web2.0 suicide machine

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In the early eighties, a digital revolution began taking shape, having a strong impact on peoples’ communication and social life ever since. It was then made possible to implement the theoretical and utopian imagination of readily accessible worldwide connectivity due to rapid technological developments.
The Internet as a democratic tool, libertarian space and creative platform was particularly regarded as part of the dream of a global village in order to enhance communication, leaving commercial interests aside.
 

world connection density, February 2007

Now, 30 years later, we are indeed living in a globalized world, though not in a global village.
The by now highly developed means of communicating information and of communication itself expands the public sphere. It moulds communities beyond the local and the national, forging a re-determination of space, physical distance and immediacy as well as a re-evaluation of relationships between people.
 

global electricity consumption, 2004

One of the most recently generated tools with a very high expansion rate within this system is Facebook. Launched in 2004 and initially exclusively limited to Harvard students, access was gradually extended to students in Stanford, Columbia and Yale. The demand from schools and companies for membership increased at speed. Finally on 26th September 2006, Facebook was open to everyone over the age of 13 with a valid email address.
Ever since it has been used by more and more people for various reasons and with different intentions, socially, politically, commercially. (By March 2010 more people visited Facebook than Google.)
 

earth at night, November 2000

Social network platforms like Facebook, succeeding MySpace, followed by other similar tools, e.g. Twitter, hi5, Tagged, bring social relations into question. Implicit dangers of alienation to one’s immediate surroundings are drafted by virtual encounters, though these platforms support maintaining relations between people forced to live apart, following up on family affairs etc. And, they serve to configure strong social networks, playing an important role in social resistances, e.g. Iran, June 2009, and in organizing political activism, e.g. Egypt. For censorship reasons, countries like Pakistan, Iran and China attempt to impede access to such platforms.
 

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Nonetheless, above all Facebook is one of the most controversially received and discussed Internet platforms. Questions of violating copyright and privacy linger. Especially following the release of the new Application Programmer Interfaces (API), now accessible to anyone.

Against this backdrop, the creators of suicidemachine, moddr, conjured up a machine, enabling members to delete their profiles and friends on social network platforms.
 

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text by Rayelle Niemann, 2010
images:
screen shots from the suicide machine web-site
world connection density, http://www.chrisharrison.net/projects/InternetMap/
electricity consumption, Source: UNDP 2004b
earth at night, November 2000, http://antwrp.gsfc.gov/apod/ap001127.html

 

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