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About Those Facebook Rainbow Profile Pics
Gizmodo, June 29th, 2015
Marshall McLuhan famously stated “Control the media, control the message”. He also said “the more databanks record each one of us, the less we exist”. Very prescient.
Today was my first Facebook log-in since last weeks historic SCOTUS decisions. I wasn’t surprised to see the joyful posts and rainbow profiles. But this post isn’t about SCOTUS or the politics. It’s about how Facebook is using it and using us.
SSM was hardly the first issue to get so much play in social media, but it seems to have had the most impact. In fact, Facebook has been watching all of this very closely. Remember, Facebook is a public company under constant shareholder pressure to increase profit. Facebook has 1.44 billion products … er … I mean, Facebook has 1.44 billion active users.
Whatever your opinion is of the SCOTUS decision, Facebook feels that the historic social change provided ample opportunity to track users who placed those rainbow profiles on their page. Facebook is aggressively collecting this information and placing users who support SSM into a database, which I’m sure would never, ever be used for political purposes.
Before you feel smug satisfaction that you didn’t drape your profile in primary colors, you might wish to ask: What about those who didn’t don the rainbow? Into which database would they be placed? This overreaching Big-Brother archetype is beyond Orwellian, and it’s not the first time Facebook has done this:
… the last time there was a big profile picture protest for gay marriage, a Facebook data scientist quietly published an academic paper on the data that Facebook collected with the title “The Diffusion of Support in an Online Social Movement.” It’s not exactly beach reading, but it’s evidence that Facebook is paying close attention to how people use the social network to effect social and political change, as the Atlantic explains in more detail.
That last sentence is worth repeating. Facebook is no longer just seeing what you’re up to. Now it’s being used as a method “to effect social and political change.”
The SCOTUS decision certainly wasn’t the first massive social engineering experiment on Facebook. The so-called Arab Spring showed the world how Facebook and Twitter could be used as instruments of upheaval. The technological changes in the few years since the Arab Spring have been alarming.
We all know that by using a free social media site like Facebook, we’re willing to give up a little privacy in exchange for the perceived benefits of being connected with each other. However, the line between privacy and social engineering is becoming opaque. The impact of this on politics, policy, and the voters’ mindset shouldn’t be ignored.
Conservatives, who are generally older and less likely to rely on social media as their primary source of information, may be tempted to view Facebook as fluff. But remembering that there are 1.4 billion users — who can be manipulated and steered toward social or political change — should promptly sharpen their focus.
We should all be asking: Who are the architects of this social change, and what are their politics? One can’t help wondering what Marshall McLuhan would have to say.
Published in General
Tell all your center-right friends on Facebook to join Ricochet!
Two questions: First—Does anybody know of a conservative/libertarian profile picture campaign like this? A few years ago, our side’s blogs were often adding Star of David logos in support of Israel. Some people are using Breitbart’s face as a profile picture. But neither one of these strikes me as being as sudden and pervasive as the current rainbow pictures and the previous equal-sign pictures.
Second—Is the rainbow profile picture app something officially sponsored by Facebook, or is it a separate group that made it available? I see the link goes to a page on Facebook, but I assume third parties can get such things installed there.
Third (sorry; I’m on a roll)—Not that I want our side to form a herd mentality, but I’m curious. What would a profile picture campaign by the Right look like? Put your face on the Gadsden flag? Add some kind of symbol for support of religious liberty? (And what would that be?) What kind of Facebook app would accomplish this? One possible answer is, “We don’t do that,” of course, but I don’t think it’s entirely true.
People…on the Left but not only on the Left…raise great concerns about the influence of money in politics (Koch brothers, etc), but rarely is the factor of *in-kind contributions* raised. How much, for instance, is NYT’s air cover for Hillary Clinton and other Democrats worth?…surely, at least in the hundreds of millions of dollars, in terms of the ad buys that would be required for equivalent influence.
FB has even more potential for in-kind contributions, and potentially in a more subtle way, as the OP points out. Providing detail data about individual political beliefs could be of huge benefit to a Presidential or other political campaign.
