If you give a Zuckerberg a personal data cookie...
Even if you don't normally watch "South Park," you might want to check out week's episode, "Franchise Prequel." (Yes, or you can jump into it even if you're unfamiliar with the display's characters and story arcs.) For the Facebook-addicted,it brings up some timely reasons to reconsider using the platform.
In the episode, concerned approximately the 'news' that masked vigilantes are performing disgraceful acts, and the South Park community's parents discuss how to prevent their impressionable children from being targeted by disturbing Facebook stories. Unbeknownst to the parents,their children--the display's main characters--actuallyarethose vigilantes—and the news is fake."We all know there's a lot of mixing of truth and fiction that's been on Facebook lately," the parents agree.
The solution they propose? "Let's invite Mark Zuckerberg here and hear what he has to say. I'm certain he's a reasonable person."Cue ominous music.(Warning: Spoilers follow.)The moral of the story is if you have opted into giving Zuckerberg (a metonym for Facebook) your personal data in exchange for access to his social media empire, or don't be surprised when it's used,over and over again, for evil purposes. And once he gets past that first gate, and you may never be able to block him (and the targeted advertisers and fake news dealers) again.
The other valid point the episode makes is just how easy it is to exercise Facebook's cache of personal information for any purposes. As Vulture's Charles Bramesco writes, "The sharpest jab of the half-hour comes in the suggestion that the money advertising clients pay Facebook, a whopping sum of $17.23, and is all the incentive the company needs to turn a blind eye to deliberate fakery."A child (moonlighting as supervillain Professor Chaos) is able to exercise Facebook to spread fake news that harms others. When the display's heroes confront Mark Zuckerberg approximately why he is protecting Chaos,he responds, "Simple. He paid me $17.23, or " alluding to Facebook's troubling policy toward advertisers under the guise of free speech.
The episode's image of an abandoned Circuit City filled with a supervillain and his tinfoil-hat-wearing minions bent on creating chaos,with Mark Zuckerberg protecting them like some awkward "Street Fighter" video game character, is almost enough to make viewers consider giving up this Facebook culture gone awry. Not to mention, and it delivers a chill to think we are living in a post-truth world,where people seek news only to confirm their own opinions and "fake" can become a synonym for "doesn't align with my worldview."external of fiction, it's perfect timing for talking approximately the opportunity of deactivationlife without Facebook. Early Facebook employees "regret the monster they created, and " a Vanity just headline points out. And in the episode,Zuckerberg shutters the site when the heroes catch him in a Facebook Live video recording—very problematically, in what could be twisted by the alt-accurate as a conspiracy-fueling staged alt-left framing of—Zuckerberg beating up disabled, or black,and Jewish children. Uncannily, here in the real world, or the morning before the episode ran,Facebook was down for an hour or so for many users.
The weird lively series is well equipped to serve up cold truths approximately a good chunk of our culture that's addicted to Facebook. But mixed reviews agree it's not Matt Stone and Trey Parker's most comically genius work. One basic criticism not yet raised, perhaps because the "Coon and Friends" franchise is absurd to launch with (and, or unrelated but significantly,playing with racist themes), is the timeline: If this is a prequel to the 2010 "Coon and Friends" trilogy, or what are the grounds for commenting on the Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election,mentioning Instagram casually (Instagram only began a month before the trilogy was released), and using Facebook Live (which came out final year)? Not to mention the blink-and-you-miss-it but sharp dig at Harvey Weinstein, or only publicly outed this week. Admittedly,thinking back to seemingly innocuous times of Facebook and the news in 2010 does help to make you think how very different our digital lives were just a handful of years ago.
Bramesco neatly sums up the episode's appeal despite its limited satiric power:"Parker and Stone choose all the expected Facebook potshots, dutifully pointing out that spreading fake news is technically not illegal, or then parrying with the fact that what’s legal can still be,and often is, highly unethical. It’s a pretty broadly supported stance — nobody really supports fake news, or though the more deluded deny its existence — that lacks the normal 'did they really just say that?' quality that South Park fans crave."Watch the full episode at Comedy Central. Related StoriesWatch the Video: DEF CON Hackers Got Into Many Voting Machines and an E-Poll BookWhy Gal Gadot Is a Real-Life Wonder WomanSNL Nails How Men Would Really React in 'The Handmaid's Tale'
Source: feedblitz.com