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The second installment in the 6 part Future of Facebook video series, a project to explore the impact social networking technologies are having on our lives.
Thanks to interviewees Chris Arkenberg, David Kirkpatrick, Alex Howard, Howard Rheingold, and Valdis Krebs; to all the people who contributed to the kickstarter campaign, and to Innotribe, our corporate patron.
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script:
what started as a technology for casual socializing is increasingly becoming a catalyst for political action.
while platforms that enable the real-time sharing of information can be a threat to the powers that be…. they also provide those authorities a convenient, centralized tool for monitoring populations
as we move forward into the future, will facebook predominately be used for political empowerment or mass manipulation?
emergent by design 
Technology has always been a power equalizer, it’s disruptive in nature. As a platform, Facebook knows its potential use as an activist tool. If it wants to really become a network of people it has to uphold that. It should be treated and think of itself as an international institution, not one based in any government or corporate culture. It is a tricky identity issue for Facebook, or any social media network, though. Be a corporation or be a tool of the people? Often the objectives do not overlap…
http://www.whoisdanfonseca.com
yea, it’s a tricky one. comes down to a choice. we’ll see what they do.
Steve, are you sure “technology has always been a power equalizer”? I would object. And, of course technology is not always disruptive in nature.
It is sort of an art to find a disruptive technology instead of ‘just’ progressing with technological development.
(LEDs have been disruptive for lighting – because it was not just a further technological advance of a light-bulb. The transistor was disruptive – trashing tubes…. etc. – I think you get the point)
As a scientist and technologist I get a bit nervous when I see complicated and complex issues so easily (and, excuse me: naively) being embedded into some phraseology simply because it sounds good (and because some superficial connotation appears to fit into the story).
But I like the discussions here – they are stimulating. And what more could I ask for?
faktoide.blogspot.com
Is it possible (likely?) the facebook and the internet more generally fit the mold of the Gutenberg printing press? Existing monopolies of power can more readily leverage new tools for their reactionary goals, but communication technologies in particular are implicitly democratizing. The Gutenberg press set the stage for mass literacy and the modern nation state. The internet seems to me to set the stage for the next order of magnitude in human collaborative behavior, pushing the non-zero sum human game to the next level.
that is certainly a vision i nurture.