The Horror

Mark Zuckerberg’s Massive Swedish Data Center May Give You Nightmares

The Facebook founder’s photos looks like scenes from a horror movie.

“I love this shot because it looks like a sci-fi movie,” Mark Zuckerberg captioned a photo he posted of a dozen-or-so fans that look menacing enough to suck the soul right out of your body. The fans live in Facebook’s data center in the small coastal town Luleå. It lies about 70 miles south of the Arctic Circle, between what he described as “dense forests and icy rivers,” where the temperature plunges to 30 degrees below zero in the winter.

“Over the next few months, I'm going to start posting some rare photos of the most advanced technology Facebook is building around the world,” Zuckerberg wrote Wednesday, sharing 16 images of the data center, which is the size of about six football fields, as a “an example of the incredibly complex technology infrastructure that keeps the world connected.” This is an admirable goal. But the photo captions and images themselves look less like a look at Facebook’s most advanced technological innovations and more like a trailer for a sci-fi horror film set in space. (In the data center, no one can hear you scream.)

“About 150 people work here, but the data halls are frequently empty,” he captioned a photo of a stark, long hallway, with more of those menacing fans and a far-off door that is surely locked. You can almost hear someone banging on that door, pleading to be let out as the sound of footsteps echo in that empty hallway behind them.

The next photo is equally as eerie—another barren, hulking room with what could be data servers. It also could be where they store the bodies. I would believe you either way. “The main data hall is so big that engineers move around on scooters,” Zuckerberg wrote, which is horrifying for a whole other set of reasons.

Zuckerberg shared what he said was the design for the center, which an engineer sketched out on the back of a paper napkin. That’s a convenient story. It sure looks like a plot to build a bunch of dead ends to me. And what can be scarier than a bunch of dead ends in an empty warehouse the size of a small island?

I’ll tell you what’s scarier. The photos Zuckerberg posted of the people who work in this factory. It may be a filter that’s causing this effect, but all the snapshots feature individuals who have their faces almost blurred out by a white light. It also may be that they’re ghosts. They sure look like ghosts.

“It is important for people to know that nothing leaves the site and their data is safe,” a washed out man in gloves with that white glow bouncing off his blank stare says. Nothing leaves the site, you say? What if something wants to leave the site? You just keep it there? We see where this is headed. And those gloves don’t fool us. It’s cold. O.K. But this guy doesn’t feel temperature. He’s a ghost. He just doesn’t want to leave fingerprints.

“It’s a very important job, and I am very proud to be trusted with that responsibility,” an angelic-looking security guard said. It’s always the ones that look like angels, tasked with keeping everyone safe that surprise you most.

If Facebook does get into producing original content someday, now we have an idea of where it could start.