Consider the teen drama Skam, a social media series that started on Norwegian public TV and is now a very successful Facebook franchise airing in the United States, France, Germany, and Italy (and watched all over the world by millions of teenagers). Skam did not invent the use of personal surveillance as a mode of social interaction, but it definitely promotes and rewards it by encouraging viewers to stalk or “play detective” with fictional characters on Facebook and Instagram as a way to drive the narrative forward (Instagram, currently a very popular platform with young people, is owned by Facebook). The fact that Facebook can create realistic profiles for fictional characters, complete with histories and timelines that can be modified by the corporation to augment credibility, illustrates Facebook’s ability to manipulate reality for profit.

Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, loc. 348