Quit for Equality: a Digital Suicide Attack
The act of “quitting Facebook” as an act of democratic media activismCoco Koldijk, 10796347,cocokoldijk@gmail.com, University of Amsterdam (UvA), Media & Information, wordcount: 10507. December 2019, Bogna Konior
Abstract
This article is a study on Facebook refusal as an act of democratic media activism. The focus is on people who decide to quit Facebook for political reasons. I analyze the discourse on the phenomenon of users quitting Facebook. This phenomenon of quitting Facebook will be put in the post-Cambridge Analytica scandal context and draw upon publications before and after the scandal. Doing so I will be looking for a change in discourse since the event. To conceptualize the phenomenon over the timespan I will use Graham Smith’s notion on democratic innovations and Carroll and Hackett’s notion on democratic media activism. Furthermore, I will employ Stefania Milan’s concept of cloud protesting to point out the paradox of quitting Facebook in an era where protesting largely takes place online. I will use Karppi and Zuboff’s most recent work to put the phenomenon in a broader context looking at Facebook's resistance and what happens after public awareness.With the help of a database from Twitter on #privacy, I will analyze its associated hashtags #Facebook and #DeleteFacebook. The visualization of these trends on Twitter demonstrates a confined segment of the online public debate. This will help to understand the trends of these words in relation to real-life events connected to them. Furthermore, I scraped the titles of articles that Facebook published on their “newsroom”, a platform wherein Facebook keeps its consumers and investors informed on their activity. Facebook’s increased efforts to inform the public seems like an attempt to rebuild trust as a reaction to the latest incidents. This paper concludes that the existing notions of media activism have similarities with quitting Facebook, but that the ambiguous act of non-consumption in the dynamic contemporary media-saturated world remains ambiguous. Recognizing the nature of the ambiguity of this act aids in the prevention of misconceptions. Conceptualizing the phenomenon may help to get a better understanding of the associated political implications.
Keywords: Facebook, disconnect, media activism, democratic, Cambridge Analytica, Social
Contents
Methodology……….………4
Introduction………...8
How is quitting Facebook a political act?………...10
● Pre- and post-CA scandal ……….10
- A brief history………...10
- Previous research on quitters………..………...11
● What is Facebook refusal?……….13
● Conspicuous non-consumption………..…14
2. How is the act of quitting Facebook a democratic innovation?……….16
● What is democratic innovation?……….…16
- Democracy……….……….…16 - Democratic innovation……….………...…17 ● Inclusiveness ● Popular control ● Considered judgment ● Transparency ● Efficiency ● Transferability 3. With what characteristics of activism does the leading discourse on “quitting Facebook” match? ………....21
● How does the act of quitting Facebook match the current………...21
notions of media activism? - Visualizing the public debate Twitter………...24
- Facebook’s Precautions………....29
● Expanding and interoperability………....29
- Facebook’s newsroom………..32
4. A Multi-Layered paradox……….35
Conclusion………....37
Bibliography………...39
Methodology
To find out if the act of quitting Facebook is a form of democratic media activism I start with searching for secondary data Facebook usage has changed. More decisive for conceptualizing
this phenomenon than a specific amount is a change in discourse. A discourse analysis is conducted building upon Portwood-Stacer’s concept of conspicuous non-consumption. This article being written pre-Cambridge Analytica scandal creates the opportunity to reevaluate her concept onto the current developments. Furthermore, I address Graham Smith’s notion of democratic innovations and apply his areas of democratic innovation onto Mark Zuckerberg’s manifesto on Facebook’s so-called democratically innovative intentions. Due to no adequate alternative currently being present and Facebook being driven by commercial forces these intentions are being questioned and in several cases opposed. Moreover, current notions on democratic media activism are implemented to point at the ambiguity of the phenomenon of quitting Facebook. For this I use Carroll and Hacket’s approach on democratic media activism, Milan’s notion of cloud protesting and Zuboff conception of Counter-declaration and synthetic declaration. These theories are not simply taken and applied to the phenomenon of quitting Facebook, but rather used as tools to point at the complexity and paradoxical nature of the phenomenon. Furthermore, with the help, or Karppi I explain Facebook's efforts to counteract this phenomenon.
In addition to the discourse analysis, I carried out basic research collecting primary data from a Twitter database of #privacy. I used TCAT’s Hashtag frequency to obtain a database that shows the number of times that #Facebook and #DeleteFacebook appears in the same tweet as #privacy. I filtered out all the hashtags that are not #Facebook and #DeleteFacebook. Doing so I have created a spreadsheet document that shows a timeline of the frequency in which #Facebook and #DeleteFacebook appears (not distinguishing lower and upper case). With this document, I sorted my file showing the dates with the highest frequencies first. This resulted in a database of over 100.000 tweets over a period starting at 2018-03-20 and ending on 2019-11-24. I started on 2018-03-20 because this was the day that the CA scandal became public. Starting here keeps the focus on post-CA discourse. Next, I added a qualitative tweet stance analysis tagging 1000 tweets (for reason of limited resources it was not possible to conduct a reliability test). This is to exclude the potential issue that framing 'privacy' could both imply positive ('Facebook has a good privacy policy') and negative ('Facebook has a bad privacy policy') sentiments. The former is Facebook's narrative while the other is the 'resistance'.
Examples of positive tweets are:
“In the day #facebook got in to crypto, I start using my facebook user again, my privacy cannot be more safer than crypto. Good luch facebook!”
“#Facebook announces new feature designed to allow users to clear their browsing history on the site. #Privacy https://t.co/asiMSeQVhr”
Announcement tweets are:
“#ICYMI #Advertisers are waiting to see the impact of #Facebooks new #privacy tool: https://t.co/Kd7BwTrUZ8”
“Apple just made it way easier to delete Facebook https://t.co/Upai2oSOXL #apple #facebook #privacy https://t.co/JpCvTnEc6E”
Examples of negative tweets are:
“RT @tyler_casper: Did you know that #Facebook has all your personal chats – even those old conversations you deleted three years ago? via #ad https://t.co/o55dNmrmTh @VPNpro #BigData #privacy #infosec #DataSecurity” “Et tu, Facebook? Interesting thoughts on the threats to medical privacy from EVMS alumna Dr. Elizabeth Lee Vliet. #dataprivacy #FacebookDataLeaks #patientsafety https://t.co/Ufa6wneqLo”
The stance analysis shows that 89,6% of the tweets in the graph have a negative association with Facebook’s privacy. 1,7% has a positive association and 8,8% in general. However, the frequency of the association is of greater importance than the sentiment that is linked to it, because it portrays a transformation of the public debate.
