This blog post will be slightly off the kilter of my usual writing. Not that I don't want it to be funny or engaging, but I'm not writing it with the same lighthearted intention that I've written about other, less-consequential topics like how to create tally marks or what I made my first website about. This post is also meant to be less results-oriented; there's no final product I want to show off or "behind the scenes" descriptor I'm writing. Instead, I want to use this entry as a jumping off point for discussing an issue that seems to be plaguing every aspect of society nowadays: the rise and dominance and social destruction as a result of: Facebook.
But, in particular, I've been curious: what role has their software-baby, ReactJS, played in this power struggle? It's been a hard question to answer definitively. For one, news coverage seems very intently focused on "one side" or "the other":
-It's very easy to find tech sites singing the praises of ReactJS, describing its history, and without judgmental tone, mentioning that Facebook introduced it in 2013.
-It's also very easy to find news coverage, from a myriad of political perspectives, decrying the role Facebook has been allowed to play in our society, usually with some blame placed at the feet of the politicians who haven't-yet reacted.
It occurred to me then, as I started thinking about this story, that I would have to be the one to draw the connections I was looking for.
I know, Mark. I know. Responsibility is hard.
Fortunately, connections aren't that hard to come by. Sure, maybe some part of me is indeed disappointed that there's no "smoking gun" - no on the record ad executive instructing the software department to create new software that will 'really reel them in...'. But what is there?
Well, for one there's the timeline: Facebook introduced ReactJS in 2013. While that may seem like "forever ago," the company had already existed for nearly a decade1, and already financially settled in 2009 as recompense for their advertising strategies that involved selling your profile data wholesale, while encouraging their users to "consent" to this data harvesting by allowing "everyone" to see their profile/data2. 2013 was also good timing for the internet to receive a framework that was lighter weight and allowed client-side rendering(, etc), as smartphone usage in the US had just crossed the 50% threshold the year before3, allowing more users to access these apps - and access them in a way more integrated within their whole day - than could have just from their home computer. As the popularity of the site grew, popularity for this new language also grew, as more and more developers grew to appreciate its simple, reusable component structure, and blend of HTML/Javascript (called "JSX")4. At this point, then, the growth of one really is directly connected to the growth of the other. Facebook at this time really recognized the growth potential of their new language and began to invest heavily in it4.
React was then made fully open-source (under the common "MIT License") in 2017. While it's too cynical to say that move/presentation of the code as a "gift" was itself covering up for something, it was not how the code was initially released. Initially it was released under Facebook's own custom "BSD+Patents" license. That licensing wound up drawing scrutiny by developers (some of whom walked away from Facebook-compatible projects) for legally preventing developers from taking action against Facebook in the event the developers' own patents were infringed on by the company5.
The closest thing to a "smoking gun" came in 2019 when some lawmakers began targeting Facebook not for its reputation but as part of a tirade against social media in general - and its code in particular. Famously, Missouri Senator Josh Hawley introduced legislation that would literally-outlaw some of what he viewed as the most sinister, and habit-forming, features of social media in general6.
In particular? He took aim at "infinite scroll" - a feature that allow Facebook and Instagram to continue to feed you more and more data through more and more page loads - without your ever needing to click a single link. As a developer in training, I can intuitively understand the basic idea behind it - and how might greatly benefit such a feature: being able to re-render a basic component (the screen, itself a list of smaller "post" components), without having to navigate away from the page or refresh the page as a whole, would be simple to implement in react. A quick online search reveals that there are indeed multiple GitHub repositories and even some from-scratch walk-through tutorials allowing users to implement it on their own apps7. Here is a case where, agree or not with his motivations - Senator Hawley took aim not only at the effect of Facebook on society, but on the code that got it there.
Conclusion/Further Reading:
Facebook's impact on both technology and the social sphere as a whole can't be understated, especially with the inclusion of Instagram and What'sApp. But how much does React have to do with that?
As this chart8 shows...probably not a whole lot. Whatever the reason, engagement with the company and its platform(s) has grown nonstop since the website's inception in 2004. The creation of a brand new, lighter-weight, more-dynamic framework for JavaScript really should, in this author's opinion, be seen not as a tool that enabled that transformation, but one that came about as part of that same transformation. Without their early success, Facebook would not have had the resources to invest in something as groundbreaking as this new programming tool. Without their new programming tool, Facebook would not have had the dynamic capabilities to continue to stay as relevant and successful as they have. They feed into each other; they're part of a continuous loop.
So, where to next? However they got there, Facebook as a company is now worth one trillion dollars. Will Facebook and/or React stay that relevant, and retain that level of market dominance forever? Even for the rest of this generation? Maybe not? Will our democracy and society survive this assault on our sense of reality and community? Hopefully.
But, in the meantime, as Redditor capuccinolizard helpfully laid out: "Take this tool they have given you and use it for good."9 Using one does not necessarily have to mean you endorse the other. Even with all the problems this Pandora's Box of social media has unleashed, there is still a wide world to code in. And, React can make that kind of fun.
Sources:
- https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/12/opinion/facebook-privacy.html
- https://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2009/sep/21/facebook-privacy
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/teenage-depression-and-suicide-are-way-up--and-so-is-smartphone-use/2017/11/17/624641ea-ca13-11e7-8321-481fd63f174d_story.html
- https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/2020/12/11/facebook-react-with-dan-abramov-repeat/
- https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/facebook-just-changed-the-license-on-react-heres-a-2-minute-explanation-why-5878478913b2/
- https://www.pluralsight.com/guides/how-to-implement-infinite-scrolling-with-reactjs
- https://www.npr.org/2019/08/14/750585438/senator-pushes-bill-to-curb-exploitative-and-addictive-social-media-practices
- https://www.statista.com/chart/10047/facebooks-monthly-active-users/
- https://www.reddit.com/r/reactjs/comments/j3slql/ethics_of_using_react/
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