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reminder-screw-facebook-header.jpg

As If Another Reminder Was Needed: Screw Facebook

By Petr Navovy | Politics | October 5, 2021 |

By Petr Navovy | Politics | October 5, 2021 |


reminder-screw-facebook-header.jpg

I’m sure everyone noticed the little blip lasg night? The slight shudder in one oligarch’s basement that reverberated outwards and transformed into a tsunami that disrupted vast swathes of the planet?

Facebook—and the other communications companies it has glommed into its gaping maw—went down yesterday when someone in the organisation sent an update to its Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) records that ended up telling the internet that the Facebook domain no longer existed. As a result, at around 5pm UTC, users began to notice they couldn’t get access to Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp, or Instagram. Hilariously, because everything Facebook runs, it runs on Facebook, this outage affected the company’s ability to fix—or even initially diagnose—the problem. They bonked themselves so hard on the head that they forgot where the blow came from or how they ended up sat in the corner drooling over their shoes. About 5 or 6 hours later, Facebook had apparently managed to send a team of people to manually reset the servers and restore service.

In other words: As a result of one corporation’s self-bonk, billions of users around the world were cut off from their primary means of communication. A perfectly healthy state of affairs! And nice and convenient that very shortly after a whistleblower confirmed what admittedly didn’t really need confirming—that Facebook prioritizes engagement and profit over responsible moderation—the main news item that came up when you jumped on Google (that other benevolent capitalist super-platform) was ‘Facebook is down’ rather than ‘Reminder: Facebook is evil’. Peachy.

Well, it’s not like anyone needs a reminder, but f**k Facebook. Great big chunk of rotten, privacy-destroying, disinformation-spreading, advertising-bombarding, fascist-accommodating, socialist-suppressing, mind-numbing, communication-and-public-space-monopolising sh*t. Tear it down and redistribute its assets and nationalise it when the revolution comes. Troubling issues around just how many people around the world—often especially in more overexploited areas—depend on platforms like WhatsApp for communication aside, there was a palpable sense of glee on social media that Zuck’s putrid little brainchild was taken out of action for at least a little while. The air felt crisper. The sun glinted off of shimmering lakes. Transient, of course. But fun nonetheless (though obviously, as always, f**k Twitter too):

But in all seriousness, take this company’s power away, now.