Blog Post 2

From reading how CEO Mark Zuckerberg defends Facebook’s business practices as being a service that was built in order to afford people with the ability to connect and learn about one another operates as a socio-technical imaginary. To develop an understanding as to what this term entails, one must understand what an imaginary is and how it can be socio-technical. an imaginary can be identified as the vision and feelings one has associated with something. The socio-technical is influential as these imaginaries are “once products of and instruments of the co-production of science, technology, and society in modernity” (Jasanoff, 2015). Therefore, making socio-technical imaginaries explained by Josanaoff as “scientific and technological visions enter into the assemblages of materiality, meaning, and morality that constitutes robust forms of social life” (Jasanoff, 2015). When relating Zuckerberg’s idea of “connection” it operates as a socio-technical imaginary by building Facebook off of a shared social life and social order. In addition, socio-technical imaginaries experience distress from the clash of the dreamers looking to advance and people maintaining social order. However, within the Wall Street article, Zuckerberg places himself as a dream by addressing these concerns by states how in an ideal world, he had the vision to be able to connect people for free with no problems, as states how Facebook’s business model brings him back to reality, realizing that this cannot be accomplished. He sets the stage for deflecting the critics made by positioning himself as someone who affords people connections, demonstrating that he has a wonderful service that has room for improvement. Facebook embodies and performs the relationship between ideology, myth, and utopia by its re-innovation. Facebook initially was created to afford people the ability to stay connected, demonstrating it is slightly utopia, however through time has become more ideological. This is because while it fosters connections amongst people, it also fosters a connection with exterior companies and organizations by advertisements in a virtual space through technological techniques found on Facebook. Through this, you can see how there are two different views and perspectives on using Facebook identifying how the original idea was utopia but has evolved to be ideological.
From the statements made in the article, it seems that Zuckerberg still holds a utopian point of view through connectivity, however, he acknowledges how this is a socio-technical imaginary as things do not come for free. Therefore, I think it is an effective rhetorical response to the criticism presented because he desires to stay true to the initial reason for creating this service. Through these types of statements, you place trust in what Zuckerberg is saying, as he identifies the faults in the service and acknowledges that there is room for innovation and change.

The contradiction that limits its effectiveness is from Zuckerberg himself and how he does not directly address the issues, but rather indirectly. There is no transparency about the information collected, however, they confirm that information is being collected, but not shared and then later expose that the information is being given to advertisers. It sounds like a contradiction to me .. and room for confusion and doubt.

The business model presented demonstrates how Facebook is a company that is tech-for-profit as it uses advertisers to obtain capital. Through its use and purpose of connectivity, I believe it can be a model for tech for good, as it does initially follow a utopian point of view, that turned into being ideological as it requires profits to function.