A few more words about the "smartphone ghetto"
Today, the nastiest of all Americans is not a civil servant, but
a private individual, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, says
Eric Posner of Project Syndicate (
https://bit.ly/2ZFCmSs). Indeed,
by appealing to the spread of freedom and democracy in the digital
field, creating a global community, Zuckerberg has penetrated all
corners of the planet with its behind-the-scenes masters. In
Ethiopia, Facebook posts sparked crowd outrage, ethnic clashes,
and a crackdown on the independent press. In Nigeria, gruesome
images of dead bodies were spread via Facebook, falsely claimed
by members of one ethnic group who was been killed by members
of another ethnic group, sparking a wave of violence and killings.
However, in a country with 24 million Facebook users, the company
only hired four people to investigate violations.
Myanmar's long-standing tragedy - Facebook accounts were used to
foment ethnic violence against the Rohingya ethnic group, tens of
thousands of whom were killed by Burmese and half a million fled
to Bangladesh. In India, Facebook users have instigated sectarian
violence, including lynching, against Muslims and witches. Similar
Facebook accounts, used to fuel conflict and instigate massacres,
have been used in Sri Lanka, Yemen, Iraq and Bangladesh.
From Vietnam to Poland, Facebook is used to intimidate or harass
political opponents, ethnic minorities or dissidents. Why? Because
there is no more convenient tool for hating the enemy than Facebook
and its services Instagram and WhatsApp. The de facto digital
platform of Zuckerberg and its "behind-the-scenes masters" has
played a role in the worst atrocities around the world and in the
tightening of political life almost everywhere, according to Project
Syndicate.
Zuckerberg has fewer allies today. This confirms the fact that now
American congressmen are racking their brains over how to get rid
of this private entrepreneur in the field of digital technologies,
who usurped not only most of the global Internet sales market, but
also the ability to command the masses in a planetary scale, with
the support of the "world behind the scenes".
We must realize that the intrusion into our lives has become
irreversible, that simply taking and banning social media, getting
rid of violence, is not possible. Because the smartphone has served
as the basis for larger-scale transformations in the minds of entire
generations of people, whose intellectual life today ends beyond
the boundaries of the screen of a smartphone or tablet.
Today, the victims of the "smartphone ghetto" no longer understand
the meritocracy in which the most capable people, regardless of
their social origin or financial wealth, become leaders in all areas
of science and society. Today, the main thing for victims of the
"smartphone ghetto" is to fit into the world of gadgets and
subscriptions, the possession of which is the main sign of
individual freedom. But who gives them such freedom? Facebook?
Google? Freedom, which makes the new generation slaves of the
"world behind the scenes", leads to the impoverishment of not only
the intellect, but also destroys the harmony of body and spirit
progressive humanity once strove to achieve.
