I’m with you. Facebook brings way more good to the world than bad. And the bad it brings is just amplification of what already exists. And with the Internet that amplification will happen with or without facebook.
Also the fact that much of the research / “leaks” are showing most of the issues are only happening in the US is a sort of a glaring hole in most of the arguments being made against FB. The US is just borked at the moment. Everything is red vs blue, and no one even cares what the issues are at this point.
Most people completely have their head in the sand about how utterly awful the average person is. A massive chunk of what people complain about is simply attributable to the fact that people are monsters, and that global connectivity means we can now all talk to each other without distribution being tightly bottlenecked and controlled (eg publishers, broadcasters, radio, etc). There's little that Facebook is accused of that seems as salient as this fact, and little they could do that would avert much of what we're seeing.
Oddly enough, I've felt for a long time that Facebook is among the most unethical companies out there. It's very weird to see it facing a potential reckoning on the back of such incredibly weak claims.
Absolutely. But one of the things Facebook does, is to favor showing those bad things to others because it drives engagements. The feed is just a steady stream of the same low-effort, high-emotion stuff.
The problems with Facebook are not (all) unique to Facebook, and they are not single-faceted. Another problem is that they do their hardest and ugliest to inject themselves everywhere they can, to scoop up emotions and events to get a fuller view of people, so they can sell ads.
I quit Facebook 2012, block anything fb in my browsers, don't use their messenger etc. I just hope this'll work when my daughter is old enough to want a phone too.
Facebook tried to go with "we're not bad, the people are" a while back. Yeah people are bad, but if you provide the tools for them to organize and further radicalize, you are responsible for what comes next.
Do we take Facebook away? The same problem will appear again in the next big social media network.
I do not know why people try going after facebook with pitchforks, when it is very much a people problem. One way to solve this would be to take anonymity of the internet away completely, but then people would
Facebook is just a platform, it isn't like there are a bunch of evil people sitting on a computer finding the most vile pieces of content and showing it to you.
It is what people seek, facebook just facilitates it. I am sure if google was to do similar studies on what people search for and how it affects them, it will see similar results.
Turn down the volume. Facebook specially takes "high engagement" content that is politically charged and full of hate and prioritizes it for distribution. They have shown they can deemphasize harmful content around elections, but when the heat is off, they go back to the old way to maximize time spent on platform / ad revenue.
In fact, remove the news feed altogether. It has nothing to do with "connecting the world", it exists only to hook people on low quality / high engagement content and the source of most (but not all) of their problems.
I should be clear. I don't think that there are no levers that Facebook can or should pull here. But that framing contradicts the breathless hysteria and shoddy statistics behind the push that Facebook is _causing_ damage, as opposed to being in a position to uniquely reduce harm in a way that (eg) contemporary radio manufacturers when radio was being used to foment the Rwandan genocide.
That is to say, these upheavals are inherent to global connectivity and empowering the voices of the masses; the obsession with Facebook as an entity is down intentional blinders about this fact.
Although, I should note that I strongly disagree with your strong form that "providing the tools for people to organize" means you're responsible for everything that happens. I don't see people rushing to give Facebook the same share of credit for Black Lives Matter, or the successes of the gay rights movement in the last decade, or any other outcome they consider positive that relied on "the tools provided by Facebook to organize". Just as Marconi or contemporary radio manufacturers aren't to be blamed for radio's role in fomenting the Rwandan genocide. As I said, people are monsters, and the idea that their communications tools have inherent responsibility is as nonsensical as saying that airlines or car manufacturers are responsible for allowing the crowd to get to the Capitol on Jan 6.
Also the fact that much of the research / “leaks” are showing most of the issues are only happening in the US is a sort of a glaring hole in most of the arguments being made against FB. The US is just borked at the moment. Everything is red vs blue, and no one even cares what the issues are at this point.