Is Facebook a Cult?
Facebook announced that it hit 200 million users today and Chief Operating Officer Cheryl Sandberg made a blog post describing some of the data mining that the company is doing of those connections. It's going to be great for advertisers, she says, it should also be very good for the rest of us as well. I think it's creepy.
It's all about "The Stream." The conversations we have in public parts of the site, the items we interact with in our Facebook Newsfeeds, and the way that builds connections between a larger group of people. Here at ReadWriteWeb we're very excited about social networking, real time feeds, network effects and the like. But this Facebook ethos has gone far enough that it's time to question whether there's something cult-like going on.
Photo: From the Grand Rapids Michigan Zombie Walk, where thousands of people gathered on the streets merely dressed as zombies, after meeting on Facebook. CC by Flickr user Steven Depolo.
Sociologist Robert J. Lifton wrote an outline several decades ago of what makes some groups considered "cults." There are some parallels with the way Facebook is working these days.
A theory: Facebook management is acting like a group of cult leaders intent on changing the rest of us into more social, less private people than we might want to be. Maybe all social networking services are trying to do that - but the way Facebook is going about it feels particularly cult-like.
Six weeks ago we wrote that Facebook's management had lost its grip on reality. This is another way to look at it and is updated based on what's happened since then.
Here are a few of Lifton's criteria for cult status and the evidence we see so far. The rest of the criteria are available in many places around the web, including here. Judge for yourself.
MILIEU CONTROL
This includes things things like physical isolation and control over the environment that people experience, with personal change being the intended result.
Does that sound like Facebook? The company has forced millions of people into accepting big changes to their social environment despite protests. The social and identity data we create there is held captive and doesn't play well with other sites and Facebook says the end result is that the average person is now more connected than people are through "traditional communication." Every change to Facebook is a change in the social landscape for millions and millions of people - unless we stop using the service, we are at their mercy.
Facebook's privacy controls are notoriously complex and unclear. It's a fast moving new world and many non-technical users are confused about which of their activities are exposed to others and which aren't. That's not unique to Facebook, but they could certainly do a better job of making it easier to use the service while still maintaining the kinds of privacy many of us like to have in real life.
MYSTICAL MANIPULATION
Mark Zuckerberg is a young man who used to have his face on every Facebook page and who turned down a $1 billion offer to buy the company. If his faux-modesty isn't covering up a seriously Messianic self-image, we'd be surprised.
Lifton wrote that mystical manipulation often occurs through "planned spontaneity." When we think about the magical connection of old friends through mysterious algorithms, simple school networks and friend of a friend recommendations - that sounds like an experience in "planned spontaneity" for most people to us.
THE DEMAND FOR PURITY
High-level executives are leaving Facebook and telling at least one reporter that there's no dissent allowed in company discussions anymore. Lifton also says that confessions of wrong doing are an important part of the demand for purity. Facebook seems to confess that it was wrong more often and more publicly than almost any other company we know - but Beacon is still alive and the new system of psuedo democratic voting hasn't made Facebook's new interface any less like Twitter than it was when millions of people revolted.
SACRED SCIENCE
Lifton says a cult-like group "offers considerable security to young people because it greatly simplifies the world and answers a contemporary need to combine a sacred set of dogmatic principles with a claim to a science embodying the truth about human behavior and human psychology."
Facebook's claim to speak to the basic human need to "connect," combined with the company's number crunching and shiny new graphs, certainly seems scientific and all-encompassing. But isn't there a lot more to human connection than one liner status updates, photos posted online, "thumbs up" and the other relatively mechanistic interactions that people have on Facebook?
What's the end result of all these magical connections through relatively shallow communication? Advertising! Sandberg wrote the following today on the company blog:
With greater connectedness has come the ability for people to influence one another with more speed and efficiency. We've seen this lead to people spreading information and organizing events on a mass scale, often within days and weeks. For example, within weeks of T-Mobile airing an advertisement, Facebook users organized thousands of people to recreate the ad with a "Silent Dance" at the same station.
