The above is a satirical home page for a social networking site called borgbook. The site is a play on facebook, envisioning what it might look like if the borg, “a fictional pseudo-race of cybernetic organisms depicted in the Star Trek universe,” were to create their own version.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borg_(Star_Trek)) The sign-up page is essentially a presentation of assimilation into the borg collective. You are alerted to the fact that all of your thoughts will be projected to the collective, and you will receive everyone elses - involuntarily. You will also become an operative in the borg’s bid for universal domination. While obviously not nearly as extreme as being inducted into a hive mind, facebook shares some loose similarities to this sort of structure. Through it’s set up, facebook creates a powerful tool for interaction. But, it’s pre-defined structure limits one’s ability to actually experience life, instead restricting you to a set environment through which you can interact. It also creates an incredibly large data pool that can be exploited by many parties. Those are the main targets of this critique.
In the borg collective, you are part of a large community that constantly has access to each other. Everyone can see, hear, think, and experience everything that other members of the collective are experiencing. This is, however, constrained. There is no spontaneous creation amongst the borg; rather, all this information is used in the collectives goal to spread themselves through the universe. They can’t think about a creative project like painting - all their effort is for the collective. There are no personal goals or gains to be had; all of the drones in the collective have become part of the spectacle of borg domination. The technological upgrades they received by becoming borg drones has only hindered their ability to create. Facebook’s predefined structure of likes, comments, and photos has acted “as an obstacle for the ability to act autonomously and spontaneously.” (Vejby and Wittkower, Spectacle 2.0, 106). All this means is that a moment of spontaneity individually or within the community is limited through facebook; indeed, it may still exist. People can get creative with their wallpapers, post their own creations, etc. It isn’t possible, however, to get experience all possibilities of living life through facebook. It is a medium for partial social creation within certain constraints. The result of all this creation on facebook only results in a larger spectacle. Every time someone posts, it becomes just another thing for everyone else in their community to consume, creating a cycle which limits experience the full spectrum of possibilities that life has to offer.
When the borg assimilate a new species into their hive, they gain a huge pool of knowledge from that species. They can incorporate their technologies to help bolster their formidability. When someone “assimilates” to facebook, it creates a similar data that can be pooled and used for intelligence and monetary gain. For instance, it is openly known, and especially reinforced recently by Edward Snowden and his allegations against the NSA, that facebook and similar sites are used by government intelligence agencies as a sort of “open- source intelligence” stream. (Doyle and Fraser, Facebook, Surveillance and Power, 219) While these pools are utilized ostensibly to help keep people safe, it can also be used as a form of control. Additionally, large databases of users and their information can be sold for a lot of money, as well as be utilized to target audiences for products in an attempt increase sales. Those aren’t even the only possible uses for the facebook data pool. Publicly held information can be used to hack accounts (for instance, finding the answer to someone’s security question “Where were you born?”), evaluate someone’s life, monitor large social trends, or even locate someone. While the amount of information given up to facebook is not nearly as alarming as that given to the borg, it is still a cause for concerns about personal privacy and the use of this public information.
Borgbook is actually just a front for the collective social existence of the borg in the hive mind. Facebook is somewhat similar to this. Sharing your personal details, images of yourself, and interacting through the facebook medium all help to create a huge web-based social structure. While presenting many benefits, there are also drawbacks to what facebook has to offer. Through its structure, it inherently limits a lot of cultural experiences, and aggregates what we do post into one big spectacle that contributes to the cycle of consumption rather than experiencing. On top of this, the breadth of data aggregated into one place by facebook offers a lot of power to those who gather it, whether it is to track the public or market your product better. Those are the drawbacks borgbook is meant to point out.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borg_(Star_Trek)) The sign-up page is essentially a presentation of assimilation into the borg collective. You are alerted to the fact that all of your thoughts will be projected to the collective, and you will receive everyone elses - involuntarily. You will also become an operative in the borg’s bid for universal domination. While obviously not nearly as extreme as being inducted into a hive mind, facebook shares some loose similarities to this sort of structure. Through it’s set up, facebook creates a powerful tool for interaction. But, it’s pre-defined structure limits one’s ability to actually experience life, instead restricting you to a set environment through which you can interact. It also creates an incredibly large data pool that can be exploited by many parties. Those are the main targets of this critique.
In the borg collective, you are part of a large community that constantly has access to each other. Everyone can see, hear, think, and experience everything that other members of the collective are experiencing. This is, however, constrained. There is no spontaneous creation amongst the borg; rather, all this information is used in the collectives goal to spread themselves through the universe. They can’t think about a creative project like painting - all their effort is for the collective. There are no personal goals or gains to be had; all of the drones in the collective have become part of the spectacle of borg domination. The technological upgrades they received by becoming borg drones has only hindered their ability to create. Facebook’s predefined structure of likes, comments, and photos has acted “as an obstacle for the ability to act autonomously and spontaneously.” (Vejby and Wittkower, Spectacle 2.0, 106). All this means is that a moment of spontaneity individually or within the community is limited through facebook; indeed, it may still exist. People can get creative with their wallpapers, post their own creations, etc. It isn’t possible, however, to get experience all possibilities of living life through facebook. It is a medium for partial social creation within certain constraints. The result of all this creation on facebook only results in a larger spectacle. Every time someone posts, it becomes just another thing for everyone else in their community to consume, creating a cycle which limits experience the full spectrum of possibilities that life has to offer.
When the borg assimilate a new species into their hive, they gain a huge pool of knowledge from that species. They can incorporate their technologies to help bolster their formidability. When someone “assimilates” to facebook, it creates a similar data that can be pooled and used for intelligence and monetary gain. For instance, it is openly known, and especially reinforced recently by Edward Snowden and his allegations against the NSA, that facebook and similar sites are used by government intelligence agencies as a sort of “open- source intelligence” stream. (Doyle and Fraser, Facebook, Surveillance and Power, 219) While these pools are utilized ostensibly to help keep people safe, it can also be used as a form of control. Additionally, large databases of users and their information can be sold for a lot of money, as well as be utilized to target audiences for products in an attempt increase sales. Those aren’t even the only possible uses for the facebook data pool. Publicly held information can be used to hack accounts (for instance, finding the answer to someone’s security question “Where were you born?”), evaluate someone’s life, monitor large social trends, or even locate someone. While the amount of information given up to facebook is not nearly as alarming as that given to the borg, it is still a cause for concerns about personal privacy and the use of this public information.
Borgbook is actually just a front for the collective social existence of the borg in the hive mind. Facebook is somewhat similar to this. Sharing your personal details, images of yourself, and interacting through the facebook medium all help to create a huge web-based social structure. While presenting many benefits, there are also drawbacks to what facebook has to offer. Through its structure, it inherently limits a lot of cultural experiences, and aggregates what we do post into one big spectacle that contributes to the cycle of consumption rather than experiencing. On top of this, the breadth of data aggregated into one place by facebook offers a lot of power to those who gather it, whether it is to track the public or market your product better. Those are the drawbacks borgbook is meant to point out.