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The post-politics of public-private security governance: An ideology critique of the complaints about Facebook

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 May 2020

Jeppe T. Jacobsen Open the ORCID record for Jeppe T. Jacobsen [Opens in a new window]
Jeppe T. Jacobsen*
Affiliation:
Royal Danish Defence College
*
*Corresponding author. Email: jeja@fak.dk
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Abstract

How do public protests emerge and become impotent? Inspired by Žižek's ideology critique, the article examines the ideological underpinnings of contemporary public-private security governance and suggests that worried, complaining subjects are a product of a dominant discourse of expert knowledge and technification. It then introduces three Žižekian dynamics that prevent protests from challenging the prevailing discourse – particularisation, ultra-politics, and cynicism – and illustrates these dynamic through a case study of the history of public complaints about Facebook. The article suggests that Facebook communicates through a discourse of technification whereby it constantly invents technological fixes unable to satisfy the complaints. The article further suggests that Facebook turning into a national security partner in the fight against terrorism online prevents complaints from becoming universalised by rendering even particularised privacy contestations illegitimate. This is reinforced, the article argues, by the subject's cynical enjoyment; that is, the ‘letting off steam’ on Facebook while criticising it.

Keywords

Critical Security StudiesPublic-Private RelationsSlavoj ŽižekFacebookThe Complaining Subject
Type
Research Article
Information
European Journal of International Security , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , June 2020 , pp. 179 - 194
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 2020

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