socialmedian: Is Facebook a Cult?

User-submitted headlines for this story

Clips

Is Facebook a Cult?

Source: ReadWriteWeb

Apr 09, 2009

Summary

Facebook announced that it hit 200 million users today and Chief Operating Officer Cheryl Sandberg made a blog post describing some of the data mining that the company is doing of those connections. It's going to be great for advertisers, she says, it it should also be very good for the rest of us as well. I think it's creepy.

It's all about "The Stream." The conversations we have in public parts of the site, the items we interact with in our Facebook Newsfeeds and the way that builds connections between a larger group of people. Here at ReadWriteWeb we're very excited about social networking, real time feeds, network effects and the like. But this Facebook ethos has gone far enough that it's time to question whether there's something cult-like going on.

Sponsor

Photo: From the Grand Rapids Michigan Zombie Walk, where thousands of people gathered on the streets merely dressed as zombies, after meeting on Facebook. CC by Flickr user Steven Depolo.

Sociologist Robert J. Lifton wrote several decades ago an outline of what makes some groups considered "cults."

...Read the full article

Comments (2)

Tweric,

Apr 09, 2009

I say: not a cult. For three reasons:
1. The leader is not sleeping with my wife.
2. Facebook is not depriving me of protein and making me dance.
3. The women aren't wearing Little House on the Prairie dresses.