Social Networking
The political agenda of the movie “The Social Network” revolves around the elitist struggle that our sudo-protagonist, Mark Zuckerberg, faces. The movie starts out in Boston’s most renown and one of the most prestigious schools in America: Harvard University. Harvard is surrounded by the most upscale people and is shown to be very conservative and driven by politics. The Winklevoss twins represent the pretentious upscale probitarian-like people who have received their merits through the accomplishments of their family and the politics of the school itself.
The influences that we see from the social network or Facebook in general come in positive and negative forms. The negative side is lead generally by the time spent by avid Facebook users to stay on top of things going on in the world. As well, the social hype that surrounds the social network of Facebook outweighs the actual pleasure that one can derive from the use of the site itself. A major problem that we see today is procrastination. Facebook can be very distracting when trying to do homework or study for tests. A picture speaks a thousand words and many wish those thousand words can be taken back when the pictures are posted. On the upside, Facebook can give one access to the world around and provide relief for a person to see their friends and family in pictures and let people see who is who and what is what in the social networking.
The idea of government controls is also very controversial. The yes argument would say that it is needed for protection from cyber-bullying and the likes of predators. The government should be able to go after flagged pictures and flagged comments. The opposite idea would be that the government has no interference and is not allowed to butt in on the social network. The patriot act style of government is not ideal for snooping in social networking but they should be able to know of any mysterious activity.
Some other networks are:
Picasso – Purpose is to show pictures with friends and be able to edit them
Youtube – Be able to share videos with the public*
Twitter – Be able to update followers public* anytime
*It is important to note the difference to things open to the public and things that are invite only.
Jacob, I agree with your negative and positive forms about Facebook. The government should be able to act on any activity that is not appropriate on Facebook like picture, comments, and post. I feel like since the government is already monitoring what we do, and say. Why can’t they butt in, and say something about it. The predators and cyber bullies are online looking for people who are posting obscene status post and pictures. So maybe they should look at everything that is being posted and not just look for crazy people. I also agree with your last sentence, it is very important for people to know the difference between invite only, and having things open to the public. Some people just post things not knowing it can affect their outcome later on in life. Your blog is really good; I like and agreed with everything that you talked about.
ReplyDeleteI find your perspective on the politics of The Social Network interesting how it represents the upscale, expensive school dominated by politics of the elite. One can see the negative aspects of Facebook on a normal, obvious level, like the way it assists in our procrastination or how embarrassing pictures might be posted. It takes close observation to notice the massive social outcomes of social networking, however. I must disagree with your claim that the government should be able to regulate flagged things on Facebook. How would the government find the time to hunt down and enforce all of these Facebook posts? It would take an entire new czar and section of the government to do so. Personally, I do not think we should leave it to the government, but ourselves as citizens and consumers to know how to use, or discontinue using, a social networking site.
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