>As despicable as Facebook is, I wish someone there would just come out and say “have you looked at yourself in the mirror?”
That's orthogonal. Human nature is what it is, we have to work with what we have, and at best change that slowly within a culture/society.
Facebook on the other hand, and how it operates, is almost infinitely malleable, and can be changed with just programmers working on the change.
And it's not some neutral playground that's "only bring us closer" but an active agent, which has policies to create echo bubbles, stir up engagement, and use distraction and partisanship for maximum profit, and whole teams dedicated to it.
So, no it's not like a knife that can be used to cut a cake or kill a person, and it's "just up to us how we use it".
It's more like an automatic riffle with a laser guide careful designed for maximum hurt, and promoted as such to customers (in this case, advertisers), with product teams devoted to stirring up conflict to improve the riffle selling business...
It would be, if the Green Lantern ring came with teams doings psychological studies how to fuck with your mind for profit and increase your spending time with it, and if its business model was dependent on framing how you discuss and what news and stories you see...
That's orthogonal. Human nature is what it is, we have to work with what we have, and at best change that slowly within a culture/society.
Facebook on the other hand, and how it operates, is almost infinitely malleable, and can be changed with just programmers working on the change.
And it's not some neutral playground that's "only bring us closer" but an active agent, which has policies to create echo bubbles, stir up engagement, and use distraction and partisanship for maximum profit, and whole teams dedicated to it.
So, no it's not like a knife that can be used to cut a cake or kill a person, and it's "just up to us how we use it".
It's more like an automatic riffle with a laser guide careful designed for maximum hurt, and promoted as such to customers (in this case, advertisers), with product teams devoted to stirring up conflict to improve the riffle selling business...