Infoselves. Demetra Garbasevschi
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Introduction
A Moment in Time and Our Self-Identity Dilemma
Over the course of our lives, we experience moments that have the power to bring us sudden clarity and insight over aspects of our lives that we had misunderstood, misinterpreted, or simply failed to notice. As a global society, we are equally exposed to moments of collective revelation that fracture the status quo, opening new perspectives and courses of action. These are not necessarily moments of historical magnitude and can be as mundane as the last day of April 2019.
It was the day of the Facebook F8 developer conference, an event dedicated to tech creators and consumers, where the company usually introduces its latest technological updates, pitching product novelties or proprietary tools to reaffirm its position as leader and innovator. The edition of 2019 announced itself to be remarkably different. Facebook had been under a long siege following the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Since the reveal of Facebook’s part in one of the biggest political campaign schemes of our times, the accusations toward the company had been cascading. In retrospect, the known offences fell under at least three categories. First, there were the unintended errors in personal data handling. Various bugs allowed the hacking of 30 million accounts in September 2018 or the open availability of the private photos of almost seven million users to third-party developers in December 2018 (Lapowsky 2018). Then, there was the intentional third-party data sharing. In December 2018, Facebook’s alleged secret deals with over one hundred and fifty major companies, among which Amazon, Spotify, and Netflix, were made public. Under these contracts, Facebook was deceitfully unlocking the private data of users for its partners’ use (Dance et al. 2018). Finally, there was the lenience towards the use of the platform, allowing for the spread of fake news, hate speech, or the congregation of individuals and groups with a shady agenda, leading to tragedies such as the violent street riots targeting Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar (Lapowsky 2018). The company’s