As a child of the 2000s, I was a little late to join the Facebook bandwagon. I remember signing up for an account, without my parents’ permission I must add, in middle school. Facebook in 2009 was extremely different than it is today. Back then, it was a viable tool to create a digital scrapbook mostly of photos. Communication was either done through comments or wall posts, where users posted messages on another user’s account, both of which are very public and available for many people to see. Facebook, also, was a huge platform for gaming. I remember being a part of the huge FarmVille craze, where I’d spend hours crafting the perfect farm. Facebook, also, became a great way for middle-aged parents, such as mine, to reconnect with and essentially, stalk former high school friends.
Now, in 2018 Facebook has transformed into something that most likely surpassed Mark Zuckerburg’s initial intentions. Today, Facebook is, along with photo sharing and former-friend-stalking, a platform for video sharing, live streaming, news and information, polls, quizzes, and many more applications that encourage conversation, collaboration and knowledge sharing.
We have to face the fact that Facebook is a News platform and pushing back against that evolution is a bad Idea for about half a billion people. I fixed it in about 10 min. Yeah, fake news is annoying but so are the photos of my cousin's frog …https://t.co/RMoJUYuOPv
— Dasean Barnes (@Dasean_Barnes) January 17, 2018
The evolution of Facebook from 'let's look at some drunk pictures of your mates' to 'Here are 30000 adverts and a racist post from your Auntie' is the perfect business model in this nightmare universe.
— TechnicallyRon (@TechnicallyRon) December 11, 2017
With this, however, comes many dangers that Facebook needs to address, specifically with live streaming. I believe that live streams must be monitored for explicit, violent and/or inappropriate content, as displayed in the case where a murder was broadcasted to the public via Facebook live stream. If these streams are monitored, such cases are able to be avoided and corrected. Monitoring in general would be extremely beneficial in protecting the sanctity of Facebook and ensuring that content is relevant, legal, appropriate and non offensive. Also, fake news is now a huge issue and Facebook has aided in spreading this so called phenomenon. Without stricter rules and regulations in regard to appropriate content, Facebook will not be able to completely thrive and continue on the road to success.