Something Thoughtful

Nicholas Reid reflects in essay form on general matters and ideas related to literature, history, popular culture and the arts, or just life in general. You are free to agree or disagree with him.  

                                                       S**TIFICATION ON LINE

Some months ago I saw in the New Zealand Listener a think-piece about the way Facebook had degenerated as a means of communication. Time was, Facebook was set up as a means of letting people express their ideas, keep in touch with others, keep conversations going, have polite disagreements and in effect be a sort of communal ongoing talk. For a while, that was the way it was. But it has mutated into something very different from that. Enter what the pundit called “shitification”, that is, Facebook has been loaded with shit. Regrettably much of this is true.

Item: Although you may still find some legitimate discussions going on, on Facebook, there are now unfortunately many dishonest and misleading groups such as an outfit called Cellion. In order to gain attention, it posts as “news” things that are complete fiction. Recently, I saw on Facebook, Cellion posted the “news” that Joe Biden and his wife had died in a plane crash. Of course readers wanted to know more. But if you wanted more, you had to go to Cellion’s notes, where you were told that your computer was infected unless you followed certain rules. In other words the thing was a scam. Using the same technique Cellion has also posted many other blatant fictions as fact. On Facebook, Cellion also deals with titillating images of young women almost showing their knickers, just this side of pornography. This is a prime example of “shitification”.

Item: It is on Facebook that you can now find advertisements which claim to have unique medicines or implements used in work. Usually such advertisements are for legitimate goods, but they sell their wares by saying of other companies that  “they don’t want to you know this” as if their own goods have something special. By the way, who are “they”? This is advertising by conspiracy theory. The very proliferation of advertising is also shitifying Facebook.

Item: Facebook regularly gives lists of “people you might want to know”. You just have to push a button and your “friend” will be able to contact you because you have given away your code. I’m sure there are people who want to have new friends, but as soon as you agree to push that button you will be bombarded with things you are not in the least interested in. Whenever I see the “people you might want to know” list popping up, I immediately delete it.

I am not saying that everything on Facebook is worthless. I would be a hypocrite if I did not mention that every fortnight I post on Facebook what my blog is up to. I also find on Facebook some interesting stories, although when Facebook tries to tell us about films or classic novels, Facebook seems to depend on AI, thus giving us cliché-phrased comments – and Facebook is notorious for presenting photos of the wrong person when doing a biography. [Example – when Facebook did a bio of the indigenous American actor Graham Greene, with it went a photo of the English novelist  Graham Greene… and Facebook is filled with such AI howlers.]. And on the whole, Facebook presents too much sensationalist rubbish.

Of course Facebook is not unique in its “shitification”. Other platforms are also filled with dross, such as Youtube – but Youtube is at least a little more orderly, even if it seems to spend most of its time squealing about American politics from one quarter or another. And as any sane person will tell you, watching too much of either Facebook or Youtube is always a great waste of time.