When I first heard of Facebook, years ago, I thought “Everybody in communication with everybody else is a really bad idea.” When I told that thought to my friends, they looked at me strangely. What could possibly be wrong with people communicating with each other?
It didn’t feel good back then, but I didn’t know exactly why I felt what I did. Why was I so uncomfortable with the idea of everybody communicating with everybody else? Now I know why: It’s because ‘everybody’ includes too many bad guys. Giving bad guys free and easy access to everybody else is giving bad guys a lot of opportunity for things like theft, hurtful words, hateful messages, taking advantage of the aged, weak, and gullible, spreading misinformation, and outright lies. It enables crooks. If even one percent of ‘everybody’ are bad guys, that’s a lot of bad guys. And in my experience, the bad guys number more than one percent.
Now we know that ‘everybody’ also includes haters, foolish folks, frivolous people, vandals, narcissists, and other kinds of deviants. It has also been well shown that Facebook has some bad effects even on its not-bad users. There is just too much opportunity for stuff that hurts anyone who is vulnerable; moreover, people with problems can hurt themselves.
Facebook can’t fix the Facebook problem (too many bad guys and too much nonsense) because everyone at Facebook from Zuckerberg on down is a True Believer in the idea that ‘everybody in communication with everybody else’ can’t be anything but a totally wonderful idea. Believing that is by now gospel and in their DNA. It’s who they are. Even to consider that it could be bad or hurtful is beyond them, incomprehensible. You can easily imagine them glazing over when it is suggested that maybe their whole premise is wrong-headed. More and more and more is plainly better.
In addition, of course, ‘everybody communicating with everybody else’ makes them a lot of money. Advertising. They are not going to cotton to the idea the platform should be smaller, that users might be hurting themselves or others, or that their revenues should be cut. So, of course, they can’t seem to find anything wrong that reduces their numbers. (There are, by the way, more than 2.9 billion Facebook users worldwide. Their net income is over 9 billion.)
Policing Facebook’s bad guys and liars with or without artificial intelligence did not work. For whatever reasons, AI just isn’t yet up to such a job. Anyway, Facebook certainly isn’t up to putting limits on itself.
But never mind Facebook. It’s old hat. Zuckerburg is moving on. The new name of Facebook is Meta Platforms, Inc., just Meta for short. Not Meta-something, just Meta. In other words, meta-everything! The term “metaverse” is used. Think meta-universe.
‘Meta’ is an interesting concept. As a prefix, it means ‘beyond” or ‘transcendent’. It denotes a higher level of abstraction. A meta-rule is a rule about rules. A meta-internet would be an internet of or about internets. A meta-platform, the new name of Facebook, denotes a platform of platforms.
I had a bad feeling about Facebook back then, and now I have an even worse feeling about Meta. Here are some examples of chatter reported in the N.Y. Times from the Facebook Connect 2021 Event: In Meta, humans will teleport across the globe in holograph form; you’ll be in the experience, not just viewing it; communication will be across various layers of reality; it’s the next phase of the Internet, mingling physical and digital reality; you’re really going to feel like you’re there with other people; you’re not going to be locked into one world or platform; it’s a lot about virtual reality — virtual concerts, playing virtual chess, having a virtual telescope in your house.
If money can make such stuff happen, then it will likely happen. It is said that Meta will have a $10 billion annual budget and 10,000 human creators assigned.
Meta, I think, is Zuckerburg competing with Bezos and Musk, and outdoing them. A ten- minute ride in a real nuts and bolts rocket up to the stratosphere and back is ho-hum compared with a virtual teleport experience to the far reaches of the metaverse. And Bezos and Musk have to charge whereas advertisers will surely pay for the virtual reality (VR) meta-experience. You’ll have to buy your own VR headsets, however.
Meta sounds like a psychedelic drug to me; that is, a hallucinogen that triggers non-ordinary states of consciousness. Led by a monochromatically clad Zuckerburg. off we go into the wild blue meta-beyond! Wheeee . . .
By the way, the Meta logo is an artfully distorted symbol for infinity. And beyond?
A new TV ad for Meta shows a cartoon tiger coming to life with a bunch of other Disney-like animals. The lion says This is the dimension of imagination. The animals all dance around in joyful camaraderie while attractive young people bobble their heads, jiving to the music. The ad closes with the caption: This is going to be so much fun!
Meta is apparently for kids! I expect the next ad to be dancing puppies, lollipops, and toys on steroids.
In another TV ad, a serious man is being interviewed because he works for Facebook (or Meta?) His job, he says, is to deal with the issue of freedom of expression vs content moderation. “Content moderation” means stopping bad guys from saying bad things. He doesn’t think that should be the responsibility of a private company. Even though that company created the problem?
I have not yet heard how Zuckerburg will make money with Meta. In the virtual reality of the metaverse, there will surely be ads, and maybe even things for sale. There will certainly be opportunities for bad guys to hack in and spread their poison.
Count me out – again. I think good people should stay away from Meta (and drastically limit their Facebook use), and I think Zuckerburg should use his billions to try to save American democracy. That would be a responsible thing for him to do with his billions. Just sayin’.
John R. Dixon 