Blog Post for Question 2

Sheila Jasanoff introduces her idea of socio-technical imaginaries as products of coproduction in science, technology and desired visions of our future (19).   A shared understanding of social life and social order are essential to and foundational of socio-technical imaginaries.  In context, a socio-technical imaginary occupies the space located between idealistic social/political imageries and the networks that allow STS authors to explain our reality.  In other words, socio-technical imaginaries are under constant distress because of two groups: the dreams looking to advance and the reality holders looking to maintain the social order of things.  In terms of Zuckerberg's attempts at explaining this, he symbolically acknowledges both sides of the argument and puts himself on the side of the dreamer.  Zuckerberg states he is focused on helping people connect to friends, family, and community, in a perfect world he would be able to accomplish this for free with no issues (his dream), however, he explains the business model that helped to establish Facebook as the restrictor of such dreams (the reality controller).  He uses his concept of connection in an attempt to position himself in the middle of providing a wonderful service but with some weighed down requirements.

To further emphasize Zuckerberg's position, Patrice Flitchy offers her understanding of utopia and ideology.  Both concepts are at the forefront of maintaining social order, utopia is used as a disrupter of reality projecting desired futures and ideology is the restricting force that applies maintenance of modern social order (9).  Zuckerberg explains Facebook as a connector of worlds and social beings, however he explains that without their business model, requiring access to people information and advertisements, the service page wouldn't exist.  Essentially, both author's arguments are present in Zuckerberg's attempt to side with the concerned and questioning users, he positions himself to say Facebook can't exist without ads, you can't have one without the other. 

I believe that this is an effective rhetorical response to criticism, it is clear that Zuckerberg wants his utopia as much as anyone else does but is required to provide other services in amongst his business model.  He presents this in a simplistic and easily understood way and acknowledges many things about human nature and agrees to the questioning of Facebook's methods.  This being said, he is not allowed to fabricate any information to the readers as this would violate everything he (seemingly) believes in, we as a reader must trust this information to be good.

One criticism found within the article was a contradiction of information gathering, Zuckerberg states that they do not sell personal information of their users, however, later acknowledges that some information is collected for advertising purposes.  In order for profits to be made, some sort of selling action is required, how does a company transmit a currency (in this case information) without making money in their business model? I found this interesting because it comes at a pivotal point in the article and is glossed over with a security rational.  What does the class think about this comment?

   

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