That T-Mobile dance was a commercial version of what people call a Flash Mob. Actors got together in a public place and engaged in a co-ordinated dance between people that bystanders had assumed were unconnected strangers. The logical thing for the surprised and delighted bystanders to do was call friends and families on their cell phones - hence the T-Mobile tie-in. Apparently The Facebook Stream allowed some groups of people to co-ordinate a public re-enactment of the T-Mobile dance. That's the highlight of all this that Sandberg points to - formerly free-thinking individuals used Facebook to turn themselves into players in an advertisement for a giant telecommunications company.
It sounds pretty suspicious to me. It's because of the risk to free thought and independence that many of us prefer a vision of the social web's future based on small, independent but interoperable social networks. Each with their own governance, ethos and infrastructure, but able to send messages from point to point to point. That's the way the Internet used to work. As one group amasses huge amounts of centralized power the way that Facebook has, it's a good idea to keep an eye on the psychological relationship between the site's owners and its users.
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Marshall, I have three different thoughts about this article:
1. You're linkbaiting
2. You're paranoid
3. You may be on to something
Or perhaps some combination of the three.
However, this article has spooked me just enough to be suspicious and I don't really feel like giving Facebook the benefit of the doubt. Right or wrong, I'll be paying more attention. So thanks for that.
very interesting article* FacePOOP managed to take a very BORING + still Butt Ugly Social Networking Site + sorta pull a Twitter by opening up the Site to 3rd Party Apps* That makes both mildly amusing + somewhat more Entertaining*
I've gotta go make my Cot + lineup my Nike Running shoes! ;))
There is a several elements of media panic in this article.
Boring.
Marshall, This article is considerably more thought provoking than Grease Monkey scripts. I think ?
P.S. http://www.google.com/trends/hottrends?q=model+behavior
Model Behavior
Hotness: Volcanic
Probably, or at least a virus... http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2008/05/the_privacy_vir.html
Posted by: Logical Extremes
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April 8, 2009 7:22 PM
Oh Marshall, I so disagree. I briefly mentioned this on LG's site but I'll say it here again. As much as I hate to admit it, Zuckerberg is a visionary. His vision successfully broke a lot of barriers and enabled people to become more transparent. Facebook also familiarized the mainstream with Soc Nets, and as Social Media enthusiasts, shouldn't the 'mainstream' becoming like us... excite you? IMO, the blogosphere is more cult-like. It used to be such a small tight knit circle of the "A-list", but as data is becoming decentralized, it is paving the way for newcomers. Facebook is the best thing that happened to Social Media. But what do I know? ;)
Cults are evil. If it's true that Facebook is evil, then IMO that can be traced to the taking of so much capital that it forced Zuckerberg to put profit motives first.
Posted by: Dawn
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April 8, 2009 7:35 PM
One more thing. As a technology lover, this time period is so exciting. Think about it: from mobile phones, social networking, to enterprise, periodicals, to even commerce, things keep changing and becoming interdependent. Not only are we witnessing it, we are a part of it. I wake up looking forward to scanning the headlines of my readers... via phone AND laptop! :)
Wait, a for-profit company is more interested in making money than doing good? It will even do shady things in the name of profit? Who knew?
This piece tempts me to stop letting your rss feed take up space on my homepage. It reeks of a personal agenda. A 10 year old could make any big company seem evil. I suggest more subtle tactics as you deal with that chip on your shoulder.
IRC - Keeping it real since 1988. Suck on it Facebook.
This is a brilliant article. I'm sorry to all those who disagree, but I have been thinking along the same lines for a while and I have to say, using the Cult meme to illustrate Facebook's spooky approach to vacuuming up the web so they can monetize natural human interaction is just pure brilliance. I am very impressed.
Whether you agree or not, this is a great article. Genius.
Come on, it's only sci-fi writers that would point out stuff like this, or things like, how you can re-create human personality and interaction by mapping and mining real data that we've voluntarily given to the Machine.
Identity theft is kindergarten. Personality mining-- that's where the money is.
