“Companies like Apple, Facebook, Google, and many other digital platforms and services have created a new, virtual public sphere that is largely shaped, built, owned, and operated by private companies. These companies now mediate human relationships of all kinds. More than 800 million people ‘inhabit’ Facebook’s digital kingdom. If it were a country, it would be the world’s third largest, after India and China. Call it Facebookistan. It is governed by a set of rules based on an ideology espoused by its management team and ‘founding father.’ [Mark] Zuckerberg advocates what has come to be known as ‘radical transparency’: the idea that humanity would be better off if everybody were more transparent about who they are and what they do.”
Rebecca MacKinnon in Slate.com
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