The Social Factory

            The social media is spreading like a plague throughout the digital world. In Terranova’s article about free labor he defines the social factory as a process in which work processes have been shifted from factory to society. Facebook is a good comparison of this in the fact that so many Americans use it.

            Terranova’s article is basically all about labor in the digital world. This would include contributors to sites, lots of activity, and inviting people. Facebook’s contributors are the user’s and they are doing well with over 500 million users. The people that use Facebook are selling their information and are what keeps Facebook running. Which goes into Facebook activity in which users have become so active putting status, putting pictures up, posting on friends walls, etc. Facebook quantifies our social life and not only does it connect us with friends but it counts them. It allows you to invite people to be your friends to add.

            As Terranova says that cultural and technical work is central to the Internet but is also a widespread activity throughout advanced capitalist societies. Facebook provides a widespread of users and activity but has meaning. People constantly check up on their number of friends and had become a measure of something meaningful. Our online relationships are shadowed by power relations, by who has the most friends or wall posts. All these people on Facebook are contributing to the social factory.