Using Google News in a clean research browser, searching from the United States I will 1 search “Facebook” and look for a connection between the high frequency and Facebook incidents. Ideally, I would have used a database of #DeleteFacebook or #Facebook. This would have shown all the tweets consisting #DeleteFacebook or #Facebook instead of only the ones that are associated #privacy. The associated #privacy can be problematic because I argue that within the public discourse a shift has taken place from criticism to Facebook regarding privacy to more political matters. A database that might have made it possible to show such a development was not available to me. Another methodological challenge was speculating on the obtained data. Twitter does not cover a large part of the world's population or Facebook users. Next, using Google tools I searched for news items released on the date of the high frequency. The peaks related to Facebook incidents decline over time starting with the CA-scandal. I made a timeline diagram showing the frequency of #Facebook and #DeleteFacebook in #privacy tweets over time. Furthermore, I downloaded Facebook’s stock market value from Nasdaq.com and aligned it with this graph.
Additionally, I intended to analyze how Facebook’s attitude towards informing the public has changed. For this, I used Facebook’s annual report and the F8 Facebook conference on their financial goals as well as the ideology that they wish to project. Consequently, I used DataMiner to scrape the titles of articles that Facebook published on their “newsroom”, a platform wherein Facebook keeps its consumers and investors informed on their initiatives/ innovations. I aimed at finding a change in their publishing activity since the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Facebook categorized these articles by the topics of “Data and Privacy”, “Technology and Innovation”, “Election Integrity”, “Safety and Expression”, “Public Policy”, and, “Economic Opportunity” . There is also a general category called “Facebook”, I initially intended on tagging these categories myself within the other categories. However, many of the articles within the general category are duplicates of articles that are already present in other categories. After deleting this category it still took up half of the articles that Facebook published consisting of rather general articles. Without the category “general” I conducted an analysis of 480 articles. Some of the articles appear in multiple categories causing duplicates.
1 Searching from the Netherlands will give me local news, like Arjen Lubach’s “bye bye facebook” event which took place around the same time as Zuckerberg appearing in Congress. Facebook is an American company, so I
Data and Privacy: “We’re introducing a new Privacy Basics to make it easier for people to find tools for controlling their information on Facebook.”
Technology and Innovation: “We are planning to redevelop the former Menlo Science & Technology Park which we intend to call Willow Campus.”
Election Integrity: “Facebook’s role in spreading misinformation has come under scrutiny. What has the company done about the problem, and how is the fight going? A behind-the-scenes look at Facebook’s fight against false news.”
Safety and Expression: “Facebook hosts its third annual, cross-industry child safety hackathon focused on combatting child sex trafficking.”
Public Policy: “When fact-checkers rate an article as false, we show it lower in News Feed so fewer people see it.”
Economic Opportunity: “We’re releasing details on Facebook’s financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2014.”
General: “We’re thrilled to be in San Diego, CA for our Facebook Community Boost tour on August 6-7!”
Introduction
Whereas a large part of the world is familiar with Facebook, Facebook is banned in China. The economic environment of tech companies is not necessarily a causal element for the type of products that are created, it does seem to affect the ethical and financial feedback loop. China’s state-owned enterprises seem to offer tech companies a free game in technological innovations. Although there are benefits for the citizens under both American and Chinese governance systems, some innovations trigger the western consumers especially when the innovations concern privacy matters that often find themselves in a yet undiscovered legislative grey area. WeChat is a Chinese leading social media product, often described as a combination of several social media applications like Twitter, Facebook, Whatsapp but also affords to order a taxi, paying through the application, etc. Whereas the product is useful, it seems impossible to opt-out. The Chinese Internet is centralized while the American internet is decentralized. However, the imperative of behavioral data as a valuable commodity or “surveillance capitalism” is the same. A prominent difference is that opting out of WeChat would be opting out of the state. While opting out of Facebook is opting out of one social segment of a larger economically and politically expanding commercial enterprise.
Several actions against Facebook have arisen with the rise of concern regarding the platform. After the Cambridge Analytica (CA) scandal in March 2018, the trust in Facebook was severely damaged and besides governmental intervention, a lot of people individually decided to quit the platform as a political statement. The phenomenon of quitting is somewhat controversial considering that the independent statement is an individual one and a “one-time action”. Unlike other forms of activism, there is no clear (or a different) creation of collective identity, visibility or demands. Thus, the question of whether this performance can be seen as a form of activism depends on how you view the phenomenon and on how you view activism. Do existing notions need to be updated because CA was so monumental? Or, do the notions have to be used differently? Or, is quitting Facebook not a form of media activism at all? Therewithal, the presence of social media itself has changed how people can protest. This form of “media refusal”, is what Portwood-Stacer calls conspicuous non-consumption and can be seen as a form of activism. With conspicuous non-consumption she points at the performative quality of a decision not to consume, she connects this with Facebook consumption and non-consumption.
Analyzing the interconnectedness of the “post-CA scandal Facebook quitter” and democratic media activism (DMA) I expect to shed new light upon this paradoxical phenomenon. Reviewing what this phenomenon means by conceptualizing it in the context of democratic macro media activism is important to create a better understanding of its impediments. In chapter 1, I will conceptualize the phenomenon of quitting Facebook. Giving a brief history of Facebook’s previous scandals and displaying data of Facebook quitters from previous research. I will explain and contextualize the key concepts a “political act”, “Facebook refusal” and “conspicuous non-consumption”. In chapter 2, I will discuss how quitting Facebook can be seen as a democratic innovation. Using Robert Dahl’s definition of democracy and displaying the phenomenon of quitting Facebook in relation to Graham Smith’s democratic innovation in the areas of inclusiveness, popular control, considered judgment, transparency, efficiency, and transferability. In chapter 3, I will examine the characteristics of DMA with the conceptualization of Carroll and Hackett, Shoshana Zuboff and Stefania Milan and how they relate to “Facebook-quitting”. Consequently, I will breakdown how resistance is being deployed by, the crowds, the government, Facebook and our bodies. In chapter 4, I discuss the paradox I encountered on the fronts of interpreting the data, collective identity, politics of visibility and methodological individualism. Ultimately, I hope to answer several questions: How does the phenomenon of quitting Facebook need to be interpreted in relation to DMA? What does this tell us about the contemporary media-saturated society and the way non-consumption fits into it? In what new ways do we need to view Facebook quitting?
How is quitting Facebook a political act?
