Whenever someone says "don't bring politics into X" it's a cop-out. Doubly so for anything related to Facebook. Politics is how we solve all problems between competing interests as a society. You can't operate a business in this country (or any) which is divorced from politics. It's absurd for Zuck to suggest that his business should be immune to political forces.
Politics is how we solve all problems between competing interests as a society.
I've been trying to find ways of asking the question of "what do you mean 'political'" and if someone were to ask for my 'elevator pitch', I'd find myself in agreement with your definition above, but something tells me there will be clashes against this definition, because it is either too limiting to be effectively weaponized as a thought-terminating rebuke, or too expansive to allow for a firm encapsulation and therefore jettisoning of targeted forms of 'unpleasing and disturbing information'[1] (take this statement as far as a pleasant and idle thought will allow, I am not accusing one side of this while condoning it from another, it's not even about who or whom, it's just a man thinking through his keyboard.)
Star Trek introduces a black female lead "Star Trek is getting political". (I fear I may have opened pandora's box with that one)
Colin Kaepernick kneels in protest of police violence "Keep politics out of sports".
Pop_Culture_Icon_number42 argues for an improvement in how society conducts itself in terms of previously_under_addressed_social_scenario_27 "This pop star is getting too political".
To me, politics is inherently and by the function of what we allow, just as you said: an embracing of the necessity to solve problems where there are competing interests. To take issue with that, and rebuke a point of order as "getting political" is, perhaps-and at least in my mind-an unwitting show of the rebuker's hand.
But at the same time, I think about shit way too much.
Also it can be (not saying that's the case here) used as a way to exclude undesirable politics while keeping desirable politics in place.
For example the "don't bring politics into sports" that was bandied about during the kneeling controversy in the NFL a few years ago. The National Anthem is political. All of the "support the troops" events during games (paid for by the taxpayers!) is political.
NFL may not be in as good of a position to distort the political environment as Facebook just due to the obvious differences between what they do, so maybe not seen as as much of a "threat" to the political order. But the NFL absolutely hides behind the same "no politics here!" curtain that Zuck is attempting to pull down. Nobody is really buying it from either company. Anyone who has watched an NFL game has seen the stuff you mentioned and more. It's absurd to say sports are not political .. of course they are! It's one of the few common grounds Americans have to stand together on, it is broadly politicized as a result.
