11/03/2024
Facebook (and all of social media) is like the village of Anatevka from Fiddler on the Roof ⬇️
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In the opening scenes of the 1971 film adaptation of Fiddler on the Roof, the narrator, Tevye, introduces us to his village of Anatevka, which is a pretty fraught place where people are unhappy and danger is on the horizon. Nearly three hours and (spoiler alert) innumerable indignities and terrors later, Tevye and his neighbors leave the village, all to go their separate ways.
From the first scene in Fiddler, it's clear that this is a bad situation, but the next three hours show us why the Anatevkans can't just pack up and leave: they are being held hostage…by each other.
They love each other. They need each other. And despite that, when it's finally time to go, they can't all agree on where to go next. Some go to Krakow, some to New York, some to Chicago ("we'll be neighbors"). It's a poignant scene because we know that their community is smashed forever.
Hypothetically, the Anatevkans could have spent the three hours of screen time in a people's assembly, debating which town they will all move to, and they could have all decamped en masse to their new home. They don't, for the obvious reason that this would be a pretty boring movie, but also because the task is an impossible one.
Lazar can go to Chicago because he has a (hated) brother-in-law there that will put him up. Tevye presumably has a good reason to go to New York, but it means leaving behind his beloved daughter Chava, whose new husband has his own reasons to relocate to Krakow.
They had a collective action problem. Each of them could figure out what worked best for them, but getting together to decide what was best for all of them was literally impossible.
We've all experienced some form of collective action problem. It's easy to figure out what you want for dinner. It's harder to get your partner and kid(s) to agree on a menu. It's still harder to get ten people at a conference to agree on where to eat. And, as anyone who's ever catered a wedding knows, it's impossible to serve a dinner for 80 that will make everyone happy.
Online, a lot of us have been unhappy with our social media platforms for a long time, but we hang in there, year after year, scandal after scandal, because as much as we hate the platform, we love the people who use the platform.
We don't leave because we don't want to lose them. They don't leave because they don't want to lose us. It's a hostage situation, and we're all holding each other hostage.
Collective action problems are hard problems.
The Big Tech platforms style themselves as "benevolent dictators." Sure, they have the final say over your digital life, but they only wield that power because they want to help you.
That's the story whether it's Facebook or Twitter blocking you from posting a link to a site like Distributed Denial of Secrets, or Gmail blocking independent mail-servers from reaching your inbox, or Apple blocking alternative Instagram apps that shield you from tracking and ads.
Sometimes, these companies really are looking out for your interests. They have armies of moderators and security experts who block innumerable threats to your data, your identity, and your physical safety. But those companies will never block you from their own leadership: when your interests conflict with their plans, the fortress walls that keep bad guys out become prison walls that lock you in.
You can still leave, of course. You can quit Facebook, and you might be able to convince some of your friends to quit Facebook with you, but can you all agree on where to go next? Or will you end up like the Anatevkans, scattered to the four corners of the internet?
There is a better way. The tech giants don't have to run walled gardens, they choose to. We can make them choose otherwise.
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