The neighborhood used to be a place.
Now it is a reflex.
It used to start at the doorstep; today it opens in our pockets. Concrete has been replaced by pixels, the gaze by scanning, curiosity by tagging. The neighborhood still exists, but it is no longer walked; it is shifted.
The old neighborhood was not innocent. It suffocated, it constricted, it kept you in line. But it had one thing: face. There was shame. There was the possibility of eye-to-eye contact. The judge and the judged were on the same sidewalk. Today that sidewalk does not exist. In the Facebook neighborhood, everyone judges, but no one is seen. Because there is no face here; there is a profile. There is no name; there is a username. There is no memory; there is an archive.
No one in this neighborhood knows you, but everyone has studied you.
No one talks to you, but everyone has an opinion about you. It used to be “who is this person?”; now it's “what is he sharing?” A person ceases to be a personality and becomes a type of content. Life is not lived, it is organized. Emotions are not felt, they are published.
In the old days, if someone in the neighborhood didn't have a light on for three days, they would be knocked on the door.
Now if you don't post for three days, you will be talked about.
“It's weird.”
“Something's definitely happened.”
“Did he erase us?”
You may be sick, you may be grieving, you may be fed up with life. Facebook Neighborhood does not recognize these. Because here, silence is not innocence, but a potential crime. The invisible cannot be controlled. The uncontrollable is dangerous. That's why everyone talks. But no one says anything.
There is conscience in this neighborhood, but it is part-time.
It is activated when needed and switched off when not needed.
“I don't interfere, but...”
“Everyone's choice, of course, but...”
“Don't misunderstand...”
These sentences are the official language of the Facebook neighborhood. No one is oppressive, but everyone is part of the oppression. No one is a policeman, but everyone takes notes. In the past, there used to be an aunt with tongs in the neighborhood; now she has been replaced by the user who follows but does not like, watches silently, takes screenshots and waits. This is the most insidious figure of the digital age. You don't know what he says, but he doesn't forget. It does not forgive. Because forgiveness is against algorithmic memory.
There is no time in the Facebook neighborhood.
Everything happens now, but it never passes.
A sentence you wrote ten years ago tells who you are today. You cannot be someone else yesterday. You cannot change. You cannot regret. The neighborhood used to say “people change”. The Facebook neighborhood says “the archive doesn't lie”. But the biggest lie is right here: The archive keeps everything but understands nothing.
In this neighborhood, it is not about being right; it is about being compatible.
Truth is not important; it is not to be misunderstood.
“Shouldn't you share this?”
“Is now the time?”
“It's misunderstood.”
What is wrong, who determines it, why it is wrong - none of this matters. What matters is whether you will be lynched or not. And lynching is no longer done by shouting. It is done by silence. By ignoring. By excluding. Algorithmic coldness. No one attacks you, but no one stands by you.
Everyone is very political in the Facebook Neighborhood. But only in the comments. Profile photo is revolutionary, life is cautious. Sharing is radical, daily life is submissive. Resistance is done with emojis, the price is left to someone else. Because this neighborhood loves dissent; as long as it is harmless. As long as it stays in the comments. As long as it doesn't interfere with real life.
That is why the government loves this neighborhood.
There are no batons, but there is fear.
There is no ban, but there is self-censorship.
There are no police, but everyone is a volunteer informer.
What the state cannot enforce on the street, the platform does voluntarily at home. Everyone speaks, the algorithm filters. Harmony wins, not truth. Noise is rewarded, silence is punished. Because silence is uncontrollable.
The biggest fairy tale is this: “Everyone is equal.”
It is not. Whose voice is heard, who has visibility, whose word is acceptable; all of these are class, gendered, political. But this inequality is gentle. It does not slap, it ranks. There is a silent staircase. Who goes up, who falls down, who becomes invisible... No one explains, but everyone knows.
That's why everyone is measured.
Everyone is calculating.
Everyone is his own jailer.
The Facebook neighborhood is not totalitarian.
Because totalitarianism is too noisy.
It's too rude.
It is too visible.
This is a regime.
But it is not a regime in the classical sense.
It does not work with a party, a leader, a flag.
It does not take orders from a center.
It establishes itself through endearment, sustains itself through habit, and reinforces itself through comfort.
This regime does not externalize repression; it internalizes it.
It does not produce obedience by force; it presents it as a choice.
It establishes censorship not through prohibition, but through the feeling that “now is not the time”.
In this regime, the subject is not repressed; it is formatted.
One is not forced to remain silent; one learns what not to say.
Fear works not with a stick but with the threat of invisibility.
Michel Foucault's prison is no longer necessary.
The panopticon is in our pocket.
And we are the guardians.
So nobody goes completely.
The account is frozen, not deleted.
The sound is not cut, it is muted.
Because in this regime, quitting completely is tantamount to social death.
People do not demand freedom.
It wants to exist without being invisible.
When that is not possible, he settles for loneliness.
So when someone disappears, the question is not “is he okay?”.
The question is this:
“Why didn't he share?”
This is the Facebook neighborhood:
Bringing people closer together and isolating them,
who makes everyone talk and no one listen,
a regime that sells a sense of freedom and normalizes obedience.
And everyone says they miss the old neighborhood.
But it is not the neighborhood that is longed for; accountability.
Because in the old neighborhood there was shame but there was face.
There are faces here but no shame.
The old neighborhood is not gone.
It just got bigger, faster, digitalized.
It's no longer on the doorstep, it's in our pockets.
And perhaps the most painful truth is this:
In the old days, the neighborhood used to suffocate people but not leave them alone.
This regime gives a sense of freedom,
slowly, quietly,
by counting likes,
accompanied by applause
alienates man from himself.
And that's why Facebook is not the issue.
It is not about people.
It's about a daily life that forgets to object.
regimeization.
In this neighborhood, it is not about being right; it is about being compatible. Truth is not important; it is not to be misunderstood.
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