When all Google services went down in December last year, a wave of concern about the fate of the internet world engulfed the planet. Earthlings were mixed with feelings of panic and fear, but the conviction that nothing would ever be the same lasted only until Google resumed functioning, reassuring that nothing could actually be different.

The recent outage of Facebook and its services has opened up space for interpretations of mystery, speculation, publicly expressed desires for the alleged hated network to cease to exist, and secret apprehensions that it might actually happen.

The largest social network, in this expected kind of dependence on the use of its services, builds its influence. Facebook is not a company where an obsession with a positive user experience prevails to the extent that it will cater to users by adapting to their habits in the way that those who directly charge end consumers for what they deliver do.

On the contrary, this giant creates habits to such an extent that the user of its influence is unaware and does not spend resources convincing anyone of the inaccuracy of the assessment that it is the “worst network” as long as you use it. The fact that it has reached a significant place in the lives of most internet users makes even this six-hour downtime for Facebook almost negligible, like the number of those who, disappointed with such a user experience, have decided not to use it anymore.

Facebook is not a local café where no one will stop by anymore because once they received terrible service and experienced an outcome they didn’t expect, so any forecast that this negatively affects its image goes against common sense.

Much more, the image has been tarnished for all those who have built their own business model on the dependence on Facebook – companies for whom it is one of the primary promotion channels because their fate is tied to a service whose disappearance erases them from the customers’ radar.

We know only as much about what happened as the company has stated, and it is quite possible that it will remain so almost forever. It is also very possible that the company has been the most open about its problem precisely because it does not want to leave additional room for doubt. Allegedly, there was a change in the configuration of routers. These are specialized computers that route traffic to websites, and allegedly there was a problem, either a mistake by company engineers or a software glitch.

In a vast system where absolutely everything is automated, an error in action in one place jeopardizes the entire network and could not have been isolated. Why doesn’t Facebook try to explain this to us in more detail? Precisely because it knows that we will not change our relationship with it due to mere dependence on its platform – whether personal or professional, it doesn’t matter.

In the penultimate paragraph of the article that earned today’s number two in the title, Google’s one-hour shutdown was called the largest and longest, but it was mentioned that similar outages can be expected in the future.

Facebook’s image has formally been tarnished by scandals and affairs – unauthorized use of personal data by Cambridge Analytica, numerous legal disputes, both with other tech giants and with national governments, the European Commission, public figures, etc., as well as the freshest example of a former manager, now in the role of a whistleblower. However, fundamentally, nothing has influenced, for example, small companies for whom this social network provides the simplest and cheapest communication channel, to massively leave the platform.

That’s why Facebook, its policies, its own rules, while simultaneously disregarding those rules imposed by other systems, can concern us to the extent that they touch on issues of privacy rights and everything that is the subject of an endless series of disputes constantly brought against it, but what concerns us the most are business models based on this social network being an irreplaceable sales channel.

Kada je u decembru prošle godine došlo do prekida rada svih servisa koje pruža Google talas zabrinutosti za sudbinu internet svijeta zapljusnuo je planetu. Zemljanima se miješao osjećaj panike i straha, no uvjerenje da više ništa neće biti isto potrajalo je tek do trenutka u kojem je Google ponovo profunkcionisao, uvjeravajući da zapravo ništa ne može biti drugačije.

Najnoviji prekid rada Facebooka i njegovih servisa otvorio je prostor tumačenjima misterioznog, nagađanjima, javno istaknutoj želji da ta navodno omražena mreža prestane da postoji i potajnom pribojavanju da će se to zaista desiti. 

Najveća društvena mreža na toj očekivanoj vrsti zavisnosti od upotrebe njenih servisa gradi svoj uticaj. Facebook nije kompanija u kojoj vlada opsjednutost željom za pozitivnim korisničkim iskustvom u toj mjeri da će se dodvoravati korisnicima prilagođavanjem njihovim navikama na način na koji to rade sve one koje direktno naplaćuju od krajnjih kupaca ono što plasiraju. 

Sasvim suprotno, ovaj gigant je taj koji stvara navike u mjeri u kojoj korisnik njegovog uticaja nije svjestan i ne troši resurse na to da bilo koga ubjeđuje u netačnost ocjene da je „najgora mreža“ dok god ga koristite. Činjenica da je dostigao značajno mjesto u životima većine korisnika interneta čak i ovaj šestosatni prekid rada za Facebook je gotovo zanemariv, poput broja onih koji su razočarani ovakvim korisničkim iskustvom odlučili da ga više ne koriste.

