

Facebook has become the third largest nation - jakarta
http://www.economist.com/node/16660401?story_id=16660401&fsrc=rss

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gdl
That's not true. I'm pretty sure it would be topped by the nations of: 1)
People that eat rice, 2) Those living below 1000ft altitude, and 3) People
whose favorite color is either red or blue.

Oh, wait, those are all random collections of people that have nothing to do
with "nations". My bad.

Also, it claims Facebook in 3rd at 500 million, US in 4th at 310 million; so
it would have jumped into 3rd quite a while ago, making the country comparison
even less relevent as a news claim. Is it really that hard just to say that
Facebook now has 500 million users and leave it at that without making up a
silly headline and graphic?

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w1ntermute
> Oh, wait, those are all random collections of people that have nothing to do
> with "nations". My bad.

"“[It] is a device that allows people to get together and control their own
destiny, much like our nation-state,” says David Post, a law professor at
Temple University, Philadelphia."

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michael_dorfman
_"“[It] is a device that allows people to get together and control their own
destiny, much like our nation-state,” says David Post, a law professor at
Temple University, Philadelphia."_

I am _so_ happy I didn't have any professors so dense as to think that "coming
together" on a social networking site had anything to do with the kind of
"controlling one's destiny" that a nation-state provides.

I'm hoping the guy was seriously misquoted.

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jbail
"[It] is a device that allows people to get together and control their own
destiny..."

Seeing that my high school classmates have gotten fatter helps me control my
own destiny how?

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Anon84
By making it easier to convince yourself to work out regularly.

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jbail
Or it helps me justify not working out because everyone else got fat too.

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ryandvm
I shudder at the thought of a nation made up of Facebook users. It would be
like a nation of People subscribers, except they'd also play inane grinding
games...

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johnfn
I feel like there's some sort of incredible potential here, if only we could
get grinding games to correspond to some real world activity...

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Goronmon
Sounds like the book MetaGame.

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omouse
One of the largest fascist nations too? It is a corporation and a dictatorship
of sorts isn't it?

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anamax
> It is a corporation and a dictatorship of sorts isn't it?

Facebook is a corporation, but it lacks the ability to coerce anyone. Instead,
it depends on their voluntary acts, which they're free to stop at any time.

Dictatorships, heck govts, don't work that way.

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jbooth
Well, most liberal governments, you're free to leave and go somewhere else at
any time. You can even cancel your citizenship if you want.

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michael_dorfman
...if somewhere else will take you in. This can be non-trivial, especially if
you are planning on working for a living.

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jbooth
There's always someplace you could move and pull it off. It just might not be
nice.

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Gibbon
My 70 year old father has a facebook account and doesn't have the slighest
clue what do with it, consequently it goes unused.

They may 500 million accounts but they only get 150 million or less users per
month. Of that, I bet 50 million of them make up the lion's share of the
pageviews. 5 million are complete facebook nutters playing farmville and
mobwars 24/7.

If Facebook is a nation of 500 million then the US is a nation of billions, if
you count all the tourists and business types flying in/out.

~~~
aristus
To answer your speculations: no, no, no and no. Here is the first result from
Google for "facebook statistics".

<http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics>

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HappySushiCo
Sure, Facebook is the 3rd largest nation, but how many of those accounts are
multiples belonging to the same person?

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DanielBMarkham
The day Facebook monopolizes the use of force on its members? That's the day
it becomes an nation.

It is nowhere near, no matter how many people join.

