All Right, Enough is Enough

It's fair to say that Facebook has copped a lot of flak of late.  What with handing our details over to dubious data miners, showering us with ads, and supposedly attempting to influence the opinions of its users.  I have to admit that I took all of this with a grain of salt.  For starters I didn't expect anything less and I find it both astonishing and appalling that anyone is astonished or appalled.  Come on guys, how dumb are you?  Mark Zuckerberg isn't rich because your photo of a perfectly cooked meal has some sort of intrinsic value?  It's possibly the least valuable thing in the history of creation.  Mark Zuckerberg is rich because he has access to all of your secrets and can sell them.  Facebook is little more than a giant market research tool, the only difference is that if a person approached us in the street with a clipboard we're more likely to punch them in the face than beg them to exploit us.

So I was fine with Facebook.  It did what it did and people currently throwing their hands up in shock are guilty of culpable stupidity at the very least.  But now Facebook has gone too far!  Do you know what those sick, depraved bastards have done?  I went on to Facebook to post my last blog entry and see if there were any particularly funny videos of kittens in blenders when a terrifying sight leapt out at my unprepared eyes.

Dan Brown was offering a masterclass in how to write!  Dan fucking Brown!  Teaching people how to write books!  I wouldn't trust Dan Brown to write a Christmas card.  He has got to be one of the most ghastly writers in creation and he has several fat, highly successful books to prove it.  And this violent and, largely, undeserved assault on human literacy was being served up to me via Facebook.

The only reason I can come up with for this is that Facebook has finally stopped caring.  Once you've trashed your reputation beyond a certain point you might as well keep on going and at least see if you can get into the Guinness Book of Records for moral debasement.  Having Dan Brown spruiking a course in writing is essentially Mark Zuckerberg extending an erect middle digit to the entire of human cultural history.

A lot of people like Dan Brown's books. That's fine, if you enjoy them by all means read them.  A lot of people like auto erotic asphyxiation as well (with better reason) but that's no justification for having such videos in a family planning clinic.

Strangely I don't actually have a problem with Dan Brown.  He has a talent; he writes books that people apparently want to read (check his sales figures).  I don't want to read them, dear Christ no,  one of them was enough (the Da Vinci code, I read it in about five hours and then spent six hours loathing myself for having lost time I won't get back) but others do and more power to Dan's pen.  He makes money which stops him from being forced to donate organs to make ends meet.  And people take pleasure in his work.  So far so good, or at least, so far so tolerable.  But must he train others to his craft?  Indeed, is it wise for him to do so?  Let's face it Dan, assuming a basic level of literacy amongst your pupils once they learn your tricks what's to prevent them eclipsing you?  Nothing that I can see.

As for Facebook you have finally gone too far.  Action must be taken and I shall take it.  I shall grumble incessantly about Facebook while continuing to use it.  That'll show them.  Mark and Dan will continue to get rich(er) and I will feel a smug sense of superiority that almost covers my sense of total impotence.  Win-win.