The Social Market Place

Last Friday, France declared a national state of emergency and tightened borders after at least 128 people were killed in a night of gun and bomb attacks in Paris. Eighty people were reported killed after gunmen burst into the Bataclan concert hall and took hostages before security forces stormed the hall. People were shot dead at restaurants and bars at five other sites in Paris. At least 180 people were injured.

During this crisis, social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook activated new features that allowed people in affected areas to mark themselves as safe. This safety check allowed people around the world to track and discuss the violent attacks in Paris with unprecedented speed and depth. For many, social media was the only form of intimacy loved ones could express to the victims of the attacks. Over the weekend, Google also allowed free calls to Paris through its hangouts app. This was social media done right.

But with the whole world’s eyes looking toward Paris, there are regions of the world whose eyes haven’t dared to change gaze. Last Thursday, at least 43 people were killed and more than 200 wounded in two suicide bombings in Beirut, Lebanon. In the past month, Palestinian assailants have attacked and killed scores of Israeli citizens, including young children.  In the past year, 11 million Syrians have been internally displaced or become refugees, at least 250,000 are dead, scores of thousands more have been wounded and traumatized, and ISIS controls a third of the country. What do all three have in common? They don’t have a nifty little filter that people can apply on their Facebook profiles to show that they care.

Many people have been complaining about people’s use of the Paris filter. The most popular complaint seems to say that those people aren’t actually doing anything. That by changing their pictures, it only makes them feel better, as if they contributed something to the relief. However, this is not the basis of my argument against the now iconic filter. My issues revolves around a simple question, “Why didn’t Facebook and other sites make a filter or a safety check when something similar happened in less developed countries in the world?” Some argue that terrorist attacks happen there all the time and it doesn’t make sense to keep talking about it. What of Lebanon? Last Thursday was its first report of a terrorist bombing by Islamic State. By that logic, Paris, which this year also had attacks on the Charlie Hebdo headquarters, is 2 for 1. I suppose the next time Paris has a terrorist attack, we can finally group it with all the other places “where that stuff happens all the time”. It is only rational to point out the obvious sentiment that most people refuse to acknowledge. Not all life is equal. And social media, which amplifies all other social phenomena, succeeds in stressing that as well.

We are indirectly told what we should and shouldn’t care about. We are even told how much to care about one thing and how long we have to wait before it is socially acceptable to stop caring. It’s almost like a stock market for feelings. The “market” decides what the most lucrative feeling to have is and how long to hold that feeling before it loses value. Likewise, you have a group of people who hedge the market by taking a position in a more “risky feeling”, such as “hatin’ on all the people who used the Paris filter.” This leads to a question begging to be asked; if social media is a secondary market, then what is its equivalent of financial equity? All I know for sure is, I can’t wait for Facebook’s “sub-prime feeling crash”.