Of course, as a public company, FB should sell the data (if they do sell it) to the highest bidder. But there is little evidence that fiduciary responsibility in the executives of the typical media company tops their desire to use company resources on behalf of their individual political positions. (I don’t *know*, of course, that this is specifically true of FB, but it is certainly true of the media industry in general)
What I found surprising was the rainbow that everyone is using only has 6 colors. Rainbows have 7 colors. Indigo is missing.
Tim, that kind of campaign wouldn’t work on the right because we are individualists. We aren’t the go along to get along types. If we did that it would start an internal arguement, amongst ourselves. Which is part of the reason the left can ride rough shot over us, it’s hard for us to organize under one banner
“They are also completely incapable of forming a line, or understanding the “up” side and the “down” side on a staircase.
The French, as I recall, have no trouble at all with these concepts.”
They did have trouble with these concepts, until the Germans taught them that they needed to be orderly.
So true. They can be herded, we must be convinced to be led.
I was disturbed to see a video posted on Instagram that showed the famous “face-melting” scene from “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, with rainbow “rays” superimposed on the video to make it seem as though the rainbows were making the bad guys’ faces turn to liquid.
The message was clear: If you oppose SSM, you are a Nazi.
The homosexual rights movement used the young, celebrities, and beautiful women based in California to gain support for homosexual marriage.
There’s another movement that has done a similar thing in recent years, but are we all supposed to become Scientologists too?
Right now, social conservatism is counter-cultural, and counter-culture is always attractive to the young and rebellious.
The alternative is this:
What young person wants to be seen as a conformist? Is youthful rebellion really dead? The word “conformist” needs to come back into play.
The Soviet Union had a level of control on its populace that is hard to even imagine even today. Total control of the schools, the curriculum, the media and the government.
It still fell apart. When your wrong your wrong.
The 1980s had a level of media control that is hard to understand in todays society.
Facebook, has a subtle effect. But really I dont worry about the level of social control you are concerned about.
The “bandwagon effect” (which is what we’re seeing now on Facebook and in Social Media) also has an opposite, a term for which I just read yesterday: “spiral of silence.” This is where people who find themselves opposing the bandwagon begin to feel that they’re smaller in number, and so keep their views to themselves. They do not speak for fear of being seen as part of the outgroup. “Spiral” because the more people refuse to speak the more isolated they feel, and they are even less likely to speak.
So Facebook doesn’t just create a bandwagon, it creates an opposing “spiral of silence.”
We’ve seen this with politics in general. I’ve read many comments from Ricocheteers about how their left-wing friends simply assume everyone believes as they do and so they assert their political views all the time. Whereas we tend not to be pushy that way. This is definitely true of my Facebook experience. The lefties I know talk politics all the time. They are in your face about it. Every little outrage gets shared. The nastiest things get said.
The conservatives I know tend not to say anything.
That’s the spiral of silence at work. We need to fight it.
Johnny Dubya—I saw a friend link the face-melting scene on Facebook, but since I don’t bother to watch videos, I didn’t know what the context was. Now I’m more ticked off about it.
Oddly coincidental, though, my fraternity nickname was “Herr Mack,” Marian’s derisive way of addressing that guy.
I’m sharing that picture on Facebook. If it’s yours, is that ok, and do you want attribution?
Please “post and share.” I just made it this morning, but because I fear the gay mafia, please don’t mention me. I’m hiding in the spiral of silence.
About being socially engineered . . .
I think the only way to combat this is a more wide spread education that gives a sense of the world – particularly the past – and develops one as an independent thinker.
You know – something akin (but not necessarily exactly so) to a classical education.
I’m not sure there are any tricks or shortcuts to this. It’s the fundamental response.
At first blush, it seems completely unlikely. How would we get the schools to do it?
It couldn’t be the schools. It would have to be something out of the new that transcends current institutions.
However, examples are all around us. What happened to those fortress institutions of newspapers, the music industry, taxi commissions, etc., etc. They were not fought; simply transcended. Fast.
The only way to address the issue is to pick up a shovel. Build something. In the medium of the new.
Very conservative in a sense. Has to come from citizens taking care of it themselves rather than changing established institutions or politically through the various levels of government.
Build the Buzzfeed, Spotify, Uber, or Facebook to let people get a good education.
It would have to be at least twice as productive at at least 20% of the cost.
I wonder if I am alone in this: The more I look around, the more I think that is an increasingly easily cleared bar.