Pre- and post- CA scandal
A brief history
Facebook has dealt with a large number of scandals regarding privacy issues (Debatin et al. 2009; Wallbridge 2009; Leitch and Warren 2009), technical issues (Haimson and Hoffmann 2016), negative psychological effects of Facebook usage (Verduyn et al. 2015; Kim, LaRose, and Peng 2009; Verduyn et al. 2015), tax avoidance (Sweney 2019; Armitage 2016),
treatment of employees and contractors (Dwoskin 2019), containing illegal or unethical content (like violence, pro-rape, child abuse or war-crimes). But also censorship, litigation, terms of use controversy, its environmental impact, advertising controversy, fake accounts, treatment of potential competitors and national security since its existence.Despite all these scandals Facebook evidently survived, while other social media networks like Vine, Meerkat, Friendster, Google Plus or MySpace did not. Firstly, one of the reasons can be sought in the concept of “Interoperability” (Bodle 2011). An example of interoperability in the context of Facebook is that logging into Facebook is often required to use other services. Facebook is intertwined with other online services and therefore it risks to become practically
indispensable. Secondly, in a BBC article Lufkin, goes one step further calling Facebook an “online identity provider” (Lufkin n.d.). The idea of Facebook as an online identity provider is not an uncommon conception. Opting out of Facebook is what Telo Karppi characterized as digital suicide. This notion builds upon the existence and the disposal of a virtual identity. The term “digital suicide” was later often reproduced (Karppi 2011; Stieger et al. 2013).
Unlike suicide, with digital suicide on Facebook, people often go back to the platform (Toma and Hancock 2013). This opting out and coming back to the platform for political reasons started when privacy became a matter of concern when Facebook changed its terms of service in 2010. A joint citizen initiative to quit Facebook named “Quit Facebook Day” aimed at quitting Facebook together on 31st may 2010 which according to their website caused 41389 people to quit (“QuitFacebookDay.Com” 2010). However, these changes in Facebook's privacy regulations did not trigger government interference. Similarly, when
Edwards Snowden revealed that the NSA used Facebook for surveillance the government did not propose privacy regulations (Water 2013). However, when the CA scandal became public, the privacy concern accelerated and shifted towards a matter of democracy and national security. While Facebook users have planned to quit the platform multiple times of its history, this is the first time that the government is considering regulation. This suggests that the government finally perceives Facebook as a threat “to itself”. The debate around Facebook's policy did not limit itself to lawmakers. Also, consumers seemed worried about the use of their data which became visible in the public debate.
Previous research on quitters
Warren et al noted that damage of public trust in institutions can potentially cause monetary loss, a damaged reputation, and “in the worst-case scenario” citizens will protest for change (Warren, Sulaiman, and Jaafar 2014). These consequences are to be seen in the case of Facebook, post-CA scandal. Regarding monetary loss, I will later discuss the effects of the CA scandal on the stock market in greater detail. The damaged reputation as well as protesting citizens is evident in the American’s active use of the platform.
For example in a research report by Pew Research Centre, 4,594 people were asked about their Facebook habits about two months after the Cambridge Analytica news broke. Altogether, their research states that some 44% of users between the ages of 18 and 29 deleted the Facebook app from their phone in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal (Perrin 2018). This indicates a substantial decrease in trust. Another study by Edison Research shows a decrease in Facebook usage by Americans since 2015 and at the same time an increase in the usage of Instagram which is owned by Facebook (“The Infinite Dial” 2019). However, the graph shows that this major shift was mainly caused by the younger generation who often shift to Instagram. There is a generation gap of people who grew up in a digital environment, and people who did not. Bennett et al call this younger generation “digital natives” (Bennett, Maton, and Kervin 2008). The way digital natives might view Facebook and Instagram differently is worth noting.
Img 1 (In millions of users)
Img 2 (In millions of users)
Instagram is owned by Facebook. Instagram seems more innocuous but it suffers from the same problems "privacy issues, data misuse, productivity, banality, addiction, and external pressures.(Baumer et al. 2013)". This both questions the profoundness of the political nature of this shift as well as how Instagram is understood as opposed to Facebook. Whether the reasons for quitting are social or political, maintain unclear in the graphs. However, it seems there is a political force behind the reason for quitting Facebook and moving towards another platform. Perhaps this is due to Facebook's involvement in some high-profile political affairs or people having a ‘political burnout’ rather than a conscious act of political activism. Nevertheless, the intentions behind the act of quitting Facebook are not of the utmost importance to consider it an act of activism for its disempowering potential, and a potential addition to the general discourse are being triggered. To gain a better understanding of the public opinion and Facebook’s response I will later analyze a change in the public debate on Twitter and a change Facebook’s publishing activity of articles for the public.
Despite its recent privacy controversies, Facebook reported an increase in active users of 55 million in the previous quarter, bringing the global total to 2.37 billion active users (Passy n.d.). So even though some people quit, the total amount of Facebook users continues to rise. Thereby, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that the amount of people quitting Facebook is not substantial (Guardian News 2018). Also according to Scott Galloway Facebook’s business is still going to accelerate (Galloway 2017). Some say that Facebook does not risk to crash because it is so intertwined in society (Karppi 2018). The solution is sought in making Facebook less powerful with legislation (Galloway 2017; Zuboff 2019).
What is Facebook refusal?
Pepita Hesselberth speaks of general media non-use wherein she points at the distinction that was made in the 1990s by scholars and policymakers of three types of media non-use (Hesselberth 2018). This distinction is useful for understanding what types of media non-use were thought to exist and how this perception changed especially regarding Facebook non-use. Firstly she addresses the have-nots, this is non-use as a material or cognitive deficiency based on a lack of means or skills. Secondly, she discusses the want-nots which is initiated by technophobia. Third, she describes the refuseniks, who refuse media from an ideological perspective. And lastly, she addresses the “laggers of diffusion theory” which denotes plain non-acceptance (Hesselberth 2018). Hesselberth paraphrases Selwyn saying that this categorization was made with the ambition to avoid digital exclusion (Hesselberth 2018; Selwyn 2003). The connotation of refusal changes with society’s nature to be dynamic. Selwyn’s article dates from 2003 and his focus lies on criticizing former conceptualizations. Hesselberth’s article, being written post-CA, uses Selwyn’s early criticism to re-evaluate the meaning of this categorization and emphasize the changes of the contemporary western society. The meaning of Facebook refusal changed after Facebook adjusted its privacy policy in 2010, and it did again post the CA scandal. Anthony Giddens conceptualizes media refusal as a lifestyle decision indicating the identity and ideological position of the non-consumer (Giddens 1991). Gidden’s perception can now be placed in the context of post-CA wherein refusal might suggests a political statement or political “burn-out”.
of them have a political value. A user can log out or break from the service utterly temporarily. Another option is to deactivate an existing account, the account becomes partly temporarily invisible. The final option is to permanently delete the account, this action is irreversible however all user-generated content like messages and likes stay (Karppi 2018; Facebook 2019) An ex-users digital footprint does not get erased. When the act of quitting Facebook is addressed, this refers to either deactivation or permanently deleting one’s account.