Facebook nije lokalni kafić u koji više niko neće svratiti zato što su jednom na tom mjestu dobili očajnu uslugu i doživjeli iskustvo kakvom se nijesu nadali, pa se svaka prognoza da ovo negativno utiče na njegov imidž kosi sa zdravim razumom. 

 Ovaj gigant je taj koji stvara navike u mjeri u kojoj korisnik njegovog uticaja nije svjestan 

Mnogo više je ovim narušen imidž svima onima koji su sopstveni poslovni model zasnovali na zavisnosti od Facebooka – kompanijama kojima je to jedan od osnovnih kanala promocije, jer su svoju sudbinu vezali za servis čiji nestanak ih briše sa radara kupaca. 

O onome što se dogodilo znamo tek onoliko koliko je kompanija saopštila i vrlo je moguće da će tako ostati gotovo zauvijek. Vrlo je moguće i da je kompanija najotvorenije govorila o svom problemu, upravo jer ne želi da ostavlja dodatni prostor za sumnju. Navodno je napravljena promjena u konfiguraciji rutera. Riječ je o specijalizovanim računarima koji usmjeravaju saobraćaj do veb lokacija i navodno je tu postojao problem, greška kompanijskih inžinjera ili softverska greška. 

U ogromnom sistemu u kojem je apsolutno sve automatizovano greška u radnji na jednom mjestu ugrožava cijelu mrežu i nije mogla biti izolovana. Zašto se Facebook ne trudi da nam to detaljnije objasni? Upravo zato što zna da naš odnos prema njemu nećemo promijeniti zbog puke zavisnosti od njegove platforme – lične ili profesionalne, svejedno.

U pretposljednjem pasusu članka zbog kojeg je današnji u naslovu označen brojem dva Googleovo jednosatno isključivanje nazvano je najvećim i najdužim, ali je pomenuto da slične prekide možemo očekivati i ubuduće.

Facebookov imidž formalno jesu uspjele da naruše afere i skandali – neovlašćeno korišćenje ličnih podataka kompanije Kembridž analitika, brojni sudski sporovi, kako sa drugim tehnološkim gigantima, tako i sa nacionalnim vladama, Evropskom komisijom, javnim ličnostima itd. kao i najsvježiji primjer bivše menadžerke, sada u ulozi zviždačice. Međutim, suštinski ništa nije uticalo na to da, na primjer, male kompanije kojima ova društvena mreža omogućava najjednostavniji i najjeftiniji kanal komunikacije masovno napuste platformu.

Zato Facebook, njegova politika, njegova sopstvena pravila, uz istovremeno nepoštovanje onih pravila koja nameću drugi sistemi mogu da nas brinu u mjeri u kojoj nas se tiču pitanja prava na privatnost i svega onoga što je predmet beskonačnog niza sporova koji se protiv njega neprestano pokreću, no ono što nas najviše dotiče su biznis modeli zasnovani tako da je ova društvena mreža nezamjenjiv kanal prodaje. 

English version of this article is available HERE.

The negative perception of China in Western countries results in the interpretation that imperial ambitions are hidden behind the investment power of Chinese companies, which results in constant attempts to keep the power of official Beijing under control, mostly without visible separation of political and economic goals.

Concern about the lack of reciprocity is constantly expressed on both sides of the Atlantic – the administrations of American democratic and republican presidents have led this relationship to the highest level of apprehension for decades, while the countries of the Old Continent support economic relations through distinct investment projects and interstate cooperation, remaining concentrated to the mere need to stay unwavering in giving priority to democratic values, in the spirit of which the key points of bypassing China should not be overlooked.

In a situation where some form of failed economic cooperation recognizes the risk of geopolitical confrontation, it is necessary to emphasize that it restricts to a lesser extent from the place taken by China in relation to the position of the West, where the leading investor from the East comes to a hostile environment.

At the same time, there each European capital chooses more intensive economic cooperation with Beijing, despite increasingly visible efforts to name China’s relationship within the EU as a common threat, and therefore to form a common Western block as a result of creating a common action. The formation of such a bloc, however, is far from the European agenda, mostly due to dissonant tones among EU members who are not ready to easily give up the benefits of cooperation with the Middle Kingdom.

Although the withdrawal of production from Chinese industrial plants has not happened despite many announcements, European and American governments have ceased to see China as a place where cheap labor tirelessly produces sneakers and phones, as trying to create a joint strategy to strike back at the unstoppable dynamics of the development of artificial intelligence, telecommunications equipment and 5G infrastructure become more visible.

