Facebook, this digital country of yours

Whether we are all "consenting victims" of GAFA, as Jacques Séguéla says, or whether we remain closed to their use, we have to face the facts... the Googles, Amazons, Facebooks and Apples of In this world, the GAFAs – but also the FANGs and other NATUs – are taking on such proportions that it is difficult to ignore them.

From a project born from the fertile mind of Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook has become a behemoth on which 2,2 billion users find themselves, sharing the same interface, the same codes and undergoing the same hazards, according to the decisions taken. by the management team.

If Facebook were a country, how big would it be? What would be its rules? How would its inhabitants behave? An imaginary transposition, of course, but nevertheless based on very real facts and figures.

Facebook, a young country with a growing population

If the demographic growth of certain countries such as Liberia, Burundi, Afghanistan or Niger is perceived as very significant, at a rate of 3,50 to 4,55%, Facebook is, on a nationwide scale , the country with the highest number of new entrants. Not to mention the exponential growth of social media blue and white over the fifteen years following its launch, today estimated at 11% per year (2).

Today, FacebookLand has 2,23 billion active users worldwide, more than one and a half times the size of China, the world's most populous country; that is also three quarters of the population of the BRICS and almost a third of the population of the Earth.

Like any country, Facebook is divided into geographical regions, cities and towns. The most important region, if we consider the world map as we know it, is in the East, with 873 million users from Asia. The French, meanwhile, are only a fraction of Facebook's total population, just 33 million.

Transport, mobility and finance in an oversized country

Travel, in this immense country that is Facebook, is done without pause and through all media. Of the 1,47 billion people who get from point A to point B every day on Facebook, almost all of them do so using a mobile device.

Prosperous country, Facebook never sleeps. It is especially on Thursdays and Fridays that the people of Facebook get into action. For some strange reason, the end of the week marks 18% more activity than normal.

Intrigued and interested in population movements and individual habits, marketing professionals who decide to settle in this vast digital country see opportunities to seize. Because, in this country, targeting a group of individuals according to their age, gender, CSP, income level and interests is easier than anywhere in the world.

Immigration and rules of conduct in a free country

Facebook is a country that has no immigration problems. A residence permit can be obtained in just a few clicks and even if the minimum age for inhabitants is 13, this remains only theoretical, with some media announcing several million younger inhabitants, who have managed to slip between the meshes of the net. It doesn't matter… once you enter the country, you can call yourself Billy, Simplet or Snow White, an identity and a personality can be created from scratch. Illegal entrants are called Fake and they would be 83 million (2). Nobody’s perfect…

Facebook is a country where you don't drink, you don't eat, you don't smoke. The inhabitants feed themselves with doses of videos and the raw materials arrive in abundance, at the rate of more than 300 million per day (3). A country which, although linked to space-time, encourages its inhabitants to intellectual activity and commitment. This is how the approximately 2,3 billion inhabitants share, every minute, 510 comments, 000 facelifts called “profile updates” and 293 photos. Every day, nearly 000 billion pieces of content are exchanged in this country where interaction is rewarded at its fair value.

Father of a prosperous nation, Mark Zuckerberg and his 25 or so colleagues watch over their people, governing how the country works, rules of politeness, policies related to speech, impersonation, gambling chance, incentives...

The inhabitants of Facebook are often gathered in groups sharing the same affinities. Open or closed groups, depending on the case, sometimes requiring you to show your credentials to access them. Groups where we share common interests and a common language and within which we (sometimes) make beautiful encounters.

Mores and ethics of the Facebook society

Facebook is a country where people exchange a little, a lot, passionately… like crazy! In Facebookland, your friends' friends are your friends, and so are their friends. A country in which you just have to ask someone “will you be my friend” to enter into a relationship with this person. Moreover, it is quite useless to go through preliminaries or demonstrations of politeness to get to know each other better. We meet and we get naked, giving everyone the opportunity to look at vacation photos, to know what we ate the day before, to know each other's moods and political thoughts. . Open bar of thought, even the most intimate, Facebook is resolutely a country that advocates social openness. One for all and all for all.

In the land of Facebook, there are no tall, short, fat, skinny... or shy people. Everyone argues on what would seem to be an even playing field and everyone is easy-going. We express ourselves, we laugh, we like, we comment… we regret sometimes, we insult from time to time, we show empathy more easily than in any other country in the world. A country where it is impossible to forget a birthday and where each additional year is celebrated with dignity. A country in which we like to go back in time to remember the good times, where the kittens are adorable and where spelling mistakes are not penalised.

And behind every gesture, every visual, every click, the Facebook police watches and records every move – for the good cause, she says, and in everyone's interest.

Facebook: a country in perpetual growth

Open and free, Facebook is a country hungry for growth. A country poised to dominate the world, if statistics and facts are to be believed. A country whose government is on the lookout for opportunities to grow further, for the good of its inhabitants as well as for its own. A country ready to put its hand in its pocket to acquire others, such as a small remote island called Whatsapp, acquired in February 2014 for the modest sum of 19 billion dollars, or even Instagram, bought a few years earlier for a just over $747 million. Because nothing is too good to please the inhabitants of Facebook, who moreover do not hesitate to spend their holidays in neighboring countries, however smaller, such as Twitter, Google +, Tumblr... Because, in the shadows, other powers are preparing their game and advancing, ready to overtake the giant Facebook…