Facebook stalking. We can all admit to doing it. And those of us who deny it, well, we all know you do. Does this scenario sound a little too familiar: You’ve just heard one of your friends has had a fight with their boyfriend, you don’t want to be the friend who calls and asks if any life-changing events have just happened to the person, nor do you want to be kept out of the loop if there’s news to be told. What do you do? You jump on Facebook, of course. The way you see it, any worth news can be found on your newsfeed. Well, it seems that when the news is escalated from a friend dumping her man to a village going up in flames, Facebook and Twitter are the go-to tool for the majority of events, worldwide.
Morozov describes Social networking sites a “tool” for which individuals communicate globally. They allow images, locations, documents and information to be exchanged globally. Their worth is so great infact, that not only are they being used as evidence in a courtroom, but there are subjects taught on them at universities. Mahfouz’ clip on Youtube is a prime example to the extent to which we should be thankful of the Internet and it’s capabilities to let us see the truth, not just what the media outlets want us to read.
Social networking sites were not the reason that political backlash and protest events ever occurred, but they have most definitely provided an outlet for news and information to be exchanged during these occurences.
I can’t completely agree with Morozov when he calls social networking sites a “tool”. And if they were, they’d have to be one of the sharpest in the shed.
I agree with you that Morozov's argument goes too far as to deny social networking sites the role they played in such events. They were important, maybe not as much as some people want to believe but they are important.
ReplyDeleteThe Egyptian rally is a perfect example of this. After a month of people viewing a YouTube clip thousands of people showed up to a rally to support the movement. I do believe though that social networks are simply the tool of this generation. That had this occurred 40 years ago, there would have been another tool heralded as the imposer of peace.
Hey Emma, I would agree with you that everyone does the "Facebook-stalking" if not everyday, at least at one point of their lives. It's funny how Facebook has now almost officially being our 'search engine'. It's always a go to site much rather than Google. Like when we would like to find out how did the Halloween party turned out to be, we would go on to Facebook and look through photos and interpret by ourselves how the party went on to be like.
ReplyDelete