Let me speculate here about the concept of “Facebook” as a national utility for the Netherlands. I do realize the amount of people using Facebook in the Netherlands is still not a majority. Oh excuse me it is. That places adoption rates for Facebook at a level where we might conclude Facebook is an inalienable part of our lives in a developed country.
So when do we start interpreting Facebook not as a corporate service run from some distant country? When do we deliberate regarding Facebook as a national utility, like water, internet, electricity and other such? In essence – this would mean the Netherlands (and probably Europe, in a pan-European context) might consider nationalizing, i.e. breaking up by force under market monoopoly laws, Facebook. The state would start a Facebook.nl domain (which right now is a spam site, but never mind that, we can forced nationalize them too) and manage all data in Dutch citizens using Facebook resources, allocated in the Netherlands.
The amount of Synergy would be amazing. Facebook.com would instantaneously double it’s effective user base. Clearly everyone in the Netherlands would have access to a Facebook account by name (with a human right to use an alias) but clearly facebook.com would no longer be allowed to willy-nilly delete accounts. Some accounts would be branded NSFW or “mature” and be less accessible to minors or people that prefer to be shielded from NSFW content – but Facebook.com would no longer have a discretionary voice in banning, censoring political speech, or the arbitrary (and arguably exploitative) exploitation of private data of Dutch (and EU) citizens.
Think about it, discuss it, spread the idea. It might catch on, and I personally see nothing but upsides.
But above all lets contemplate similar services such as Facebook in an evolving world. Most people have no clue what “mind uploading” is, but what if one day such (and similar) services appear in a corporatized context? We have already seen the movie “in time“, and the even more grizzly movie “the island“, or the even more macabre corporatized world of “Repo Men“. In each cinematic representation corporate logic trumps things such as dignity, humanity, public freedom, accountability, common law and sensibility. And we should guard against a world where business can bestow critical blessings, and arbitrarily take them away.
So when I talk about a “wrath of khannea” maybe I am not arguing me being petty and vindictive – maybe I am hearkening back to the original tale of a superhuman and utterly psychopathic character in a movie, who did pretty much what (s?)he wanted because of utter necessity and survival. And that game works both ways, right?