Conspicuous non-consumption
According to Austin, performative utterances can affect social reality (Austin 1975). The performative potential of a verbal action can we transferred onto browsing, this can be called Performative browsing. Online behavior can affect social reality too. To take this one step further: In the context of quitting Facebook, a decision not to take part in online behavior also affects social reality. The decision to not-perform by “not consuming” is what Portwood-Stacer calls “conspicuous non-consumption” (Portwood-Stacer 2013). Portwood-Stacer conceptualizes Facebook abstention as
“a performative mode of resistance, which must be understood within the context of neoliberal consumer culture, in which subjects are empowered to act through consumption choices – or in this case non-consumption choices – and through the public display of those choices” (Portwood-Stacer 2013).
The reasoning behind those choices is of less significance for the act to be considered political. Karppi paraphrases Laura Portwood-Stacer saying that disconnection is a political performance through personal practices and a way to express social capital. A critical difference between Portwood-Stacer’s article and Karppi’s book is that Karppi’s book was published post-CA scandal. However, he considers her notion worth noting in contemporary society. Portwood-Stacer states that “subjects are empowered to act through consumption choices - or in this case non-consumption choices - and through the public display of those choices”. (Portwood-Stacer 2013). The nature of her definition of refusal remains accurate because it is aimed at the potential of consumption choices rather than the reason behind those choices. Although the reason behind quitting may change, the potential influence of
consumption choices endures. Portwood-Stacer further links non-consumption to elitism. With the current understanding of Facebook having had a major political impact, the interpretation of “conspicuous non-consumption” of the platform as a form of elitism has changed. Karppi notably added the “political performance” to her conception of non-consumption. Even though Portwood-Stacer did not link the act of quitting Facebook to “political performance”, she did link it to consumer activism (Portwood-Stacer 2013). She calls it a tactic of critique that manifests the objections and dissatisfactions. With the current knowledge of Facebook’s political incentives, she may have viewed the objections and dissatisfaction from a different perspective and elitism. The context wherein non-consumption is “performed” is distinctive for the recognition of the act as a political act. Moreover, the role of context is not only to be found in the CA-scandal but the way an act is perceived is also a geopolitical matter. CA may have a different meaning in a different part of the world. For example, India has the greatest amount of Facebook users (Fuscaldo 2019; Ghosh 2019), but they might not care about Trump. Therefore, when someone were to quit Facebook in a country that was less affected by the CA-scandal the act may not be perceived as political (for the same reasons). However, the political implications of the act of quitting Facebook are or greater importance than the reasons behind the act.
Randy Martin states that the body can emerge and oppose itself in the form of a performance as a political act when the mind has been “dominated by mass communications” (Martin 1990). The body is no longer separated from “mass communications” because the meaning of mass communications has changed since 1990. Popular contemporary mass communication platforms like Facebook, Instagram or Twitter are intertwined with our offline identities. What happens online affects what happens offline. This statement, in the contemporary context, could include a digital suicide on Facebook.
How is the act of quitting Facebook a democratic innovation?
What is democratic innovation?
Democracy
A consolidated democracy goes beyond suffrage. According to Robert Dahl, democracy is based on political equality and consists of five criteria to which it must comply (Dahl 2008).
1. Effective participation: Everyone has the same chance of expressing his/her opinion. 2. Voting equality: Every vote counts.
3. Gaining enlightened understanding: Enough knowledge about alternatives and consequences of measures.
4. Control of the agenda: Influence decision making. 5. Inclusion of adults: Every adult citizen participates.
Technology can offer tools that have the potential to consolidate a democracy. Technologies can also be put to use to achieve the exact opposite, for example, to strengthen an autocracy or to liberalize economies. In other words, technology can be empowering to a high degree. Howard Rheingold compares the democratizing potential of technology to the alphabet and the printing presses (Abbott 2012; Rheingold 1993). However, this was written before the appearance of social media platforms and their ambiguous potential. Rheinhold is right in the sense that technology itself offers tools that can expand human capabilities. He also said that this democratic potential exists if the technology is properly understood and defended by enough citizens(Rheingold 1993). However, the tools that he describes (the alphabet and the printing press) have a different relationship with their consumers. The alphabet and the printing press do not monetize user activity the way tech companies do. Among other companies, Facebook brought upon the existence of “surveillance capitalism” (Zuboff 2019). This is what Shoshana Zuboff defines as the observing and tracking of user behavior and monetizing it. When people’s behavior can be transferred into information and information can be sold, there are so-called mutual interests in the usage of an online service. The consumer uses the service for free in exchange for digital labor (Fuchs 2014), and the service
provider makes money off the consumer’s behavior. David Savat argues that “[c]ontrol is not about the creation of a controllable object but rather about the anticipation of users behaviour and anticipating on it beforehand” (Savat 2009). His explanation of control is key to surveillance capitalism. In the CA-scandal it became clear how the anticipation of user behavior can be a powerful mechanism for political campaigning. Therefore challenging the innovative potential of the technology on democratic foundations.
Democratic Innovation
Carroll and Hackett observe that the concept of “media democratization” emphasizes the process and avoids recognizing democracy as something static (Carroll and Hackett 2006). In other words, a democracy can consolidate, stay more or less the same or degenerate. This idea of democratic innovation is what Smith theoreticized in further detail (Smith 2009). He aims to discover how the relationship between citizens and political authority could be organized differently and what the implications of this new democratic policy are. He takes a look at how democratic innovations can improve on six areas he calls: inclusiveness, popular control, considered judgment, transparency, efficiency and transferability (Smith 2009). It is not until the major controversies around the platform’s privacy and democratic infringes, that Facebook was seen by many as a democratic innovation. Many affordances of Facebook have the potential to even further consolidate democratic foundations. For example, with regard to the Arab spring which was even referred to as a “Facebook revolution” (Huang 2011; Reardon 2012). The Facebook revolution may also refer to the Tunisian revolution (Madrigal 2011; Giglio 2011) or the 2014 occupy or umbrella movement in Hong Kong (Wu 2014; Fu and Chan 2015). Since the CA-scandal however, there has been a shift in the way Facebook’s democratizing potential is viewed. As a result, Facebook makes an effort on regaining trust and convincing the public that the platform’s democratic potential remains intact and that on some fronts, it even advances. In an open manuscript, Mark Zuckerberg writes to his so-called community on what aspects Facebook is working on democratic improvements and the challenges the company faces. His points of improvement are similar to Smith’s areas of innovation. Zuckerberg focuses on democratic improvements on areas of an inclusive community, supportive communities, informed community, safe community, and civically-engaged community. However, there is no real alternative to Facebook and the company is driven by commercial forces, the democratic potential of the Zuckerberg’s
intentions are being challenged. The CA-scandal shed light upon the democratic pitfalls of Facebook and as a result, the exact opposite of being active on Facebook, namely “opting out”, might on some fronts be considered as a democratic innovation. Without an apparent alternative, being on Facebook as well as quitting Facebook is paradoxical in the context of democratic innovation on the following areas:
Inclusiveness
Which citizens can decide on collective matters in a democracy and to what extent does it succeed to involve everyone? Facebook makes a serious effort in the inclusion of everyone. This is justified through Facebook’s ideology of connectedness but it also for the reason that Facebook’s business model builds upon the monetization user activity.
