Welcome to ... the Meta Zone
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
There is a sixth dimension beyond that which is known to man, as vast as space and as timeless as infinity, lying somewhere just past the Twilight Zone, between the pit of Mark Zuckerberg’s fears and the summit of Mark Zuckerberg’s knowledge. It is an area we call … Meta, the new rebranded name of the Facebook parent company. Here are a few tales from this place.
Nightmare of 40,000 Employees : A Facebook engineer has been hired to help protect the social network’s users. He notices a hideous flaw in the algorithm that is turning average middle-aged users into wild-eyed lurkers on the extreme wing of their political party. He keeps pointing this out to people in the company so that it can be fixed, but everyone silences or ignores him. Eventually he becomes convinced that he must be the problem and quits.
Long Live Walter Jameson : Horrified by findings that their users are aging more rapidly than the population at large, Facebook employees try everything they can to turn back the clock, including but not limited to studying preteens and "exploring playdates as a growth lever” for Facebook Messenger Kids. But nothing can stop the terrifying march of time, and Facebook ends the episode looking on in horror as its average user, Walter Jameson, ages suddenly and rapidly shrivels into dust after logging on one time too many.
It’s a Good Meta-Life : There is a little boy (he is 37, but that does not stop people from referring to him as a little boy) who does not ever like even for a moment to hear dissent or complaints. He runs a major company, and gradually all the people there who questioned his judgment vanish. It is unclear to where. Myspace? A cornfield? Either way, none of them is ever heard from again, and the company is not better for it. Everyone around him is very happy and thinks his new metaverse is a good idea.
Five Avatars in Search of an Exit : You are stuck in the metaverse with a robot, a clown, an artist and two of your co-workers. The metaverse just looks like your conference room, and you don’t understand why it was so important for you to be there or how exactly you got there. It is not fun, and it gives you a headache. As it turns out, you are all in a garbage can .
The Howling Man : Facebook figures out that its new algorithm that attempts to decrease the spread of misinformation by lowering the sharing of articles that sharers have not actually read would have a disproportionally negative impact on articles from conservative sources … but it feels sorry for the articles that would be imprisoned by this new policy and doesn’t implement it. The articles get out.
The Vaccines Are Not Wanted on Maple Street : A pandemic is sweeping the land, and people are getting their information about it on Facebook. Now they have become a paranoid mob!
Time Enough at Last : When he gets around to it, Henry Bemis is going to finally read all the articles in his news feed and see what he thinks about them. But he never gets around to it; instead, he becomes radicalized and joins Oath Keepers.
The Mirror : Believing that they can use Facebook to see who is betraying the state, the leaders in Vietnam ask Mark Zuckerberg to censor the content that appears on it. He agrees!
I of the Beholder : A teenager with a normal self-image and good mental health joins Instagram. Her normal self-image doesn’t last long.
To Serve Man : Mark Zuckerberg announces that he is going to create a wonderful network that will serve mankind, but actually, he means “serve” like “cook."
Last Night of a Keyboard Jockey : A young man makes a wish: to create a network that will connect the world and make everyone’s lives better, or maybe to effectively rate the attractiveness of girls. Because he is not clear in his mind about which one is his actual wish, he gets neither, instead creating a network that is full of misinformed, angry users and has been implicated in genocide and violence all around the world. And it won’t stop growing
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Other silly name changes ... NT's Meta will be changed to Fecesbook cuz 'we' all know what actually goes on there.
OMG, the secret is out.
I'm only here to out the Pharisees. ; -)
Very clever satire. Good job !
Had to laugh when I saw the reference (and comparison) to the Sci-Fi classic "To Serve Man" Glad I have nothing to do with Facebook or Instagram. I have despised Zuckerberg ever since I saw the movie about how he screwed his partner and worry about the incredible power he has to influence opinion. In a way, he is able to control people more than their respective governments can, and that makes him one of the most dangerous people in the world.