Though Europe had been ravaged by notable and protracted wars over the
centuries - when the war of 1914 broke out, there was a sense that this
was different from everything that was seen before. Which is why it was
simply called The Great War. The Second World War called for a relook at
the naming strategy and The Great War, only slightly diminished in
significance, became The First World War.
In the accounts of historians and journalists and in the ensuing geopolitics, these two wars were/are outliers. They were military conflicts in a never-ending line of military conflicts, but both together have effectively repositioned every war before or hence. There is a sense that everything changed because of them - on a canvas that enveloped the whole world.
In it's short lifespan, Facebook too has battled its users over their privacy a few times. Though almost all of these conflicts have ended in a retraction by Facebook - like the geopolitics of pre-20th century Europe, nothing actually changed. A resolution was only a means to postpone conflict to a later more opportune moment.
So as yet another skirmish has played out and is seemingly resolved, I can't help but wonder if this is the one that's pivotal enough to be seen as the Great War in the conflict over Facebook and data privacy.
Looking at Facebook's past record however, it doesn't really seem so. In a way, winning its first privacy battle over the Newsfeed feature has made Facebook bullish over every subsequent privacy incursion it has initiated. Only when the memory of that (rightful) victory and exoneration fades, will Facebook see that its perseverance and prescience over privacy are often misplaced.
The mother of all conflicts then is not behind us, but ahead of us.
[Original pic by opensourceway]
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