Consent of the Networked by Rebecca MacKinnon

Author:Rebecca MacKinnon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 2012-09-14T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 10

Facebookistan and Googledom

In May 2010, Hong Kong–based university professor and communications scholar Lokman Tsui decided to delete his Facebook account. In a blog post explaining his decision, he likened Facebook to a country run by an authoritarian, paternalistic government that claims to be acting in its people’s best interest:

Allow me to make a wild analogy, one I believe is not entirely out of left field. Many people know that there is censorship in China. Many people also tell me that 1) the poor Chinese must feel really repressed or 2) they must be okay with it. But if that’s the case, who in their right mind can be okay with censorship? They must be brainwashed.

Ask yourself this: if I decide not to leave Facebook, yet I know they do not care at all about my privacy, what does that mean? How is that different from the people who continue to use the Internet in China day in day out despite the prevalent and prolific practices of censorship? This is not a rhetorical question. Of course I realize Facebook is not the Chinese government, but I do think there are similarities between them, in kind although perhaps not in degree.

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