I’m sure most of us saw this making its way around Facebook a few months ago.
“No one should die because they cannot afford health care, and no one should go broke because they get sick.” If you agree, please post this as your status for the rest of the day.
There were many variations. Here are a few:
No one should die because they can’t afford health care OR because their only option is an insurance company that makes money by denying claims and/or not approving treatments.
No one should die because they cannot afford health care, and no one should go broke because they get sick (or get in a really bad accident). If you agree, please post this as your status for the rest of the day.
No one should die, go blind, or be crippled because they can’t afford health care. No one should go broke because they get sick. No one should be unable to change jobs because of a “pre-existing condition.” If you agree, please post this as your status for the rest of the day.
The basic idea is constant: the status update as engine for social or political action. Other sections of Facebook promise similar results: the “Little Green Patch” or other applications which purport to reduce global warming; the awareness groups tied to particular causes. And we see a lot of other political discourse: status updates, not drawn from memes, which pick up issues; campaign or similar images as profile pictures.
Of course, the “No one should…” health care meme was quickly reappropriated:
No one should die because of zombies if they cannot afford a shotgun, or even just a machete, and no one should be turned into a vampire if they get bitten by one – or a werewolf for that matter. If you agree, post this as your status for the rest of the day.
No one should be frozen in carbonite, or be slowly digested for a thousand years in the bowels of a Sarlaac, just because they couldn’t pay Jabba the Hutt what they owe him. If you agree, post this as your status for the rest of the day.
No one should be without a beer because they cannot afford one, and no one should go broke because they bought too many beers. If you agree please post this as your status the rest of the day.
I think of this today because Facebook has “updated” its interface, yet again, and the latest status update memes are meta and how-to:
IF YOU WANT TO GO BACK TO OLD FACEBOOK STATUS UPDATES; On the top left menu, click on MORE. Then drag STATUS UPDATES to the top. After dragging to top,click on it. That becomes your default and it is like before. Pass it on.
Pass it on: Facebook is blocking all your friends news feeds except 250 that they choose. TO UNDO BLOCK: Go to your HOME page. Make sure your newsfeed shows LIVE FEED. Then scroll to the bottom, click “Edit Options”. You will then see your NEWS FEED SETTINGS. Change the 250 to 5000 for Facebook’s friend limit and your feed will work right again. Post this and pass it on.
We are still figuring out what do to with updates. Some of this is nuts and bolts: Do it via Twitter? What about Gmail status? How do I synch all this stuff? Facebook is making all of these questions more difficult by changing its interface all the time. That affects the larger questions, too, such as the assumption that a status update on a social networking service can be (or can not be) an engine for political action. Or whether, at least in the case of Facebook, the service even wants to support that kind of discourse.