Facebook, the most popular dictatorship

Facebook is a private company. It therefore should not come as a surprise when it acts like one. Facebook compiles data on its members, sells that data to advertisers and uses that information in ways to learn even more about its nation-size level of users. It does this with no qualms and no cover ups. We talked about this briefly in my class on social media. I find this New York Times tech blog entry to be quite helpful in explaining the predicament.

Here we have the New York Academy of Art and a number of users getting their material taken down and their Facebook accounts locked after posting pictures of paintings and drawings of nudes.

Facebook’s infamous photo policy is that obscene or gratuitous photos are not allowed, the NY Times has covered this previously when breastfeeding moms were crying foul, and now it is the one of the High Arts that finds itself in the proverbial hot seat. The crux is that apparently this policy has an exemption when it comes to paintings and drawings. According to the article, Facebook made a mistake when it removed the academy’s drawing

I’m not sure what the big hubbub is though. Amazon faced an uprising when it stood up for “free speech” when it defended selling a book about pedophiles. Finding this PR nightmare a frightening display for their stockholders they eventually removed the book. They then found another horde ready to demonize it for censorship. One can even find dichotomy erupting in the comments section.

This is something a private company (and by private I mean private sector) shouldn’t have to deal with.

The only thing the Amazon and Facebook have to deal with is their investors’ interests. When it comes to their services they don’t have to answer to anyone, not even their customers. Of course, not listening to your customers should not be a long-term strategy to be employed by any company. However, most companies should think long and hard about any moralizing stance they take to gratify a handful of patrons.

If the customers boycott then they make their message known and they may in some way injure the company for its lack of compassion. If they use the companies own tools to attempt to undermine them, such as the breastfeeding mothers, then their efforts will most likely be wasted as the company is unlikely to see any loss of profit as a result of their actions. Either way, it’s not the company’s problem; it’s the consumer’s problem and unless they can create real and sustained trouble for the company then the business ought not to concern them.