Opinion: Citizen Face

07/10/2013 - 09h23

There is more than one contradiction between medium and message in the protests that swept Brazil. One of them was revealed by a Folha article on July 4.

In it, a survey showed that 80% of the links shared on Twitter with --hashtags-- connected to the protests during the movement's peak had begun in the so-called traditional media - that means the content was produced by the professional press, following the rules of good journalism.

The survey also showed that pages connected to the press on Facebook were shared at least three times more often than before.

That means that, before and after taking to the streets to criticize the traditional press, among hundreds of other targets, the protestors accessed the same press using the work produced by professional journalism to validate or reject the many rumors that appear on social networks.

Divulgação

On of the posters that were present in the protests of SP- Facebook was ever so helpful

Another contradiction was the use mainly of Facebook to help to form and divulge the events, which many people called "direct media," a product of "horizontal leadership." We --journalists included-- like to think that Apple, Facebook, Google and Twitter are ethereal insubstantial non-profitable organizations, instead of billionaire, for profit companies, which is what they really are. It's essential to destroy the fantasy.

To name only Facebook, the "third biggest country in the world," with 1.1 billion users, it's not far behind its "neighbor" China in the lack of transparency (such as in the NSA case), in the control of its "citizens" (through obscure algorithms and privacy policies) and the ridiculous profit they make over unpaid labor (we and our posts earn squat and they make billions from us).

If the Movimento Passe Livre (Free Pass Movement) generation wants to make the anti-capitalist revolution, doing so on Facebook is like rebelling against American imperialism living in Disneyland.

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Translated by THOMAS MUELLO

Read the article in the original language