Zuckerberg states that
“... [N]ow, across the world there are people left behind by globalization, and movements for withdrawing from global connection. There are questions about whether we can make a global community that works for everyone, and whether the path ahead is to connect more or reverse course.” (Zuckerberg 2017)
Followed by examples of how Facebook as a company tries to work on tools and initiatives to include more people in decision-making processes. By quitting with Facebook one excludes him/herself from certain democratic affordances concerning collective matters of the platform. In this sense, a person becomes less included. Because democracy is grounded on equality, one can question the fairness of the relationship between the user and the platform. Maximizing inclusion does not only benefit Facebook financially, but there is also the question of what happens to the relation between users and non-users. For example, if the norm becomes “inviting people events through Facebook” people who are not on Facebook might miss out on the invitation or information that is shared on the event page. Maximizing inclusion might cause Facebook refusers to drift away farther from the potentially intensifying community on Facebook. Quitting Facebook can cause the non-Facebook community to expand, potentially reducing the gap between Facebook-users and Facebook non-users. Whether deciding to quit Facebook increases democratic inclusiveness remains questionable.
Popular control
Citizens have the right to participate in collective decisions in a democracy. Zuckerberg says that “[i]n the United States election last year, we helped more than 2 million people register to vote and then go vote. This was among the largest voter turnout efforts in history, and larger than those of both major parties combined”. This effort shows that Facebook has helped to partially improve, on the area of popular control. He does not, however, explain how they achieved this. He continues that
“ [a social infrastructure that must be built] is establishing a new process for citizens worldwide to participate in collective decision-making. Our world is more connected than ever, and we face global problems that span national boundaries. As the largest global community, Facebook can explore examples of how community governance might work at scale.”
Collective decision making is an affordance that Facebook allows on the platform. However, in the light of the CA-scandal, it was seen how Facebook has the authority to influence a user’s decision making. With Facebook having this power, the profoundness of the collective decisions is to be questioned. Quitting Facebook may protect a user from this sort of
manipulations. Considered judgment
Citizens can participate and exercise influence, but it must be based on the necessary consideration based on knowledge and reflection. Zuckerberg explains that “[c]onnecting everyone to the internet is also necessary for building an informed community”. By saying this, Zuckerberg equals knowledge to connectedness. Facebook’s ideology is used, disguising the financial benefit, in the light of democratization. Users do have the possibility to
participate and exercise influence on Facebook. This of course, only counts for Facebook users. In other words, if you join Facebook you can enjoy the democratizing benefits that the platform offers. This again excludes non-users. Thereby, a user does not have a controlled influence on what he or she sees. This influence is based on the consideration of not only his/ her own knowledge and reflection. It is also affected by Facebook’s algorithms and
marketing strategies. Quitting Facebook is a democratizing innovation on the front of considered judgment for the reason that by quitting Facebook, one is no longer affected by
the information that Facebook provides to individuals. On the other hand, Facebook also retrieves information from non-users (Acar et al. 2015), so on a personal level, the effects of quitting in relation to democratic innovation are nearly impossible to measure.
Transparency
Citizens must be able to investigate government activity to gain and maintain confidence in the political process. Citizens need to know under what conditions they participate in the democratic process so that they do not feel fooled. All citizens must be allowed to view the information openly. Facebook is separate from the government (unlike WeChat) so it cannot offer more transparency regarding the government. Facebook, practically being the sovereign authority, can however adapt the concept of transparency. So “citizens must be able to
investigate Facebook’s activity to gain and maintain confidence in its policy”. Transparency is what Facebook seems to lack. Although Facebook is working on improving its
transparency, a lot of its policy is remains in black boxes. Quitting the platform does not mean that the quitter will receive more transparency. On the front of transparency, the situation remains the same.
Efficiency
The democratic innovation can entail major costs and responsibilities and is therefore not always profitable. In other words, the concerning democratic innovation needs to be financially achievable. Quitting Facebook is free and on a larger scale, it could damage Facebook’s revenue.
Transferability
Here the question is raised whether a democratic renewal can also be implemented at a strategic (macro)level. Quitting Facebook on a macro level would be an effort to undermine Facebook’s efforts to build a global community. This is where the question of whether this “innovation” on a macro level turns into an activist movement or not is posed again.
With what characteristics of activism does the leading discourse on “quitting
Facebook” match?
How does the act of quitting Facebook match the current notions of media activism?
Carroll and Hackett rightfully distinguish between the usage of media for democratization and the democratization of the media themselves. The Facebook Revolution would be an example of the usage of media for democratization. The phenomenon of quitting Facebook concerns the democratization of the media themselves. Carroll and Hackett state that this is a progressive form of activism that aims to gain a more honest distribution of political,
economic, social, cultural and information resources and status.
Zuboff distinguishes two forms of resistance. The first one is a counter-declaration, this means opting out. She says that the legitimacy of the platform stays intact. The other form is a synthetic declaration, this form of resistance requires an alternative framework. Zuboff says that
“we bide our time with counter-declarations and make life more tolerable, but only a synthetic alternative vision will transform raw surveillance capitalism in favor of a digital future that we call home.”
Following Zuboff’s definition, opting out of Facebook is a counter-declaration. A quitter rejects the platform, but no alternative or regulation is being proposed with this action. Thus, Zuboff’s conception offers a definition for the phenomenon of quitting Facebook, therefore, accepting it as a form of resistance. Zuboff accepts a counter-declaration as an individual act of resistance but she does not mention it in relation to activism. She also states that a counter-declaration is not strong enough to make substantial changes. Here the question is being raised whether activism can only be called activism if it leads to concrete results. A synthetic declaration might have a better chance of gaining results. In the case of Facebook, an alternative framework has to be proposed. An example of a synthetic alternative would be
Tim Berner Lee’s initiative of setting up a contract for the Web (Berners-Lee 2019).
