The problem with analogies is we have to be very careful that they make
sense. I think your analogy is does not. A bridge, in this sense of the word,
is a structure (in this case you claim facebook) carrying a road (in this
case I assume digital information) across something (for traditional bridges,
a river, a road, etc. -- in your analogy, I am not sure what it is). So, a
bridge connects 2 points basically. A tolled bridge is one which charges you
a fee to cross. Bridges are not meant for people to live on them, they are
meant to be crossed.
Now, imagine if you will, a gated community and you have to be a member to
belong to this gated community. There is a wall all around the community, and
people live inside. Once inside, you can use some of it's bridges to access
the outside. Some services and corporations can get inside this community,
but not people, unless you happen to live there. I have already called
facebook a gated community or walled garden and you have already dismissed
it, so I'm weary about turning this into a circular argument. However, I
cannot concede that facebook is a bridge; it does not behave like one.
Facebook is a gated community with many "tolled bridges." In order to get in
as a physical person, you must pay with your privacy. In order to get in, as
a corporation, you must pay for advertisement. And a few other bridge
variants connecting the community with the digital world at large. Only one
type of connection given to the outside world with the community; a limited
peeping hole (try looking inside facebook without an account). All the
bridges and the peeping hole are controlled by facebook.
If you follow Moglen's argument, facebook is not free media. Why is it not?
Because it is media that consumes you. Free media, according to him, is media
that does not watch you watch it, listen to you listen to it or read you
reading it. For the time being, the only visible consequence you can see from
this model is the targeted advertising. However, what it really is is 24-7
total surveillance of its users. He compares it to Lubianka. The turnkey
totalitarianism that total surveillance enables should be quite obvious. The
potential for censorship should also be quite obvious.
In any case, I really hope you are right not to be concerned and I am wrong
about the negative potential of services like facebook, for all of our sakes.
It took the Third Reich one year to locate all the Jews in Germany. With
facebook it would take 1 day. I believe that we should shape our governments,
or "services," and our life in such a way to minimize the potential for
abuse, given the worse possible outcome (lets say, for illustration only,
someone like Pol Pot becomes dictator in the U.S.). The moment we start
creating "solutions" and policies that assume benevolent leaders in order for
abuse not to take place, we are setting ourselves up for disaster. Like I
said, I sincerely hope that I am wrong and you are right.
