Talk about competitive advantage!
This may actually reverse Facebook's stock price decline. Forcing members to have email accounts with telling them or sharing personal data with advertisers without permission were forceful statements of strategic business intent (if somewhat ham-handed public relations moves and, for the nit-picky, possibly illegal). But having your service become a certified proxy for sanity or normality? Priceless.
Of course, there will be naysayers who point out that giving a commercial enterprise that much control over citizens' rights and liberties probably violates a host of constitutional principles - to say nothing of myriad laws - but sheesh, some people will complain about anything, won't they?
Seriously, this does raise some fascinating questions about the role of democracy and the rule of law. If societal majorities choose to waive their rights and obligations for greater convenience, what grounds of challenge exist? Employers will easily claim that other factors led to their decision to reject an applicant or terminate a staff member.
Others will point out that society has a right to protect itself. However, the fact that several recent mass-murderers did not have Facebook accounts may be indicative of a deeper psychosis, but there is not yet any scientific evidence to support that conclusion.
The implication is that society may be, once again, surrendering rights it takes for granted - and obligations to be fair and just that it finds inconvenient - in order to get on with life as comfortably as possible. As the saying goes, 'you dont know what you've lost till its gone.' JL
The Daily Mail reports:
Facebook has become such a pervasive force in modern society that increasing numbers of employers, and even some psychologists, believe people who aren't on social networking sites are 'suspicious.'
The German magazine Der Taggspiegel went so far as to point out that accused theater shooter James Holmes and Norwegian mass murder Anders Behring Breivik have common ground in their lack of Facebook profiles.
On a more tangible level, Forbes.com reports that human resources departments across the country are becoming more wary of young job candidates who don't use the site.
Normal:
Facebook has become so pervasive in this culture that not having a profile is considered 'abnormal.'The common concern among bosses is that a lack of Facebook could mean the applicant's account could be so full of red flags that it had to be deleted.
Slate.com tech reporter Farhad Manjoo wrote in an advice column that young people shouldn't date anyone who isn't on Facebook.
'If you’re of a certain age and you meet someone who you are about to go to bed with, and that person doesn’t have a Facebook page, you may be getting a false name. It could be some kind of red flag,' he says. Manjoo points out that these judgements don't apply to older people who were already productive adults before social media became widespread.
The tech news site Slashdot summed up Der Taggspiegel's story about social networking as 'not having a Facebook account could be the first sign that you are a mass murderer.'
It points out that Holmes, who is accused of killing 12 people and an unborn child and wounding 58 others at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, and Breivik, who murdered 77 people with a car bomb and mass shooting, did not use Facebook and had small online footprints. Breivik used MySpace and Holmes was reportedly on the hookup site Adult Friend Finder.
Psychologist Christopher Moeller told the magazine that using Facebook has become a sign of having a healthy social network.
Psychologists have noted that Holmes, along with several noted mass murderers, have lacked any real friends.
And this is what the argument boils down to: It's the suspicion that not being on Facebook, which has become so normal among young adults, is a sign that you're abnormal and dysfunctional, or even dangerous, ways.
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