The Facebook Effect ( First Blog )

     Majority of Americans either know about Facebook or are on it. Many of us are joined Facebook for its social features, but some people over the years have learned how to use Facebook as a "constructive or destructive force." ( pg 8 ) One of the best examples of its constructive force would be what Oscar Morales did in Colombia. Oscar harnessed the power of Facebook to create a group against FARC, a guerrilla group that terrorizes Colombia. The groups sole purpose for Morales was to "express my anger" as he states, "it was like therapy." ( pg 2 ) Soon Facebook became a political tool, where millions of fans could join the group against FARC and express their disgust without fear. This simple Facebook group had the power to construct massive protest groups around the world to go against something wrong in society.
     Some people however don't realize that Facebook is also a destructive power. A lot of members of Facebook allow it to substitute face to face communication. Facebook was created to "make it so people could get access to information about anyone, and anyone could share anything that they wanted to." ( pg 29 ) Facebook should be a stepping stone for relations! Facebook allows its members to access information in a variety of ways ranging from its News Feed to its Poke feature. Most of Facebook features came about from previous social networks such as AIM and its away messages. Making Facebook easy and fast for the people caused it to survive and eventually spread to colleges all over the nation.
     Since Facebook was not the first social network created it brought along with it legal issues. It seemed as if "whenever I do something successful, every capitalist out there wants a piece of the action." ( pg 83 ) This phrase was more than true when Cameron, Tyler and Divya creators of another social network accused Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, for stealing their ideas. Both parties agreed on settlement and Facebook today seems to have "lasting cultural value that could take over the world." ( pg 47 ) Lets just hope everyone uses it in a constructive force.