Stefania Milan places activism in contemporary society by recognizing the environment as algorithmically mediated in the context of social movement studies (SMS). Her notion of “cloud protesting” is introduced to gain a better understanding of the organization between individuals on a level of a shared identity. She states that “[t]he cloud leaves little room for traditional movement organizations as the same symbolic space identified by the cloud becomes a group. Cloud protesting groupings are temporary, elusive, and action oriented micro-organizations” (Milan 2015c; 2015b). She points out the digitization of activism due to the existence of social networks (Milan 2015a; 2015c). The concept of cloud protesting is meaningful for two reasons. She suggests that cloud protesting offers a “digital imagined space” where resources for collective action can be shared. Secondly, it is a space typical to a social media-saturated environment wherein people can connect instantly for collective action(Milan 2015a; 2015c). Milan also integrates “collective identity” and “Politics of visibility” to the idea of cloud protesting. She applies Melucci’s notion of collective identity onto online collective action. Melucci states the construction of collective identity is key to the movements of his time is. He sees this as an interactive process wherein the question is raised how a collective becomes unified (Melucci 1996). She says that collective identity in social movements generally reject methodological individualism and focuses on a sense of “we-ness” (Milan 2015a). Also, Gerbaudo mentions that SMS rejects Methodological individualism. Methodological individualism is the notion that social phenomena can be explained by the accumulation of individual motivations behind certain actions(Agassi 2017; Gerbaudo 2014). Refusing methodological individualism helps to avoid a techno-centric analysis, wherein social movements are seen as “thousands of small acts” on social media (Bennett, Segerberg, and Walker 2014; Castells 2015; Milan 2015c).
With regards to politics of visibility, she mentions four means that allow politics of visibility to exist: Firstly, the centrality of performance. Herein the narrative of a movement is of importance, allowing the activist to place him/herself in a leading role by personalizing the narrative. Secondly, the interpellation to fellows and opponents. This emphasizes social media’s affordances to appeal to other people. Thirdly, the expansion of the temporary of the protest. This highlights the asynchronous character of cloud protesting. Allowing protesters to protest apart from each other “bypassing co-presence”. And lastly, the reproducibility of social action. Milan addresses the life cycle of social media items as “echo chambers”
(Lovink 2011) wherein media objects can be reproduced (Milan 2015c).
Both the idea of collective identity as well as politics of visibility challenge the perception of the act of quitting Facebook as a form of activism. Concerning collective identity, the act of quitting Facebook is an individual act. Accepting the accumulation of the individual acts of quitting Facebook as a form of activism means that methodological individualism is embraced. The individual motivation, however, seems to be fed by political affairs in the vicinity of the CA-scandal. It is therefore not a random decision, but rather a decision that fits in the society with its changing discourse. With regards to politics of visibility, the performance allows the Facebook quitter to be the protagonist of his narrative. However, the stage on which the performance is held disappears with the execution of the act. If the quitter once to perceive his/her visibility another stage platform could be used to further express the act. The #DeleteFacebook is an example of how this act grew into a form of activism on Twitter with the usage of the hashtag. The act is also fairly paradoxical regarding the interpellation of fellows and opponents. Milan argues that social media can be used to connect with other people. However, when someone commits digital facebook suicide the affordances of the platform are being rejected with it. To reach out to other people with the help of social media’s affordances, other platforms than Facebook need to be put to use. With regards to the expansion of temporality of the protest and the reproducibility of social action, Facebook users can quit asynchronously and reproduce (other) actions of different platforms. The overall paradox is that quitting Facebook falls within Carroll and Hackett’s notion of “democratizing the medium”, However, with the execution of the act, the medium is being disposed of. Quitting Facebook seems to partially conflict with Milan’s notion of cloud protesting. Milan discusses how collective identity and politics of visibility have changed with the usage of social media in collective action. Within her conception, the idea of “quitting Facebook” as an act of media activism is being challenged. It is a paradox because this form of activism is an act wherein a user retrieves him/herself from a platform, rather than using the platform's potential to connect, create a collective identity and visibility. The nature of the act finds itself within the opposing of the diagram of power, resisting the strategies of the platform. In other words, quitting Facebook as a form of activism only exists because Facebook exists. Protesting in this context means disposing of your account and leaving the platform. Instead of focusing on the usage of the network as a helpful tool to
refusal. Nevertheless, her conception does invite is to view Facebook-quitting differently. For example by connecting her idea’s to the notion of Zuboff, who argues that a more effective way of protesting is to require an alternative framework (a synthetic declaration). Requiring an alternative framework like legislation or demanding better self-regulation could be performed through cloud protesting and even within the platform itself, by protesting on Facebook.
Habermas argues that values and attitudes of new social movements revolutionize silently (Habermas 1987). He states that a shift has taken place wherein a material compensation from the state is replaced with “the grammar of forms of life”, this includes quality of life, human rights or self-realization (Habermas 1987; Carroll and Hackett 2006). This notion is of relevance to current forms of media activism, among which quitting Facebook. In the most literal sense that quitting Facebook is a rather silent attempt of revolutionizing the online environment in the sense that someone refrains him/ herself, thus the underlying dissatisfaction of the grammar of life on Facebook might translate into conspicuous non-consumption. While the decision of non-consumption may be performed silently, the commotion it can cause is of political value. Besides, the online environment allows this commotion regarding the phenomenon to exist on other platforms as well. So, also when considering Habermas’ idea of a revolution the acts of quitting Facebook remains paradoxical.
Visualizing the public debate on Twitter
So far, quitting Facebook has been discussed in the context of current notions and on the effect of the act on the public debate. Twitter is a platform that affords the public debate to take place on. Twitter describes itself as a platform in which people can see “what’s happening in the world and what people are talking about right now” (Twitter, Inc. 2019). It is a form of microblogging that allows the posting and sharing of a limited amount of sings including the usage hashtags. Twitter has a relatively small user base of 330 million monthly active users in comparison to Facebook with 2.45 billion monthly active users (Statista 2019; 2009). It is an online space where politicians & journalists aggregate, therefore it is not an alternative to Facebook and for those reasons, Twitter is also not representative for the world. Twitter does, however, have the potential to give a valuable indication of online trends.
Therefore, an analysis was conducted on a Twitter dataset on #Privacy and its associated hashtags. The graph below shows the frequency of #Facebook and #DeleteFacebook since the CA scandal. Remarkably, #DeleteFacebook was used for the first time on the day that the2 CA scandal became public.