Such a groundbreaking China does not fit in with the typical American and European thought patterns of rivalry that once existed with The Soviet Union, where it was not difficult to recognize the purposes for distancing or suspending cooperation.

In China, there is only one segment in front of which the capital-driven West closes its eyes from time to time – the form of government and the notion of human rights, due to which they are not able to consider that country as an ally in any field except the commercial.

The American answer to the Chinese question is reflected in the belief that the values ​​of one civilization are those that another should accept since they have proven to be good. Several US presidents and presidential candidates, in their comments on US-China relations, persistently assured the global audience that economic liberalization would be followed by political ones, i.e. that Chinese economic growth would undoubtedly be accompanied by the strengthening of human rights and freedoms.

From the emergence of civilization until today, no empire in history has managed to achieve so much economic, military, and political authority over the rest of the world the way that the United States did in just 232 years, that is, from the day George Washington became the first American president.

The history of China lasts for millennia, and its wider population did not feel much benefit until the end of the 20th century, and just at the time when the American nation was experiencing a flourishing of democracy, the Chinese people were struggling with the consequences of the Opium War. Yet, in just a few decades at the turn of the 21st century, hundreds of millions of people have been lifted out of the deepest poverty and transformed into the most numerous and stable middle class on the planet.

The Chinese dictatorship and the attitude towards the role of the individual in society for the Western world, especially for the EU, which arose with the idea of ​​fighting totalitarianism, are incomprehensible and unacceptable to the same extent that it is inconceivable in China that Western democracies shape social media.

Western countries, and especially EU members, are becoming increasingly aware that China is not creating its plan to be in the European market in the form of a relationship with a single entity, but to avoid a blockade by building bilateral relations with governments that have never recovered enough from the crises from the end of the first decade of this century, in which the measure of support to the economy included the selfless rescue of the banking sector, which irrationally strengthened its own position and therefore caused the crisis.

At least this post-crisis moment sheds light on the EU’s real priorities – in the absence of a single bloc and a common response to external factors, while the heterogeneity most clearly reflected in the Greek euro-crisis, there is the belief that Brussels is the place to go and cry over any country’s China-related problems are more than naive.

Moreover, Montenegro has just appeared on that scene with a binary interpretation of the world, the division into East and West in one single section where it has disappeared over the previous decades – the investments.

Of course, Brussels and Washington, as well as all other centers of the Western world, will welcome Montenegro’s discontent if it recognizes possible indicators of China’s aspirations to shape the world according to its sociopolitical model, where it would have the right to veto power while making economic or security-related decisions.

However, being united on the political, but not on the economic level, in general, sends a sincere message that could be read between the lines in the European response to the Montenegrin request for help with the highway loan – “we have our own problems, too”.

The Montenegrin version of this text is available here.

Nothing this Monday hinted that we would witness what it looks like when everything that serves as an indispensable support in our daily lives, which we take for granted, disappears. The beginning of the week, precisely at a time when most people along this geographical longitude are most active and productive, was marked by the interruption of all services provided by Google.

The pandemic dragged even those who weren’t particularly fond of it into the world of online communication, and Monday noon sounded like the ideal time for a virtual meeting in a season designated for making plans and discussing the first steps after flipping the calendar leaf. You joined the meeting via the Meet application, it was your turn to present, a presentation you had prepared for the entire weekend, and then, in an instant, like in the time of old telephone switchboards, the connection suddenly dropped.

While fearing that your disappearance from the network might be interpreted as an inability to overcome stage fright or a lack of information, you desperately tried to email the other participants of the virtual meeting to inform them about your connection problem, but then Gmail betrayed you. Desperate, you went to YouTube to distract your thoughts with some music, but even that didn’t work…

This, or something similar, was how the day looked for most of the working population of Europe and some late-night stories from America – a day that showed that we can do without conferences, nights out, travels, celebrations, and friendly hugs for almost a whole year, but we can’t do without what Google provides for even an hour.

Social media seemed like the only window to the world for most internet users – and this tech giant shut down its Google+ network as soon as it realized that competing with Facebook was futile. This is the only segment where Google admitted defeat and decided to give up on something that never really took off, turning its focus to what was destined for global popularity. Concerned users and meme posts flooded social media platforms, while big companies raced to make the most of this break for marketing messages.

After some amusing moments to pass the time, the question of global dependence on just one major tech service provider and its ecosystem arose. This incident partially exposed the problem of centralization within the same entity, even when it operates in a decentralized manner with the help of about twenty available services, further raising concerns about business continuity and information accessibility.