:)
I have facebook but i certainly do my best to live without it and hope to god more around me dont get caught in the trap.
It's a cult of the inane and I Like Twitter a hell of a lot more. Its just far better, less complex, less BS. I am not a fan of the FB CEO either.
Facebook is going about it feels particularly cult-like
I am not a fan of the FB CEO either.
I think there's a good point made here, but its being a bit over-sold, which creates the feeling of an agenda behind the article, rather than journalism. The Mystical Manipulation paragraph for example.
No.
Posted by: Richard A.
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April 9, 2009 12:16 AM
Brilliant article. Some responses posted here by members of the cult serve only to prove how right the article is.
of COURSE Facebook is a cult
was there ever any question?
@CoachDeb
raivo pommer-www.google.ee
raimo1@hot.ee
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Der Minister habe sich auf Auskünfte der Bank verlassen müssen, weil es sich um rein operatives Geschäft handele, sagte der Sprecher. Das Ministerium überwache nicht den Zahlungsverkehr der Bank. Es habe sie nun aber aufgefordert, die Vorgänge zu erklären.
Die HSH Nordbank hatte im März angekündigt, aus EU-rechtlichen Gründen auf die Ausschüttung zu verzichten. Die ausgezahlten Summen würden daher zurückgefordert, heißt es in der Antwort auf die Kleine Anfrage des Hamburger Abgeordneten Stefan Schmitt (SPD).
Hamburg und Schleswig-Holstein helfen ihrer gemeinsamen Landesbank mit einer Kapitalspritze in Höhe von drei Milliarden Euro sowie Garantien über weitere zehn Milliarden Euro aus der Klemme. Die Parlamente beider Länder hatten dem Rettungsplan in der vergangenen Woche zugestimmt.
Great Post! Finally telling it like it is. Facebook is as spooky as they get. Do people need to be reminded over and freakin over again what happens when we blindly buy into the trappings facebook offers with its hug stock pile of investment capital (of the likes of Peter Thiel, CIA funds, and Microsoft). Iraq war, Bear Sterns, AIG, Lehman Brothers, economic crisis. We need to wake up to Facebook's bullshit.
You better go get your garbage can full of special sunglasses, Roddy Piper.
I'm not saying it couldn't be a thought cult, but geez, could you possibly heap a little more hype on the poopile?
I agree. I travel all over the country giving social media trainings and Facebookers blindly follow this company... ask no questions... don't look deeper than the surface... and freak out if you say anything that questions the Facebook ethos at all. It's weird. I think Facebook is scary. I don't like the way they do business. They are arrogant and they consistently pull the ole bait and switch on on their users... the vast majority that follow them as if they were in a cult. Unlike any other social networking site... Facebookers are followers. Now they control the Internet... almost.
Facebook isn't a cult. It's a corporation. The behavior you're describing, Marshall, is typical of many corporations. Consumers will buy into the Facebook "ideology" for as long as it serves them. As soon as it stops being useful, Facebook will vanish into the deadpool.
If Facebook is a cult for the reasons you mention here, then so is Apple, Starbucks, Jeep, and the Obama Administration. In fact I see far more cult similarities in our two political parties than with Facebook.
I am not a FB user, but I don't see the insidious mystical manipulation, guilt/sin focus, communication/thought control, redefining vocabulary or unquestioned authority parts necessary to make this stick. These are the main particulars of Lifton's broader assertions, by the way, and are as necessary to defining a cult as the broader terms you kind of cherry picked to prove your assertion.
Along those lines, the ways in which Facebook does NOT fit the cult mold are more numerous.
In fact, the recent user revolts over interface design and TOS revisions, and the openness of the architecture all stand in direct contradiction to everything you just wrote.
Facebook does represent some scary shifts in the social landscape, but these are so broad and multilateral that by definition they are anything but cult-like. We are witnessing a culture shift, not a cult. Facebook is merely a large player in the emerging global internet story, much like newspapers, telephones and radio/television have been key players in other far-reaching and gloabally impactful social dramas.
nice post.
this all applies to governemnt as well.
of course, any president but in the US, the Obama Marketing Machine has also nailed it like facebook has.
question everything!
