Condemned to connection? Network communitarianism in Mark Zuckerberg’s “Facebook Manifesto”

This article considers Mark Zuckerberg’s 2017 open letter titled “Building Global Community” as a political manifesto. Published just prior to an ongoing series of scandals involving Facebook and the misuse of customer data, the letter outlines Zuckerberg’s plans for the future direction of the company. Using an approach based on Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello’s connexionism, combined with Benjamin Bratton’s understanding of platforms and John Bellamy Foster and Robert W. McChesney’s, as well as Shoshana Zuboff’s, analysis of surveillance capitalism, this article argues that the letter remains significant because it constitutes a coherent statement about ubiquitous social media and the future of government in an era characterized by a global turn to authoritarianism. Evoking Japanese philosopher Hiroki Azuma’s reworking of Rousseau’s concept of “General Will” in the social media age, this article warns that one of the most dangerous aspects of the Manifesto is that it might be, in some ways, correct