Power within Facebook

Mark Zukerberg states that Facebook’s purpose is to open and connect the world to direct the empowerment of people (Prosperos World, 2012), ultimately creating a small-world network. Small-world networks have high clustering and short path lengths, meaning that everyone is actually only six people (degrees) away from each other (Telesford, Joyce, Hayasaka, Burdette & Laurienti, 2011, p. 1), which effectively spreads information and power distribution throughout Facebook.

Allen (2003) states that “power is inherently spatial” (p. 3), which is a concept that enables users the power to make Facebook their own space, through conventions such as status writing, like/emoticon symbols, and the sharing of stories, all of which are used features of Facebook when making connections.

Connections online increase our own personal connections, as power is the “relational effect of social interaction” (Allen, 2003, p. 2). This notion empowers Facebook through interconnected relationships, demonstrating charismatic power or referent power through user popularity. Facebook further empowers users with technocratic power, through its privacy settings, which is legitimised by the protection of information (Kuttainen, 2016). However, Tuan (1979) warns that with the “openness [of power within] space” (p. 6), comes power threats.

Online spaces are public spaces (Kuttainen, 2016), which means there is a lack of intimate familiarity despite personal connections. This conceptual experience evokes the feeling that “every movement is under observation, subject to surveillance of some kind, yet [we] are quite unable to say whether this is actually happening or that anyone is really directing things” (Allen, 2003, p. 1). This suggests that Facebook possesses an opportunity for totalitarianism - power that can be strategically used through censorship or surveillance (Kuttainen, 2016). As a result of the network’s vast connections, Allen (2003) states that totalitarianism can be “exercised at a distance through [the] succession of relationships” (p. 3).

Knowing this, Facebook's purpose, to create an open and connected space, has enabled power distribution to be facilitated through relationships both beneficial and threatening.

Click HERE to watch a TED talk, delivered by Rebecca Mackinnon, that further enforces the threat of totalitarianism in online surveillance.

Reference List

Allen, J. (2003). Lost Geographies of Power. Melbourne, Victoria, Australia: Blackwell Publishers Ltd.

Kuttainen, V. (2016). BA1002: Our Space: Networks, Narratives and the Making of Place. Week 2. [PowerPoint Slides]. Retrieved from https://learnjcu.jcu.edu.au/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?course_id=_76323_1&content_id=_2298378_1

Kuttainen, V. (2016). BA1002: Our Space: Networks, Narratives and the Making of Place. Week 3. [PowerPoint Slides]. Retrieved from https://learnjcu.jcu.edu.au/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?course_id=_76323_1&content_id=_2412484_1

Mackinnon, R. (July 2011). Let's take back the Internet! [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/rebecca_mackinnon_let_s_take_back_the_internet?language=en

Prosperos World. (2012). Mark Zukerberg’s IPO Letter Describing Facebook’s Purpose, Values & Social Mission. Retrieved from Prosperos World: http://prosperosworld.com/mark-zukerbergs-ipo-letter-describing-facebooks-purpose-values-social-mission/2012/

Telesford, Q. K., Joyce, K. E., Hayasaka, S., Burdette, J. H., & Laurienti, P. J. (2011). The Ubiquity of Small-World Networks. Brain Connectivity, 1. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3604768/

Tuan, Y.-f. (1979). Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience. London, Great Britain: Edward Arnold (Publishers) Ltd.