Nah.
Facebook is a fad like every other fad. Remember MySpace? Remember all the media fear frenzy over that? And now the only people with MySpace accounts are no-talent bands hyping each other.
Facebook was amusing for about five seconds and now Twitter is the Fad-de-Jour. And that'll be tomorrow's cyber-junk.
Everyone's freaking out over "Oh my god!! Facebook has all my personal data!!" So does the bank. So does the Government. Whatever. If Facebook wants to use vampire stats and water balloon throwing data to mind control the universe then frankly they're sadder than the people who *have* the vampire stats and the water balloon throwing data.
Get a grip.
This is nuts. Facebook has helped me to stay connected to my real-world friends and interesting popular people I admire and enabled fun communication in a way no other Internet technology has ever done. Freaking out about Facebook's reach and growth is the same as freaking out about iPod/iTunes. In a word, lame. People use products that work. Now if Facebook were trying to collude with other companies to exclude competing social networks from engaging fairly with Internet users (aka pulling a Microsoft), that'd be something to worry about. But no such market manipulation is taking place. People can use Facebook or not. Period. It's very simple. So if you don't want to use it, fine. Meanwhile, 200 million other folks have said otherwise. To say we're part of a cult is...quite frankly...absurd.
I'm disappointed in RWW. I come here to escape the weirdness of TechCrunch. Please stick to reasonable news analysis and leave the conspiracy theories at the door.
Facebook is only good for people who want to waste their useful time.
Marshall said...
A theory: Facebook management is acting like a group of cult leaders intent on changing the rest of us into more social, less private people than we might want to be.
Wrong theory Marshall. Don't blame Facebook since they don't force users with a gun to register with them. The changing is solely done by users, ie, since they're naive, it them who do the changing, since they're the ones who are voluntarily joining Facebook out of their own volition. Some smokers have been for years blamed the tobacco companies for their terminal cancer as a result of their smoking. This is shifting the blame from individual responsibility into the producer. Smokers could have stopped at anytime they want. But no, they kept smoking (even today with smokers keep buying ciggies everyday) till they suffered cancer and then turn around to blame the tobacco companies.
Facebook users are naive and most of all, they suffer form exaggerated self-important. So, the users are to be blamed and not Facebook management. The management team are just doing their job which is to build a business.
Jared said...
Facebook has helped me to stay connected to my real-world friends and interesting popular people I admire and enabled fun communication in a way no other Internet technology has ever done.
That's because you're one of those naive people that I quoted in my previous message. I do have real friends, but I do communicate with them via email, phone, in persons, etc,... I don't need to know which public toilets they (my friends) went to or used in the last 3 days or so? I don't need to know which fast restaurant they went in to get hamburgers? Besides when I meet them in person, we always find things to talk about since we're not in each others face all the time as people do when they join a social networking sites, which they announce to the world about their sex life, the food they eat, where they go. Too much intrusion by naively and voluntary sharing of information.
Jared said...
In a word, lame. People use products that work.
There are tons of other products that work in the market.
Jared said...
Meanwhile, 200 million other folks have said otherwise.
Did you mean 200 million useful idiots out there who are Facebook users.
You're REALLY reaching, Mr. Kirkpatrick. REALLY. The correlations and connections you're trying to draw are so thin that they evaporate under just a tiny bit of scrutiny. What we end up with, once we've blown off the sci-fi'esque webs you've spun around the topic, is this - a classic case study of how home-grown (or dorm-grown) technology concepts can revolutionize the Internet experience of millions and millions if both the technology and timing are right. The end. Roll credits. Fade to black.
No, sorry, Zuckerberg is not a looming e-Jim Jones. He's a rich kid (self-made, albeit) in a time where we thought the Internet child-zillionaire was a thing of the past. Will he become unreasonable in the work place? Maybe. Will he become eccentric? Quite possibly already is. Does that mean he's sacrificing cute little cuddly crying babies to SSSSSSaaaaaaaaTaaaannnnnnnnnnnnnn??? Uh, no. Not buyin' it. No devil horns, no secret meeting chambers with black painted walls, no, no resurrecting the corpse of Anton LaVey for a midnight soiree.
