If all the status updates, creepy photo browsing and unwanted friend requests from your mom’s friends haven’t gotten you off Facebook, new developments on the social networking site may be your ticket.Facebook has recently become a dense jungle of “applications” meant to expand the Web site’s stranglehold on America’s time. Whether it’s avoiding being bitten by a zombie or determining which character you are from Twilight, there seems to be no limit to the mindlessness of applications praying on youngsters and the mentally weak.Criticism of this new dynamic to the overall experience of traditional users — the ones that use it for keeping tabs on people or researching potential dates — is quite tired.Besides being annoying clutter, Facebook applications have added to the site’s poor privacy track record. Privacy advocates have accused Facebook of playing fast and loose with users’ information — using vague language about how the application creators can profit from the data they extract from users.And now a recent development is adding to the application controversy, raising additional questions about Facebook’s policies. Enter Farmville. Currently the most popular application on Facebook, it was released earlier this summer. Now with more than 11 million users, the application uses the wonders of the Internet to turn any average, out-of-shape lackey into a world-class farmer. Gameplay is centered around the user’s Facebook friends who move into the neighborhood to compete in producing the highest electronic crop yield. After all the cows come home, users start counting their farm cash to pimp out their tillage through landscaping and improvements. Particularly well-to-do farmers can flaunt their wealth by erecting a mansion to show friends. While most of these virtual farmers are simply just wasting their time by engaging in meaningless friendly competition — which is fine — there is a dark side to Farmville.Not everyone in Farmville earns a good ‘ole honest farmer’s living. In fact, individuals have the ability to skip the “work” — logging in a few minutes a day and clicking around — by depositing real money into their accounts. They can then in turn buy new tractors or houses — anything to increase their hegemony over their neighbors.This aspect takes the “keeping up with the Joneses” element of the game to a new level. It may be impossible to know how much real money is spent in the game. Zynga — the company that created Farmville — has been mum on exactly how much revenue they make from the in-game transactions (the company also makes money through advertising). Some will question the significance of this game and the system which allows individuals to use their real money in the game. They’ll point to individual responsibility and how people should be allowed to make their own decisions with their money, no matter how dumb those decisions are.And while this sentiment is certainly valid, that does not absolve Facebook and Zynga from moral responsibility for allowing performance in their games to be positively influenced by money in the real world. World of Warcraft — the extremely successful online role-playing game — has dealt with a similar issue. Today players can go offline and pay cold hard cash for items or weapons to be used in the fictitious world. For the game’s owners, taking individual’s money in exchange for imaginary weapons is not part of their business model. Success — in their eyes — cannot be purchased.
But Farmville has made it possible for players’ success to be influenced by their real world financial resources. They gladly accept money from people who have clearly lost a sense of reality.Facebook needs to put a stop to this practice. Facilitating the waste of money by individuals — even though they bring it upon themselves — is immoral.Mark Macmurdo is a 22-year-old economics and history senior from Baton Rouge. Follow him on Twitter@TDR_mmacmurdo.—-Contact Mark MacMurdo at [email protected]
Murda, He Wrote: Facebook farmers highlight worst of humanity
September 1, 2009