The Scary Power of Facebook

After the revolt in Egypt, it became very apparent that Facebook has power ...so much power it's kind of scary. With all this power however, it's important that Facebook has the appropriate safeguards to keep itself and its users safe. Because Facebook became a vital tool to many activists in publicizing the events in Egypt, Facebook executives are believed to be worried that they will lose its power in countries such as Syria, where it has just gained a foothold. It's believed that if Facebook becomes too influential, the Syrian government would implement policies to restrict and monitor use within its country. 

In regard to Facebook providing adequate safety to its users, an example of this came during the Egyptian revolt involving Wael Ghonim, a Google executive. Ghonim, was the administrator of a pro revolt Facebook group, and when it was discovered by the Egyptian government, he was thrown into jail for violating Egyptian law. This brought up an interesting question: is Facebook responsible for Ghonim breaking the law on their website? In recent weeks, Facebook pages trying to mobilize protestors have sprung up in Algeria, Bahrain, Iran and Yemen, which is putting even more pressure on Facebook to take a stance on their platform being used by activists. According to Ethan Zuckerman, a senior researcher at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard, "this is an incredible challenge and an incredible opportunity for Facebook, Twitter and Google." I'm going to keep this one short because just like the rest of you I need to work on my website....but it should be interesting to see how Facebook "checks" its own power in the coming days and weeks.