It's bad enough that you wrote this ghost story with the expectation of seeing it in print (not very impressive for you), it's a whole other level of astonishment that RWW would actually read and publish it. All we can do is hope they didn't read it first. Man, what a bunch of psycho-silliness you sling. I'm gonna give your brand of comedy a try myself... here goes... Hey RWW, how about posting my article, "Zuckerberg is holding us hostage. Why do we love him? A Stockholm Syndrome sufferer's journey of separation from the Zucker-zombified millions". It will be great! I'll just rehash all the cloak and dagger pursuit/escape, and harassment stories from the Scientology vaults and give them a facebook spin. After all, isn't that what you've done here? Just tried to pull it off with more of a boardroom feel with your pretty charts? Sad. Just sad. How bout going back to legitimate news (but thanks for the entertainment)?
Um wow! A colt? Huh who would have thought. I thought I was useing Facebook to get in touch with old friends not the devil. Some people really just have nothing else to do in their lives I guess. For all of those who are complaining about Facebook......IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT THEN DON'T LOG IN!!!!!!!!!
Facebook is evil? I'm a part of a cult?
I honestly thought that I was just keeping in touch with old friends/friends that have moved away/people i dont see that often.
Surely this is the same as using myspace, bebo, and all the other social networking sites out there? Once the hype has died down and something better comes along, ie, twitter, facebook will become a thing of the past.
I personally quite like facebook, but maybe thats just becauase i'm a mindless fool, part of the corporate machine that is FB
It's only a cult if there are bugger all people on it. Still, 200 million, is 1 fifth of 1 billion, hmmm there are 6 billion of us...
hmmm Maybe it is a cult?
Wow, SOMEONE woke up on the paranoid side of the bed the day he wrote this article. Facebook is a cult? So? Do the users not voluntarily join the said, uh, cult? And FB has all the users' information? Tisk-tisk... Did the users not have control of what information to fill out and what to leave blank? This is one of those "articles" that blames the McDonalds for them being obese. You don't like FB, then don't join and shut up. Done. See how easy that was? Spending lots of time writing angry sounding articles about a popular social network is highly inefficient. What's the purpose in that? Those who don't like FB already are staying away from it, and those who do, well they'll just roll their eyes at people who seem to have lots of free time on their hands for them to bash social networks while getting personal as well as paranoid, and then they'll log in to FB to read some better entertainment. I personally moved to a different city not that long ago, and FB allows me to see what my friends are doing in their day-to-day lives, since I do not have the luxury of seeing them in person that often. Phone is also not always available due to differences in time zones and some people losing/breaking their cell phones from time to time. So to all those who advocate communication outside of social networks: I'm glad you can see your friends. Good job. I can't see mine, I'm far away, so I'll just log on to FB and you can continue posting infantile comments that make you come off as shallow and easily irritable. I only put up the information that I want people to see, and my friends are not of the over-sharing kind. I don't add anyone I'm not friends with in real life. I don't post my private information anywhere on the internet. I like FB's restrictions on who can see my information, because only my true friends can. I don't waste time with it because I only log in briefly. Yes, FB has annoying factors to it sometimes, but so far it has outdone MySpace in the "no random stalkers allowed on my page" department. If you don't want to see a newsfeed of someone who updates their status every 3 minutes, then just select the option not to see that much about them. Better yet, if you don't like them, de-friend them. You are in charge and not the "cult"
Think this is freaky?
Watch 7/7 Ripple effect on youtube.
LLTK
Dear Marshall Kirkpatrick,
I have a feeling you smoke too much meth.
If not, I have a feeling you are one stupid fuck.
If so, the statement directly above this one still stands.
You should definitely not be writing articles. This was the first article I read on this website and I will not be coming back here again. Get in touch with reality.
But wait....
What if reality is a cult?