Diagram 1. x= date/ y= frequency of # per day.3
The graph demonstrates how the hashtags evolved showing similarities between #Facebook and #DeleteFacebook in their progression (There is a positive correlation coefficient of 0,785). A difference between the two hashtags is that #Facebook indicates how privacy is associated with Facebook in the public debate on Twitter. When there is a peak in the frequency of Facebook, this indicates that many tweets were consisting of both hashtags. #DeleteFacebook can also be placed within the context of cloud protesting (Milan 2015a; 2015b). The symbolic space identified by the Twitter hashtag creates the possibility for
2See interactive graph
Facebook quitters to gather and form a group. Twitter seems to be the online breeding space where hashtags like #DeleteFacebook can arise. The frequency of the #DeleteFacebook hashtag in the #Privacy database is lower than the frequency of #Facebook in the database. However, the trends seem rather parallel to the #Facebook development. As the visualization indicates, after the CA-scandal, the association of privacy and #Facebook and #DeleteFacebook never rose back to the same level. This development can be interpreted from the Shoshana Zuboff’s notion of the “dispossession cycle”. Zuboff explains that as incidents occur, tech companies use certain strategies that leave people in shock and awe (Zuboff 2019). She continues that applied strategies make people grow numb. Also Janssen et al say that more information can lead to more confusion (Janssen, Charalabidis, and Zuiderwijk 2012). This idea poses questions regarding the CA scandal and the development of the public debate regarding Facebook. I want to address Shoshana Zuboff’s dispossession cycle, wherein she looks at Google’s “predictable strategy” on how surplus extraction is being normalized. She explains how tech companies use strategies that are aimed at neutralizing scandals and paralyzing populations until the next scandal. In the meantime, “As populations grow numb, it becomes more difficult for individual groups to complain” (Zuboff 2019). This is worth citing in Zuboff’s words:
“Audacious incursions are pursued until resistance is met, followed by a range of tactics from elaborate public relations gambits to legal combat, all designed to buy time for gradual habituation for once-outrageous facts. A third stage features public demonstrations of adaptability and even retreat, while in the final stage resources are redirected to achieve the same objectives camouflaged by new rhetoric and tactics.” (Zuboff 2019)
The audacious incursions would be Facebook’s privacy infringements until the CA-scandal which caused resistance in the form the #DeleteFacebook and eventually a $5 billion fine. The #DeleteFacebook would be an example of public demonstrations of adaptability and retreat. Interestingly, when Zuckerberg appeared in congress on 10 and 11 April 2018, a major increase in the use of #DeleteFacebook but there was also a brief general increase in Facebook’s value on the stock market for during these days (Nasdaq 2019).
The progression of Facebook’s market value per share is a valuable entity to examine in relation to Zuboff’s dispossession cycle because the market value signifies trust from shareholders. Investors are looking generally looking for companies with solid prospects. When Facebook’s reputation is damaged by its incidents this may have serious effects on its value per share on the stock market. Therefore the stock market, as well as the visualized tweets both, depict a representation of public opinion translated into trust.
Diagram 2: x= date/ y1= value of share in $/ y2=frequency of #Facebook in #Privacy database (per day).4
After CA-scandal Facebook’s stock market value decreased from $185 on the 16 march 2018 to $159 on 23 March 2018. However, within two months Facebook stock value was back to 5 $186 (Nasdaq 2019). There is no significant correlation coefficient between the #Facebook and “the market value per share” development in the overall period of two years.
Zuboff’s notion does offer an approach that searches a reason behind Facebook’s success in the regaining of the status quo. Her notion also challenges the correlation between increased general knowledge and an increased understanding (or protest). Her conception of people growing numb builds upon the psychological effect of habituation wherein a surplus of the same stimuli results in a decrement of behavioral response (Thompson and Spencer 4See interactive graph
1966; Rankin et al. 2009) . The overall decrease in the frequency of both the hashtags #Facebook and #DeleteFacebook in the #Privacy database convenes with Zuboff’s theory. Also, the post-CA scandal peaks do not rise back to the same level. However, even though this progression is worth researching in greater depth, doing this within the #privacy database is problematic. The visualization tends to overlook the shift from concerns of privacy towards matters concerning democracy. The overall decreased frequency of the associated hashtags does not automatically indicate an overall decrease in the usage of the hashtags #Facebook and #DeleteFacebook. It only indicates that the association of Facebook and DeleteFacebook with privacy is decreased. If there is an increased association with Facebook and democracy this information will not be visible in the diagram.
After the CA scandal became public, not only people demonstrated but also governments saw reason consider regulation. The European Union (EU) has already introduced the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in 2016 and after the CA scandal became public, also the US government started to consider exerting pressure on Facebook with regulation. Mark Zuckerberg appeared in congress several times since the CA scandal regarding privacy, election integrity and Libra to constructively discuss regulation (Guardian News 2018; Washington Post 2019). With Facebook risking a loss of its free game due to regulation, precautions are being developed for Facebook to maintain and increase its revenue. Facebook’s annual report of 2018 states in the risk factors that a decrease of user engagement with Facebook’s products is possible, due to adjustments that need to be made with regards to new US regulations or the GDPR.
Facebook’s Precautions
Facebook's business model is built on the monetization of user activity (Facebook Investor Relations 2019). Naturally, when the individual act of quitting Facebook is being multiplied, this may have serious consequences for the companies revenue. Facebook's annual report says that when its user base is under threat the company invests in increasing user engagement and in the monetization of existing relations of engagement. Facebook needs to expand and intensify (Facebook Investor Relations 2019). User activity is ensured by Facebook by expanding beyond the platform and by expanding interoperability (it is intertwining with other services). As for the increase of user engagement and intensifying existing relations Mark Zucker states that it is Facebook’s goal to “strengthen existing communities” (Zuckerberg 2017), he plans on achieving this by shifting the focus from the individual to communities. Facebook wants to shift its focus from friends to communities (Facebook for Developers 2019). Regarding communities, Zuckerberg wants to create more bridges between the online and offline and by transcending the physical location (Zuckerberg 2017). Deleuze argues that individuals have become “dividuals”, with this he means that the identity of a person is expressed in masses, samples or data. This concept of dividuals pairs with Karppi’s idea that the individual experience that Facebook aims to create is built to restrain dividuals “deeper into the mechanism of the platform” (Karppi 2018). The platform has changed into a space entangled with living in general, rather than an isolated product.Also Portwood-Stacer notes that Facebook tries to make itself ubiquitous so that life without Facebook becomes unthinkable (Portwood-Stacer 2013). Efforts of expanding and increasing interoperability are visible in recent innovations which show an expansion of the platform beyond its initial purpose as a social medium. Examples of new tools, software, devices, and other artifacts are Horizon’s VR, Facebook Dating or Facebook viewpoints. But also niche markets are targeted with for example Pytorch, an open-source library for machine learning. Karppi discussed the option to buy through Facebook as a way for Facebook to expand (Karppi 2018). Karppi states with regards to Facebook pay, that “expansion and intensification are not only material but also psychological and mental issues. Facebook's expansion toward financial services is also a question of intensification of the relations of trust we have with the platform and with other users of the platform” (Karppi 2018). Facebook Pay is a tool within Facebook that allows users to execute payments through the platform. However, since Karppi published his book, Facebook has also announced its
comparable to cryptocurrency. If such innovations grow and root in society (think of Wechat) opting out or “the act of quitting” may be unthinkable in the near future.
