Facebook Who's Face Is In This Book

Online, February 6, 2011 (Newswire.com) - Facebook who's face is in this book?
For Good or Evil: Social Networking and Personal Responsibility

They called it the Twitter Revolution: A dictator tightened his grip, the people took up arms, and social networking was there to be their megaphone, to send their voices soaring over the clattering din of government censorship. It was 2009, and the fix was in on the state of Iran's federal elections. The re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad proved so unthinkable for many of the nation's citizens, they took to the streets in open defiance; when their own government tried to silence their voices, it was Twitter that became their quickest, clearest way of communicating with those of us in the West. Even the U.S. State Department intervened, asking the Twitter powers-that-be to postpone scheduled maintenance in order to keep the lines of conversation open.

It was-and is-a powerful example of the social media revolution being used for good-after all, who among us would deny that the freedom of expression is ultimately a good and noble thing, that any device allowing for an oppressed people to raise their voices in open defiance of censorship is, on some level, praiseworthy?

Contrast it with the picture of social networking that we are given in a recent film, The Social Network. This movie, recipient of ceaseless laud from film critics and a major contender at this year's Academy Awards, tells the story of the inception of Facebook. According to the film, the creator of the social networking giant, Mark Zuckerberg, started Facebook as a way of enacting revenge on women who scorned him. The final moments of the movie show him sitting, alone at his computer, unable to connect with other human beings in any direct way and therefore turning to the only source of intimacy he can fathom-Facebook.

Two different pictures of social network: One of freedom and empowerment, one of alienation and spite. The point, of course, is not that Twitter is good and Facebook is bad. The point is that these and other social networking tools like them are essentially empty vehicles; you can load them up with virtue or you can fill them with evil, but the choice is ultimately up to you. As they exist in the abstract, social networking sites are morally neutral, but in the world of the concrete, they're seldom without some sort of ethical slant.

If you think I'm exaggerating, consider the role of social networking sites in political discourse. I know people-and I suspect you do too-who use their Facebook account as a bully pulpit, a soapbox from which they spew hatred and vitriol about the political candidates they find to be contemptible, and sometimes extending that fury toward whichever Facebook acquaintances happen to live their life on the other side of the ideological fence.

I also know of people who have used their Facebook or Twitter account to encourage others to vote, to draw attention to praiseworthy causes or campaigns, to encourage true discourse in a way that is sincerely open-minded and intellectually generous.

Social networking, then, is not something about which blanket statements can be made, at least as far as morality is concerned. People, after all, can be moral or immoral; inanimate objects do not, on their own, take ethical stances. In this way, Facebook and Twitter are really no different than the automobile or the firearm, the computer or the jet plane. These things have all been employed in the service of senseless aggression and the defense of the innocent; in a pursuit of violence and of righteous justice.

With the exception of firearms, in which case there still exists a spirited debate over the devices' rightness or wrongness on a basic level, we would all generally agree that each of these inventions is a marvel of science, a testament to human ingenuity, and a tool with the potential for enacting good on a grand scale; and, we would admit that, in each case, evil men have, from time to time, used them for evil purposes.

True personal responsibility is not about shutting out anything that might possibly be used for evil; it is about learning to maintain a balance, a healthy sense of self-control in all aspects of our life. In my book Secrets of Jewish Wealth Revealed I shared an account of a time when all the great Rabbis prayed fervently for the evil desires within us all to vanish; they got what they asked for, but soon had to pray for those desires to return, for without them, people were no longer conceiving children. The same appetites that lead to evil desires also lead to healthy pleasures, and must be controlled, not destroyed.

This is why we do not argue about whether the computer is an inherently ethical or wicked device; rather, we teach our children to use them responsibly, and try to take our own advice as we use computers in our own life and work. I suggest extending the same attitude toward social networking. Our perspective ought not be that the advent of Facebook and Twitter is either the dawning of a new age in the human experience, or that it represents our race's decline into abject narcissism.

Instead, we might view the rise of social networking as an opportunity for us to renew our vigor in preserving-and exemplifying-the great virtues of personal and civic responsibility. We might acknowledge that yes, social networking affords us a chance to behave in a way that is crass or mean-spirited toward others, but that it also gives us a tool with which we can cultivate goodness and grace. We might view this moment of reflection on the relative merit of social networking as an occasion on which to remind ourselves and our children that we each have a responsibility to conduct ourselves with virtue and self-respect-and that our Facebook and Twitter accounts are going to be exactly as good or as evil as we allow them to be. At the end of the day, it is about our perspective, our ability to consider all things neutral and take personal responsibility for the way that we handle the tools and resources at our disposal.

Because On Facebook the face in the book is always yours.