Friendship is not for sale.

Progressive Petition of the United People of Facebook

Percival Manglano
Mark Zuckerberg President & CEO Facebook, Inc. 1601 Willow Road Menlo Park, CA 94025 USA Madrid, December 11th, 2012 From: the People United against the Merchandising of Friendship Comrade Mark, A few weeks ago, the people of Twitter rose united against their oppressors in order to claim their rights and roll back the manifest injustice that defines that unregulated and unequal social network: http://www.scribd.com/doc/114489822/A-Progressive-Petition-of-thePeople-of-Twitter . The revolution has started and it is just and necessary for it to expand, reaching Facebook. Social justice is internationalist by definition and cannot be limited to only one social network. It is obvious that Facebook has made business out of peoples friendships. The company you founded in 2004 reached, in October last, a billion users. Users were trapped by your company in order to make money out of their friendships, generate revenues of US$ 3.7 billion in 2011 and make you into the 35th richest person on Earth. The friendship of some has provided the wealth of others. Friendship is a selfless affection that you have turned into a dirty business in order to feed your personal fortune. A fortune which, evidently, is based on inequality. Rihanna and Eminem have more than 60 million friends, closely followed by Shakira, Lady Gaga and Michael Jackson. And yet, the average Facebook user has little more than 130 friends. No one can enjoy his or her friendships when some have many more friends than others. Facebook has devalued the concept of friendship all over the World. Hasnt the following common expression reached your ears yet: You are faker than a Facebook friend?

In support of our Twitter comrades petition, we also demand the creation of a Regulatory Committee in Facebook which will be responsible for the redistribution of friends until complete equality has been achieved. We, however, also demand another measure which will compensate for the corruption of the concept of friendship generated by Facebook. The Facebook Regulatory Committee (FRC) will approve a tax called the Friendship Tax. All interactions and exchanges on Facebook will be taxed. Every time a comment or pic is shared on a wall, every time an event is created or an attendance is confirmed, every time a friendship is accepted, a small contribution will be paid. Naturally, the tax will be progressive: those with the most friends will pay most. In order to ensure that this is so, no one will be allowed to leave Facebook: the delete account and confirm friendship options will be removed (friends will always be accepted; it will not be tolerated for friendships to not be accepted in order to avoid paying the tax). Should the tax revenues fall due to lower Facebook activity caused, no doubt, by the individualists who wish to avoid contributing their fair share to the welfare of all -, the tax rate will be raised. Tax revenues will, of course, be managed by the FRC and its indispensable staff. Funds will be dedicated to launching true friendship awareness campaigns. Banners, messages, pics etc. will be designed and distributed in order to sensitize Facebook users to the necessity to live their friendships with selflessness, solidarity and altruism: one must think of others before oneself. This campaign will be called: True Friendship. Funds will also be earmarked to ensure that the Like option excessively selfish be not used to exalt the wrong concept of friendship. A dedicated team of workers will be hired to supervise the correct usage of this option, filtering its application and adapting it to the true definition of friendship. Finally, these initiatives will be accompanied by the elimination of private firms ads on Facebook. Friendship is not for sale and these companies should not make their business out of the thoughtlessness of your companys users who, in fact, do not really know what is in their best interest. Fortunately, we do know and are ready to sacrifice ourselves in order to let them know what is true friendship and guide them towards it. Looking forward to your prompt response for the sake of the Facebook users interests,