A lot of people think that Facebook has problems, when in reality the world has a Facebook problem. Facebook’s prominence in world affairs has recently stirred a lot of conversation about their responsibility to the truth and to what is right. While these arguments have good intentions, they give Facebook too much credit. Facebook does not exist to be a moral corrector, it exists to make money. It does not matter what Mark Zuckerberg says in testimonies or what Facebook’s mission statement says about its goals. Facebook is a business that profits selling access to users’ information to advertisers, and therefore needs to be heavily regulated in the best interest of consumers.
The terms of service that we all agree to as members is confusing, and the more Facebook evolves as a product, the less that original agreement coheres with what users expect. One Facebook’s new innovations is Artificial Intelligence, which it uses determine what specific articles and news stories to place in each of our timelines. François Chollet describes the problems with this Facebook feature in the following thread on twitter:
The problem with Facebook is not *just* the loss of your privacy and the fact that it can be used as a totalitarian panopticon. The more worrying issue, in my opinion, is its use of digital information consumption as a psychological control vector. Time for a thread
— François Chollet (@fchollet) March 21, 2018
To summarize, Facebook is becoming the curator of our news. This is inherently political and dangerous. When people sign up for Facebook, they expect to able to connect with friends and groups and RSVP to events. They do not expect Facebook to be watching over their shoulders at all times and determining the source and bias of the news they see. Their power is growing, and their existence as a business is enveloping our lives. Jordan Uhl makes light of the situation here:
MySpace: We’re a social network.
Facebook: We can do that too!
SnapChat: We let you send disappearing messages.
Facebook: Great idea!
Venmo: We let you send mon—
Facebook: Us too!
Governments: We’d love to meddle in elections.
Facebook: DO IT WITH FACEBOOK!
— jordan (@JordanUhl) March 18, 2018
The Facebook problem lies in capitalism. The only solution to save users from personal data exploitation and forced media bias is the dismantling of the site or a democratic take over of the site. Unfortunately, neither seem feasible. Read more here: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/facebook-google-privacy-antitrust_us_5a625023e4b0dc592a088f6c
This was an interesting take on a topic we have been heavily discussing. I think it was important to point out that Facebook is happy with how things are going it is the public who us upset. Your point about it being a business is not one that is pointed out enough. At the end of the day Facebook cares about making money and being successful. All of the heat around the trials and elections if anything has just made Facebook more money and more talked about.