Who Asked Me?

Facebook is plastering the NBA playoffs with new commercials emphasizing its efforts to fix things. Privacy protection and “reducing the spread of false news” are chief concerns. They want to get back to what they were “all about” in the first place — friends. This may be the single largest chunk of shit that this shit-delivering behemoth has ever tried to sell. “Friends” are the original source of false news. Friends try to sell other friends on their lives being better than good. Friends share perfect meals, attractive camera angles, and harmonious familial interaction. Friends’ kids always get into their college of choice, their pets are reliably adorable, and their significant others worthy of widely-disseminated consecration. Friends complain to other “friends” that the rest of the world has gone crazy by virtue of its misalignment with their core values and are then vindicated with upward thumbs, smiley faces and hearts. Facebook friends .. sheesh. If this is to be our starting point for ending fake news we’ve got a long climb ahead.

Easy, everyday contact with hundreds can be a complex phenomenon that requires caution. Every new instrument of communication has brought this challenge. The microphone allowed tyrannical weasels to project. The telephone brought people into our homes from outside its walls. Facebook is these inventions on steroids. The professed goal may be better human interaction and making the world a more harmonious place but its stock is steeped in millions checking in daily and providing personal information. It’s becoming an old platform anyway and the younger generation seems to have next to nothing to do with it. Even these Internet behemoths aren’t impervious to the passing of time. As an old guy I see this as rare reason to have hope in the future. The speed with which stuff changes these days may be staggering but on some levels it keeps bullshit in check.

Here’s what I know about friends: they’re hard to keep. Given the choice, many of us would choose not to keep in contact with ourselves. Most of us go around wondering why so and so hasn’t stayed in touch when the impetus is on us. Even family drifts, and, at all cost, avoids the responsibility of caring for one another. This began with the first absent caveman father thinking “I’m getting the hell out of here.” Divorce isn’t a modern phenomenon; it’s a legal escape hatch. If Facebook wants to survive it should be considering this. They’ve grown too big too fast and need to accept limitations and stop slinging this altruistic intentions crap. Facebook Divorce. This is what I’d be telling Zuckerberg were he not so much younger and richer than me. Here is where your answer lies. And it could be better than actual divorce, at least initially and until the lawyers catch on. With one click ties are severed completely and surgically. Oh sure, I know what you’re saying .. they already offer this with with the “unfriending” option. But I’m suggesting something more than this that offers a deep and satisfying cleansing from the other’s existence. Then they can run the playoff ads. “Facebook Divorce : because we get it right.” Swish.