Facebook's success seems to have forced it to outgrow and evolve from its original, limited, business boundaries and model to where it is now not just a social-media 'gimmick' (even though a social-media market dominator) but it has also become a major piece on the global political chessboard...a chessboard where apparently no one in Facebook's executive ranks has the experience, training or skills to play.
(And Facebook's leadership shouldn't be expected to play this new game where instead of leading a colt around in a fenced paddock, the original Facebook world, they are now expected to ride a full-grown warhorse into a wilderness among the big cats, hostiles, and outlaw gangs...without much of a clue. Facebook appears in shock. Mark Zuckerberg's appearance before the American Congress after the revelation of Russian co-option of simplistic Facebook advertising policies to influence the 2016, American presidential election was the door-opener to kick Facebook out into the global political jungle...and Facebook was not prepared for that to happen - neither to encounter the Russians nor to be dragged into a strange and unfriendly world.
Facebook's problem is not its humongous corporate profits (nor even Mark Zuckerberg's legally and ethically acquired personal wealth).
Facebook's problem is it's newly recognized, unexpected, and newly utilized, super-power potential as a major force multiplier in unorthodox warfare. Facebook is now a pawn in a global game where it's market success and global reach hugely magnify even the most subtle mind-suggestions in Facebook ads...ads taken out, at bargain prices, by nefarious subscribers to effect nation-change and influence voters.
In today's global politics, Facebook has morphed into a powerful, but still subtle, geo-political weapon to wage unorthodox war.
Who could have predicted or even dreamed that Facebook could eventually be a determining factor influencing global social-political events and even nation-change? From all information, no one expected Facebook's role in influencing American voters in 2016.
Pericles21 thinks any competent political scientist or 'futurist' (who undoubtedly must have read the works of the 5th century Chinese military strategist
Sun Tzu and more recently the
unorthodox 'war' thinking of Chairman Mao), could have foreseen Facebook's evolution into something bigger-than-Zuckerberg (not such a rare growth pattern with concepts that start out simple but mushroom into 'hugeness', e.g., 'Cornflakes' breakfast cereal)...with correlating potential effectiveness in shaping user preferences; but it would have required the social-political scientist world to look at Facebook seriously as more than just a techy-wrinkle to make money off of kids and young adults (thus not worthy of scholarly attention).
IMHO, Facebook's execs still think of their 'charge' as a toy (although as a grown-up toy because of its very, very adult profits).
For the reasons above, IMHO, Facebook's community let Facebook down because the community did not mature as people with real lives and real care for life outside Facebook. They basically continued to live in the past and hold onto a passed-by, prior Facebook life and out-of-date market model.that came
Facebook's apparent lack of savvy about the shaded reality of big world politics made Facebook vulnerable to misuse, by Russia and China and Iran and others, in America's 2016 election, and continuing. That is what apparently happened with Russian interference in the American 2016 election - subtle manipulation of Facebook's simplistic, still-in-Kansas advertisement model to spread misinformation and subtle preference-shaping.
The first problem with Facebook's success was that its leaders did not recognize that Facebook's ad business could be effective at doing more than just generating product-ad revenue. Nothing wrong with that but it was a limited and unsophisticated perspective showing that Facebook's leaders did not understand what animal it was they thought they had in the cage.
But other folks, including Russia, China and most other major cyber players globally, took a look at Facebook and saw what Zuckerberg and colleagues apparently did not see - the opportunity to leverage Facebook to achieve other ends, adult ends, criminal ends in a world where ends justified means and where there are real victors.
Those other folks (the Russians et al) did not broadcast or publish their insight about Facebook's other uses, sad for us.
Those 'others' (Russians et al) broke open the old Facebook mold and dragged out the new Facebook...with its new powers and strengths... which they were able to keep hidden for a few years....and which now require new regulators and limiting boundaries.
FACEBOOK NOW AND IT'S FUTURE:
FACEBOOK has grown up and dominates the social media market it helped to create.
FACEBOOK IS A NEAR-MONOPOLY!
FACEBOOK is no longer just a kids' toy or even merely a social 'hook-up' gimmick.
FACEBOOK is a WAR TOOL, and Bad Actors want to use FACEBOOK for bad purposes (and apparently already have)
FACEBOOK dominates by a huge degree a strategically critical war-tool weapons sector.
FACEBOOK under Zuckerberg, it's originator, undoubtedly did not envision this end-use for Facebook.
But Mark Zuckerberg still acts and sounds like an unlicensed kid holding a 9mm.
FACEBOOK as a monopoly and with its importance as a weapon should be broken up.
Mark Zuckerberg, though of integrity, should not have a role in a future Facebook weapons-spinoff. (Except as a
need-to-know systems advisor)
Posts
