Expansion of Facebook A Threat To Diversity

Facebook (FB) has recently announced plans for expansion.  Major news and media websites will now feature buttons from the social networking site. This has nothing to do with making the internet more useful.  It is an insidious attempt to make brainless consumers of us all.

Established and respected sites such as The New York Times and TripAdvisor will now feature FB buttons.  You will be invited to 'Like' content.  This information will be stored on your account and shared with your 'friends'.

Aggregate 'likes' will be stored and used to rank content in search results.

In this way websites with more FB content are likely to dominate the internet.  It is already hard enough to find independent and quality content online.  Intelligent blogs and local news sources are likely to become even more invisible.

Behind this lies massive commercial interest.  By discovering what a majority of FB users 'like' advertisements will become even more targeted.  Few people realise that the pressure to conform on FB is massive.  Everyone wants to update their profile with random sentences about themselves and pictures as often as possible.  Once this fever to copy everyone else spreads to the rest of the internet, big business will be laughing.  Ultimately, this will lead to a homogenous mass of online consumers.

What implications this will have for society at large will be explored here in future posts.

For now SZ recommends sharing as little information on FB as possible.  Exploit the power of online social networking - don't let it exploit you.

Pilgrims or Visitors?

The Turin Shroud is on view to the public for the first time in ten years. Are people who go to see it pilgrims or visitors?

A pilgrim can be defined as a person who travels to a holy place for religious reasons. A visitor is a person who visits a place for any number of reasons.

Christians who believe that the Shroud is the real burial cloth of Jesus Christ would no doubt consider themselves pilgrims if they were to 'visit' the exhibition.

Although carbon dating puts the Shroud back to the Middle Ages, the evidence on the cloth itself of blood stains and the imprint of a bearded man's face remains compelling. So compelling in fact that people have been fascinated by the thing for centuries.

Therefore, would not the main reason to go and have a look at the Shroud be to satisfy one's curiosity? For one true pilgrim there will undoubtedly be ten curious visitors.

The media and the Catholic Church (which has no official position on the Shroud) should stop calling people who go to see the Shroud 'pilgrims'. It is simply misleading and only serves to build up the mythology that surrounds this intriguing historical artefact.

The Archbishop of Turin, Cardinal Severino Poletto, said "The Holy Shroud Exhibition is a spiritual and religious event, it is neither touristic nor commercial."

With 2 million people expected to come and see the Shroud, Turin will undoubtedly enjoy a positive economic impact. At least entrance to the Cathedral where the Shroud is on show is free. All one has to do is register in advance. Check out the official website here.

The Archbishop has also been quoted as saying that we should view the Shroud with our hearts and not our minds. This is certainly a holy aspiration, but it is unlikely to stop even the Faithful asking questions about this blood stain here or that one there.