothers flew for the first time, nobody could have foreseen September 11th. Have we stopped building planes or forbidding Muslims to take flights since then? Sould we take a different view on social networks because of cyber-paedos or people like me?
The Spanish caravels brought Colombo, the conquistadores and diseases to the New World. They wiped out the existing civilisations and built the basis for new ones, at the same time. The United States inclded. Now, some of them rule the world.
Despite some young idealists who think that new technologies and social networks are the source of a revolution that will eventually turn the world in to heaven – don’t miss the decumentary UsNow – these innovations are causing dramatic changes globally: some expected, some feared and others unplanned. We can’t stop the process through fear of peados or trying to prevent unplanned uses of the technology. This would kill innovation and turn the world in to a pious factory. Perhaps, Benny would love this end.
Accept that history is a bloodbath and someone has just got to pay an extra bill. If you need some training on this matter and have the stomach, watch the TV show Rome (once you ‘ve got the parental permission).
Fortunately there are always agents of chaos which pave the way of progress. We won’t give up to preachers and barbarians. Therefore, I’ve just moved to Twitter. Don’t miss me. See filippoaddarii.
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