It’s probably becoming clearer to many now why the institutions of the European Union have been so persistent over the past decade in their efforts to establish rules that not even global players will be exempt from. Regardless of whether someone thinks the EU is exaggerating in its efforts to achieve certain goals, in this case, it’s extremely important for consumers to understand the significance of technological centralism and how such circumstances affect consumer freedom. In a world of almost complete global connectivity, Google has an absolute monopoly in certain segments.

The company restored the operation of all services that experienced disruptions after about an hour, but what was partly lost is the trust in its ability to safeguard everything users want to be preserved, along with an open question about the extent to which they share or take on the risk of changes that may occur in the future, potentially resulting in the loss of digital assets.

These circumstances prompted reflections on the role of digital technology in our lives, as for a moment, it seemed as if the world had stopped turning, when in fact, only the services of one company were not functioning for almost an hour. Considering the number of users affected by this, everything indeed seemed as if the world had come to a halt, as most people don’t have any backup options ready in such situations.

Google isn’t the only one forcing us to worry about the extent to which we actually control our own digital space in this case. Just think about all the digital repositories on services through which we access certain movie or music content. It probably happened to you at least once to read a message on the screen stating that certain content is (no longer) available in the country from which you are accessing it.

Therefore, we can’t watch a movie, series, or listen to music we want via the internet whenever we want, even if we pay for some services, nor can we make virtual visits to museums and galleries everywhere, even though we’ve been reassured countless times that “everything is on the internet”, which means that our access to culture and art is reduced to what companies managing the digital space, financed by millions of our small subscriptions, decide we should watch and listen to. Those people who talk about buying vinyl records might seem less strange to you now, not to mention those who are happy because they managed to buy the first DVD editions of movies whose scenes were later edited and changed, as was done, for example, in the Star Wars series.

Google’s outage isn’t the first nor the last we’ve identified in the online space as a temporary service disruption, although it’s undoubtedly the biggest so far, as it lasted relatively long compared to anything else in the internet world where seconds sometimes determine entire processes, and it affected the largest number of users. Similar outages, although shorter in duration, have occurred with Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, which means we can expect them in the future as well.

It’s difficult to predict what kind of crash is possible in the online world in the future because even if the same technical problem recurs, other circumstances make it have different effects. If Twitter, which has recently become the center of all political life, experiences something similar to what happened to Google the day before yesterday, we probably won’t feel as if life has stopped that day, but at least for a short while, we’ll experience the beauty of engaging in other life topics.

Ništa ovog ponedjeljka nije naslućivalo da ćemo vidjeti kako izgleda kada nestane sve ono što nam je nezamjenjiva podrška u svakodnevnom životu koju ne dovodimo u pitanje. Početak sedmice, baš u vrijeme kad je većina ljudi na ovoj geografskoj dužini najaktivnija i najproduktivnija, obilježio je prekid rada svih servisa koje pruža Google.

Pandemija je i one koji to nijesu naročito voljeli uvukla u svijet online komunikacija, a ponedjeljak u podne zvučao je kao idealno vrijeme za virtuelni sastanak u doba godine predviđeno za kovanje planova i dogovaranje prvih koraka nakon što se list na kalendaru okrene. Pridružili ste se sastanku putem Meet aplikacije, došao je red na izlaganje za koje ste se cijelog vikenda pripremali, a onda je u trenutku, kao u vrijeme starih telefonskih centrala, veza odjednom prekinuta. 

Dok ste se pribojavali da će vaš nestanak sa mreže neko možda protumačiti kao nemogućnost savladavanja treme ili nedostatak informacija bespomoćno ste pokušavali da mejlom obavijestite ostale učesnike virtuelnog sastanka da imate problem s konekcijom, no baš tad vas je i Gmail izdao. Očajni odlazite na YouTube da misli usmjerite ka nekoj muzici, međutim ni to vam se ne da…

Ovako ili približno ovome je većini radnog naroda Evrope i tek nekim noćnim pricama Amerike izgledao dan u kojem je mnogo toga planirano – dan koji je pokazao da skoro čitavu godinu možemo bez konferencija, noćnih izlazaka, putovanja, proslava i prijateljskih zagrljaja, ali da bez onoga što nam pruža Google ne možemo ni sat.

Društvene mreže izgledale su kao da su za većinu korisnika interneta bile jedini prozor u svijet – a ovaj tehnološki gigant je svoju mrežu Google+ ugasio čim se uvjerio da je besmisleno takmičiti se sa Facebookom. To je jedini segment u kojem je Google priznao poraz i odlučio da digne ruke od nečega što nikada nije zaživjelo, okrećući se onome čemu je zacrtana globalna popularnost. Na društvenim mrežama nizala su se pitanja zabrinutih korisnika i meme objave, dok su se velike kompanije utrkivale koja će ovu pauzu iskoristiti što bolje za merketinšku poruku.