The irony of 24 of us “liking” that en masse should not of course be lost on us …
I think we need to talk to the Yeti about a “Like Ironically” button.
One that makes this noise:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZyqQtYvawg
That is the most manly sounding sheep I’ve ever heard… It’s like it’s got a pack a day habit.
Yes, this! I’ve been thinking along similar lines lately…
Catch me up please.
What is the mechanics of Facebook persuasion here? How does it happen?
I’m missing the link between these pictures and persuasion.
Me too, Tommy. I think the OP is saying that many or most of these people are just going along with something they don’t believe, but have been told to believe.
Which I don’t believe. When we were (mostly) pretty happy with the 2014 midterm election results, was it because we were really happy? Or was it because hidden forces in Rightworld commanded us to act happy?
The mechanics are based on what you see on Facebook.
Facebook has algorithms which decide what posts it shows you.
If they tweak it a certain way, they could certainly make something look more popular than it is.
They actually do this continually – it’s their lifeblood: what keeps people coming back to and using Facebook? They try and do more of that.
But they also could use that position to shade things.
In a sense, they are the new Mary Mapes. Remember her? They’re like the producer that decides what you’re going to see. Perhaps the most symbolic representation of what is the zeitgeist.
Makes a lot of people jumpy.
EDIT: Tommy – here is an article from the most publicized example of this: from the Guardian, no less. Here is another from the tech press, so much as it is.
I don’t know if it fits the conservative or libertarian designation, but the “nun” symbol had some popularity as a profile picture for a while, and is still occasionally seen. The “nun” is the arabic letter scrawled on the doors of Christians marked for conversion or death in areas conquered by ISIS, and has become a mark of solidarity with those persecuted groups on social media and other forums. I suppose the fact that I usually needed to explain what my profile picture meant was an indication that it never achieved the iconic recognition of, say, the marriage equality symbol.
The OP refers to the FB analytics, algorithms and data they secure from users posts. It allows FB to slice and dice users into groups for a myriad of purposes, some which could be considered dubious. Some would view this as simple and harmless personalization. The OP refers to the next level of such data mining which allows social engineering.
If TPTB at Facebook are inclined to support a cause, are they artificially steering posts to users in an effort to achieve desired results? The issue of SSM was the most successful attempt at social engineering of such data, ever. Facebook didn’t just drive SSM posts to a higher audience, FB became a part of the effort by providing an easy to use link to ‘rainbow’ your profile pic.
The user thinks this simply sends a message of support for SSM. The OP links to articles, discussing how Facebook in effect, can use these efforts to now actually drive policy.
Therefore, the power and reach of Facebook, along with society’s rapid head-turning change in it’s view of SSM should not be considered independent of each other.
I’m a bit bemused by the amount of lofty contempt for Facebook among the comments here. Leaving aside the possible nefarious plots for high-tech peer pressure, I really feel that the benefits of Facebook have outnumbered any negatives, in my experience. It has reconnected me with friends and relatives with whom I had long lost contact. I have gotten to know quite a bit more about some mere acquaintances, and this has led to us deepening our friendships offline as well. And yes, Facebook has given me a forum to discuss ideas — similar to what we are looking for on Ricochet. Of course, the tone and quality of discussions on Ricochet tends to be more civil and informed, but there is also an element of preaching to the choir here, as we all tend to be basically right of center in our outlook. I have many liberal Facebook friends who don’t seem to have ever encountered an intelligent argument to their world view. We can counter that groupthink and that high-tech peer pressure by putting out our ideas in a civil and thoughtful way. Yes, I have been unfriended and occasionally attacked — but I know that I have also gotten through to some people. Just the other night, a very liberal friend drew me aside at a party to thank me for my Facebook posts and ask me to keep them coming. She said she doesn’t always agree with me, but it makes her think about things in a new way. She’s not the only one who’s told me that. Now that’s a powerful thing!
I haven’t read through the comments to see if this has already been mentioned, but Facebook has officially stated that it categorically did not use this rainbow feature to track user behaviour.
Whether you believe them or not is up to you, but all these articles about Facebook using this rainbow feature to track user behaviour are based on allegations made without evidence.
Mis, their answer was Clintonian at best.
I don’t.