Is Facebook a proto-state?

[Commentary] As the debate about Facebook’s use of Safety Check in Paris, but not in Beirut, saturated social media this past weekend, one could not help but notice that in the past, this kind of service -- connecting victims of a terrorist attack with loved ones -- might have been administered by an element of the state, specifically by those working in public health or local government. Both the US State Department and authorities in Paris issued numbers for citizens to call for assistance. Paris actually had three: One that rang at the Paris Prefecture of Police, and two separate numbers for relatives of victims abroad and within France. But these hotlines did not come close to the speed and efficiency of Facebook’s Safety Check.

It wasn’t the first time that Facebook has assumed a kind of official authority. Earlier in 2015, the social network launched Amber Alerts, a collaboration with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to send targeted messages to the newsfeeds of users in areas where a child has gone missing. “Facebook … in essence in this situation, is the world’s largest neighborhood watch,” Emily Vacher, Facebook’s Security, Trust and Safety manager told ABC News. The use of Safety Check in Paris was only the latest example of Facebook’s ascendance, and a sign that, as the social network continues to take on new roles and responsibilities, it is becoming something of a sovereign state.

[Smitha Khorana is a Tow Center post-doctoral fellow at Columbia Journalism School]