ABSTRACT
This chapter places Facebook's impact on politics within the larger conversation over the socio-political potential for the Web in general, with particular attention to the ways in which conventional challenges to the Web fail to account for Facebook's unique position. It is instructive to look at early Web utopian thought to understand Facebook's appeal and its potential impact on political life. The chapter sorts Web utopianism along two dimensions, a liberal utopianism (private) and a communitarian (public) utopianism. It argues that Facebook's power comes from merging these two strands of Web utopianism by allowing people to attain the "public" benefits of communitarian utopianism while preserving the "private" individualism of liberal utopianism. The chapter examines these challenges to the Web in general, and in particular how these challenges apply to Facebook. It argues these challenges do not resonate as critiques of Facebook because they miss the key benefit of Facebook to users: merging individual choice with a perceived collective public benefit.
