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I'm boosting this book because Zuck REALLY REALLY hates that it's out there and is doing all he can do to squash it.

Yeah, I know. I'm just a contrarian.

-- And now, I'm here after reading an insider's accounting of What Facebook Is.

And honestly, the title really says it all. Sarah hopped on board early on, idealistic as hell about WHAT Facebook could have been: a platform to reach out and connect people, to boost important messages, to change the world. She was a true believer. And it took some time for her to see how Zuck's power, the company's greed, the utter unfeeling pursuit of users, of cow-towing to authoritarian governments to get more market share made her realize, at long, long last, that she couldn't make things right from within the belly of the beast.

There's plenty of evidence already of Facebook (now Meta) gave over all its user's data to the Chinese government, of how it just ignored laws because it had already gotten so powerful, so pervasive, and how so many other governments just loved what it gave them. And it isn't the worst of it. There's also the Rohingya genocide. You know, the Myanmar massacre. What happens when the only internet that's available happens to be stripped down versions of Facebook promoting hate and persecution and calls for mass rape and murder.

And we know that Zuck got away with it because he just said he can't control what others do. And yet, the platform not only let it happen, it helped others with hate on their minds find each other and boost that algorithm. Money, lawyers, political influence. Facebook is the goose that laid the golden eggs for all those authoritarians.

And Sarah was there as the political arm, the idealist forced to watch as her ideas were ignored in favor of Right Wing advisors and the power hungry, how endless Harvard Grads were installed in all key places. And then there was the 2016 American Elections. They patted themselves on their backs for how they managed to promote and algorithmically skew all the right messages in all the right ears. How hate speech in America got boosted. How White Power got boosted. How Trump was catapulted, monetized, and incentivized right to the top of all of Facebook's feeds, an endless loop, AND an utterly successful deployment of media manipulation.

One that could be incentivized again and again. And of course, we know that Facebook got extremely rich during this time. The culture in their offices did nothing but promote how they did nothing wrong, how they were on a mission that is hard to understand, how they were getting things done.

Sarah, by this time, was utterly disillusioned, a victim of the old boy's network, and drumrolled out because she couldn't stand what was happening by this point.

We can take her accounting of this with a grain of salt if you want, but really, I've also been paying attention to the social media giants for many years. If you don't see how they make their money, then YOU are the product, after all.

I've read the news and read the full investigations of these ties, and let me be frank: it all fits. I don't see any reason to doubt Sarah. Her story is an old one. She thought she was doing great work, but her bosses succumbed to the call of greed and power and when they discovered they were hurting people, they didn't stop. Indeed, they just hunted for more power and the ability to shrug off whole governments' pressure. After all, if you have that much power, you can make your own rules.

Zuck even wanted to become president after Trump's first success. Too bad he has all the presence of a Bond Villain--or Lex Luthor. And I think we've all seen what those kinds of cartoon characters are like once they are told no. Or that they aren't popular.

They get mean.

Or, in this case, he's been hell bent on stopping people from reading THIS book. An army of lawyers, injunctions, gag orders--enen trying to squash the publishers FFS.



I'm glad I got to read this. This much smoke generally means there's a fire.


My synesthesia tastes ash. I just hope this fire gets boosted.


Personal note:
If anyone reading my reviews might be interested in reading my own SF, I'm going to be open to requests. Just direct message me in goodreads or email me on my site. I'd love to get some eyes on my novels.

Arctunn.com