The evils of Facebook The Corporation have been covered at length by better and more informed writers. I want to talk about Facebook’s stupid, stupid, hideous, cynical, soulless little circle logo and what it symbolizes. Look at it. Really look. What do you see?
Do you feel its emptiness? Are you deceived by its duplicity? The way it tries to lure you in with its cynical rainbow colors of pseudo-inclusivity only to hit you with two Sans Serif letters, duller than rocks, heavier than lead?
Good graphic design should tell you something. What does this say? Absolutely nothing. Who is it for? I bet the brand team said everyone. Nothing for everyone. Now that’s what I call equality. It mocks me. It mocks us all.
Facebook’s purpose might make things clearer:
We are a global company of 181,000 people, each with unique perspectives, backgrounds and skills—but all united in a common purpose: To embrace the biggest challenges in our industry, to provide technology that enables our customers to meet their goals, and to strengthen the communities where we live and work.
Sorry, that’s not Facebook’s purpose. It’s Raytheon’s. Raytheon makes missiles and weapons of war. This one is Facebook’s:
The phrase “this journey is 1% finished” reminds us that we’ve only begun to fulfill our mission. As we evolve our journey to bring the world closer together, we stay true to the same core values to guide the way we work and the decisions we make every step of the way: be open, be bold, move fast, focus on impact, and build social value.
What’s the difference? Of course, it’s all lies either way. Facebook is nothing but a fraud. Should we care?
Hell
Whenever I think about Facebook and its social media businesses, like Instagram, I think of its duplicitousness by design, its endless downward spiral, its devilish CEO, its stupid, stupid, hideous, cynical, soulless little circle logo. I think of Hell. I think of Dante’s Inferno. Like this guy.
Written in the early 14th century, The Inferno chronicles the journey of Italian poet Dante Alighieri (1265-1321 A.D.) through Hell. Dante is accompanied by the ancient Roman poet Virgil (70-19 B.C.), who wrote The Aeneid.
In Dante’s conception of Hell, there are nine concentric circles that go deep into the Earth, each for one category of sin. These circles are meant to represent greater evil and greater sin the lower into the Earth’s core they go, with Satan at the bottom, trapped in ice. As the poem progresses, Dante and Virgil move down through Hell together, basically watching people being tortured, talking and occasionally joking about what they see.
The Inferno is largely based on Aristotelian ethics, which divides sin into the following categories: Incontinence (meaning lack of self-restraint, personal weakness), Violence, and Fraud. Without getting too far into it, Aristotle was big on the idea that human beings were given the special gift of reason, and abuse of this special gift through fraud or malice was among the gravest sins.
It is also worth noting that the eternal punishments in Hell are contrapasso, meaning they resemble or contrast with the sins themselves (Latin: contra and patior, meaning “suffer the opposite”). For example, in the Eighth Circle, the panderers and seducers march back and forth in opposite directions while being whipped by horned demons for eternity. Those who “deliberately exploited the passions of others and so drove them to serve their own interests, are themselves driven and scourged.” The flatterers are steeped in so much shit they are unrecognizable. That’s certainly not the worst of it; it is truly horrific, horrific stuff.
Into the Abyss
In Canto XVIII, Virgil and Dante find themselves outside the Eighth Circle of Hell, known as the Malebolge, or the evil ditches. This is where we find the panderers and seducers, the flatterers, the Simoniacs, the sorcerers, the corrupt politicians, the hypocrites, the thieves, the fraudulent advisors, the sowers of discord, the falsifiers, the imposters.
Dorothy L. Sayers, writer, poet, and translator of The Divine Comedy, writes:
“[The Malebolge is] the image of the City in corruption: the progressive disintegration of every social relationship, personal and public. Sexuality, ecclesiastical and civil office, language, ownership, counsel, authority, psychic influence, and material interdependence—all the media of the community's interchange are perverted and falsified.”
This is a perfect description of social media’s effect on society. This is Facebook’s business model. Sure, Facebook allows you to message people and Instagram has allowed people like me to reach new audiences under the guise of creativity and self-expression, or perhaps more useful, buy a Vitamin C serum in a couple of clicks.
But it’s obvious to us all by now that this is not what these platforms are designed to do. They are designed to commodify us, turn us into monetizeable data points, and furthermore atomize us and divide us through algorithmic media that pushes us apart and deeper into our own personal hellholes. They say one thing but do entirely another: the definition of fraud and treachery, Aristotle and Dante’s gravest sin.
In Canto III, in the Vestibule of Hell, Dante passes through Hell’s Gate, which bears an inscription: Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate / Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.
Virgil and Dante hear the screams of the Uncommitted, the souls of those who took no sides in life. These are the opportunists who were neither for good nor evil, but instead are merely concerned with themselves.