“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
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
July 13 editorial cartoonsCartoons Sunday's political cartoons include new TSA rules, FEMA cuts, and Volodymyr Zelenskyy complimenting Donald Trump's new wardrobe
-
5 weather-beaten cartoons about the Texas floodsCartoons Artists take on funding cuts, politicizing tragedy, and more
-
What has the Dalai Lama achieved?The Explainer Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader has just turned 90, and he has been clarifying his reincarnation plans
-
The costly fallacy of green energyfeature For years, greens have relentlessly insisted that replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy “will create jobs and stimulate the economy.”
-
How to save the U.S. Postal Service
feature Unlike the post office, which has a monopoly on letter delivery, FedEx and UPS have had to compete for customers by boosting quality and holding prices down, said Jeff Jacoby at The Boston Globe.
-
Viewpoint: George Packer
feature From Foreign Affairs: “Inequality creates a lopsided economy, which leaves the rich with so much money that they can binge on speculation, and leaves the middle class...