This week, as millions of Facebook users updated their profile pictures to be encircled by the legend “I have a healthy distrust of authority and I’m vaccinated”, it was hard not to wonder if some Banksy-esque hacker had turned the site into a satirical artwork about people who celebrate their status as freethinkers on a platform designed to turn its users into battery chickens.

Still, echoes of Monty Python notwithstanding (“We are all individuals!”), I understand the basic idea behind the new feature, and concede that its cold, dead heart is probably in the right place...