Nakon simpatičnih momenata kojima se kratilo vrijeme čekanja otvoreno je pitanje globalne zavisnosti od samo jednog velikog ponuđača tehnoloških usluga i njegovog ekosistema u kojem je tek sad ogoljen problem centralizovanosti unutar istog entiteta, čak i kada uz pomoć dvadesetak dostupnih servisa djeluje decentralizovano, budući da to dalje upućuje na zabrinutost za kontinuitet poslovanja i dostupnost informacija.

Vjerovatno mnogima tek sada postaje jasnije zbog čega su institucije Evropske unije već čitavu deceniju toliko uporne u nastojanju da utvrde pravila od kojih čak ni globalni igrači neće biti izuzeti. No, bez obzira na to da li se nekome čini da EU pretjeruje u namjeri da ostvari neke ciljeve, u ovom slučaju od izuzetno velike važnosti je da potrošači razumiju značenje tehnološkog centralizma i načina na koji takve okolnosti utiču na potrošačku slobodu. U svijetu gotovo potpune globalne povezanosti Google u pojedinim segmentima ima apsolutni monopol.

Ova kompanija je otprilike nakon sat vratila u funkciju sve servise u čijem je radu bilo prekida, ali je ono što se dijelom izgubilo povjerenje u njegovu moć da čuva sve ono što korisnici žele da bude sačuvano, uz otvoreno pitanje u kojoj mjeri upravo oni dijele ili preuzimaju rizik promjena koje mogu da uslijede ubuduće, zbog kojih bi mogli ostati bez digitalne imovine.

Ove okolnosti bile su povod za razmišljanje o ulozi digitalne tehnologije u našem životu, jer je na trenutak sve izgledalo kao da je Zemlja prestala da se okreće, a zapravo samo servisi jedne kompanije nijesu funkcionisali skoro sat. Ako uzmemo u obzir broj korisnika na koje se ovo odnosilo, zapravo sve i jeste djelovalo kao da je svijet stao, jer većina ljudi u ovakvim situacijama nema spremnu nikakvu rezervnu opciju. 

Nije samo Google taj koji nas u ovom slučaju tjera da se zabrinemo za to u kojoj mjeri zapravo gospodarimo sopstvenim digitalnim prostorom. Pomislimo samo na sve digitalne baze na servisima uz pomoć kojih pristupamo određenom filmskom ili muzičkom sadržaju. Vjerovatno vam se makar jednom desilo da na ekranu pročitate poruku da određeni sadržaj (više) nije dostupanu u zemlji iz koje mu pristupate. 

Dakle, ne možemo kada god poželimo, čak i kada neke servise platimo, putem interneta gledati film, seriju ili slušati muziku koju želimo, niti praviti virtuelne ulaske u muzeje i galerije baš svuda iako smo bezbroj puta uvjeravani da je „sve na internetu“, što znači da se naš pristup kulturi i umjetnosti svodi na ono što kompanije koje upravljaju digitalnim prostorom finansiranim milionima naših sitnih pretplata odluče da gledamo i slušamo. Vjerovatno vam sada manje čudno djeluju oni ljudi koji pričaju o kupovini gramofonskih ploča, a da ne govorimo tek o onima koji ističu da su srećni jer su uspjeli da kupe prva DVD izdanja filmova čije su scene kasnije izbacivane i mijenjane na način na koji je to, na primjer, rađeno u Ratovima zvijezda.

Googleov pad nije ni prvo ni posljednje što smo u online prostoru identifikovali kao privremeni prekid rada, iako je nesumnjivo do sada najveći, jer je trajao relativno dugo u poređenju sa bilo čim u internet svijetu gdje sekunde nekada opredjeljuju čitave procese, a i odnosio se na najveći broj korisnika. Slične prekide su, iako s kraćim trajanjem, imali i Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, što znači da ih možemo očekivati i ubuduće. 

Teško je predvidjeti kakav je krah u online svijetu moguć u budućnosti, jer čak i da se ponovi isti tehnički problem ostale okolnosti čine da on ima različite efekte. Ako se Twitteru, na koji se nedavno preselio sav politički život, desi što i Googleu prekjuče vjerovatno kao toga dana nećemo imati osjećaj da je život stao, već ćemo makar na kratko osjetiti ljepotu bavljenja drugim životnim temama.

English version of this article is available HERE.