Internet.org
Another example of how Facebook is attempting on placing its roots in society on a tangible level is the ambitious and controversial initiative of internet.org (sometimes referred to as Free Basics). Internet.org is a Facebook-led initiative to connect the world. The sites declare that...
“The Connectivity Lab at Facebook is developing ways to make affordable internet access possible in communities around the world. The team is exploring a variety of technologies, including high-altitude long-endurance planes, satellites and lasers” (Internet.org 2019a).
With this initiative, Facebook would be the parent company creating new technological structures to provide people of internet. This is controversial because humanitarian motivation, arguing that connectivity is a human right (Zuckerberg 2013) is used to further expand the company's authority. This humanitarian incentive is further exploited on the internet.org web page. its states that
“Over 85% of the world’s population lives in areas with existing cellular coverage, but mobile data is expensive and hard for people to justify when they haven’t experienced the benefits of the internet. By partnering with mobile operators, people experience the knowledge and inspiration that comes from access to basic websites, for free” (Internet.org 2019a).
The selection of these basic websites are made by internet.org and include Facebook. But above all, it has a demographic influence that risks parts of the world to become dependent on Facebook’s services to an existential degree. According to a promotional video on internet.org, these services are sometimes obligatory on schools and used in extremely personal matters like pregnancy or “how to be a good father”.
Examples of quotes from people in these videos are:
“Kenner and his classmates are using Free Basics to do homework.” “Internet access turned Jesus’ passion for drawing into a job.” “Marissa is using Free Basics to start her boutique.”
“Riza used Free Basics to write her computer science thesis.”
“Elisha uses Free Basics to become a better father.” (Internet.org 2019b)
Img: Screenshot from a video from Internet.org. Children explain that they have to look up things on Internet.org
Img: Screenshot from a video from Internet.org. Woman explains how she uses Internet.org to take care of her baby.
societies. The power structures behind the creation, ownership, and performance of those connections are being (intentionally?) overlooked (Karppi 2018).
Facebook is not the only company trying to connect people. Although not from a humanitarian perspective, browsers like Firefox, Safari or Google chrome also allow people to go online. The major difference is that with internet.org the satellites providing the internet are from Facebook. Unlike these browsers, with internet.org, aerospace is being commercialized (Karppi 2018). Karppi argues that might be problematic, due to the absence of international agreements on the vertical extent of sovereign airspace. He continues that “the question of power becomes ambiguous, opening up room for different players and motivations” (Karppi 2018). Not only Karppi seems worried about internet.org but here is controversy around the platform in general (Swain 2019). Because Facebook is a commercial company, they have to pay attention to people's response. Facebook must be ready to give up new forms of participation when they are not successful or well received. Facebook has made increased efforts in the rebuilding of trust.
Facebook’s newsroom
In the wake of the CA scandal and Facebook’s damaged reputation, Facebook has paid a great deal of attention to the rebuilding of trust by informing people on their improvements. Facebook did this in congress, on conferences, but also online through Facebook’s newsroom. Facebook’s newsroom is a platform that views their latest news, announcements and, media resources regarding data & privacy, technology & innovation, election integrity, safety & expression, public policy and, economic opportunity . An analysis of Facebook’s publishing activity on their newsroom shows that their publishing activity has increased since 2018 when the CA scandal became public.
Diagram 3
But there was also a relative increase in their publishing of several topics.
Diagram 4 Diagram 5
Diagram 4 consists of all the articles published before 20 march 2018, the day that the CA scandal became public. And diagram 5 consists of all the articles published post-CA. Their purpose is to demonstrate a shift in priorities regarding topics. within the general increase of publishing. The relative increase of publishing is visible in the topics election integrity, safety & expression, and economic opportunity. Furthermore, since the CA scandal the topic “Public Policy was added. Moreover, there was a relative decrease in the category technology & innovation and Privacy. This increase of publishing and shift in prioritized topics, suggests an increased interest of the company to inform an audience. The articles are do however seem
to be created for a specific audience. people who are interested in Facebook news. Maybe more focused on investors than on the general public. The newsroom is a page on about.fb.com, typically offering information to businesses, creators, developers, job seekers, investors, journalists, nonprofits and educators. Although, these articles are not necessarily created for the common Facebook user. These articles do show how Facebook wishes to improve its reputation towards these audiences that are closely connected to the general public and have the potential to influence public opinion. Therewithal, Facebook's attempts to build on an authentic reputation may be aimed at reducing the urge for people to doubt (or quit) the platform.
A Multi-Layered paradox
Accepting the accumulation of individual acts of quitting Facebook as a form of activism proves to be ambiguous. The characteristics of the phenomenon are not fully embraced by either existing notion. Furthermore, the meaning of opting out of Facebook is changing with Facebook’s social, political and economic involvement. The accepting and rejecting of current notions can be placed in the context of Foucault’s idea of reciprocity and incompatibility which Koopman revises (Koopman 2010). On the one hand, the act of quitting Facebook is incompatible because when the statement is executed the mortality of the actions causes the performance itself to vanish. On the other hand, the act of quitting Facebook is reciprocal for the act of quitting continues to reverberate in the public discourse. With regards to collective identity, a quitter erases his/her identity on the platform according to personal motives. There is no obvious meeting place where a collective identity is created and it is also not clear if there even is a collective identity. A quitter can, however, use the affordances of another platform like Twitter to create an online network through hashtags. The digital suicide on Facebook does not concurrently disable the opportunity to create a collective identity on another platform. The creation of an online community remains possible. Concerning politics of visibility, the very act of quitting Facebook makes a quitter invisible on Facebook. However, similar to the creation of a collective identity, a quitter may use the affordances of another platform to increase visibility by publicly arguing against Facebook.
The accumulation of the individual acts of quitting Facebook as a form of democratic activism can be recognized as methodological individualism and is therefore rejected by social movement studies. However, quitting Facebook is again a paradox when it comes to methodological individualism. Although the accumulation of the act of quitting Facebook is an individual decision, thousands of small acts. the phenomenon can also be viewed from a macro perspective. The individual motivation is fed by political affairs in the vicinity of the CA-scandal, thus the individual decisions can also be viewed as existing structures formed by a dynamic society. Another controversy is that the graphs portraying the online debate regarding #DeleteFacebook, do not show the motivation of the usage of the hashtag. The
hashtag #DeleteFacebook does not convey whether the hashtag users actually quit Facebook or only used the hashtag to make a statement or discuss quitting Facebook.
