Winston Churchill: " A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on". . . today, with the Pandora's Box that is social media, those lies get all the way around the world in an instant.
44
Everyone thought the Information Age would be the next great era, and social media made it accessible for everyday people. And in 10 short years the one-to-one connection to people all over the world and right next door, all the small, isolated people started to realise that the world is an "ugly place" full of people who don't agree with me... armchair warriors got to travel without getting out of their comfort zone, and so never got what you get from travelling... empathy (from a real experience, with its difficulties and having to deal with new people and have them help you). Lots of people are blaming Facebook (and other platforms) when really all it did was hold a mirror up, what's your feed, groups and comments say about you?
9
It is crucially important for a professional to teach only what is known to be true because a professional represents the entire profession whether it is news reporting, science, medicine, or any other kind of teaching. To spread misinformation as a professional is utterly reprehensible, the lowest of the low. As a sophomore college drop-out, Mark Zuckerberg is a cartoon of himself, and Facebook is Mickey Mouse parading as professional. Lowest of the low.
11
When illegal gambling powered the rise of organized crime, governments around the world responded with public lotteries. Established by legislation, they are regulated, and dedicate the proceeds to the public purse.
Why not public social media, perhaps country-based, but interconnecting globally? Without ads, they could be a big draw, and satisfy the human need for connectedness without the adverse influence of profit-seeking.
Yes, there will be political abuse. Authoritarian leaders will use them as propaganda platforms, much as what’s-his-name uses Twitter. At their best however, they could be modeled after the BBC or PBS, infused with a spirit of non-partisan public service.
I'm sure some Republican or Russian trolls will denounce this idea as naive and unworkable. Ignore these sock puppets; they are symptomatic of the problem.
Something must be done. This is an idea worth considering. Otherwise, we can only look forward to a world of division, hatred and strife. Is that what you want for your children, and grandchildren?
14
The dark side, indeed.
Zuckerberg and Co. clearly has blood on its hands.
People are dying.
12
Time for Facebook to be regulated as a media company. Bring back the Fairness Doctrine too. This is a case of unchecked predatory capitalism in extremis. Facebook obviously does not have the corporate will to deal with this issue. This scenario has already played out in Burma, Mexico and India on a grand scale. They know what they should do but do not. #complicitFacebook #predatoryCapitalism #CorporateResponsibilityHa
14
But this phenomenon isn't restricted just to Facebook, from my perspective, Whatsapp is worse.
Since time immemorial, people have always believed Fake News. For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Fear
It's not something you can end the spread of the News only reduce its effects.
Policing just got more complicated.
4
Facebook Community: Beyond the border and beyond the law. The company can control much of it, but that means destroying the very business model they have - more users, more shares, more data crunched by more and more algorithms to benefit more and more of their real customers for even more profits.
Just like TV media which is obsessed with a 'porn star' and sexual conduct of public officials for TRP, the social media depends on controversial content which drives traffic and subsequently profits.
In many developing countries, riots have been happening for years based on rumors. Now rumors have a new and powerful channel.
11
Why blame facebook when, after decades of violence against the minorities, in Sri Lanka the response here was that they (Tamils, primarily) were themselves to blame for their plight because they had been "favored by the British." Facebook was not invented when ethnic cleansing began.
7
No, but Facebook surely fans the flames that are set.
10
Nice article. Will give good cover to Putin when he wants to censor Facebook during next Ukraine protests.
Now let's have a piece to justify newspaper censorship for Xi and Maduro.
4
Congressional hearings seem so scripted, practiced and sterile. Thank you for the bringing the unintentional consequences of social media to life. YIkes!
10
Civilization should not be ruled by falsehoods, whether it be the developing countries or for that matter, Western countries. Remember the Yellow Journalism days of newsprint in the US? Come to think of it, it still exists. Social Media? Not too sure about the necessity for it if it is a free for all. Unfortunately, it requires an educated populace willing to do their own research for the truth rather than have fraudulent information spoon fed to them. This problem exists in the developing countries as well as in the West.
9
First Facebook, then telephones, then shortwave radios, then semaphore signals, then smoke signals, then carrier pigeons, then foot messengers, then . . . . Ban them all. Face it, people are going to kill each other regardless. Cain didn’t consult with anyone over anything before he slew Abel.
5
Perhaps if Cain had Facebook, he would've consulted someone. Yes, people are going to kill people regardless of social networking, but the thrill of it wouldn't be able to be enjoyed as a world-wide popular sport without social networking. People post videos of startling abuse of animals and each other for a moment of celebration and approval. Social networking promotes it and stokes it and with far more effect and longevity than smoke signals or any of the other methods mentioned.
7
All these arguments that Facebook is just a tool, or the latest disruptive innovation seem to miss the point. Imagine a newspaper that allowed anonymous people to take out ads that listed the names and addresses of blacks or Jews and exhorted people to go kill them and torch their homes. Now imagine that the newspaper did not charge for such ads but ran them for free and refused to regulate them in any way. Mark Zuckerberg is the Pontius Pilate of our day.
22
Indeed, you have put the argument in perspective.
7
Facebook does not care, because this is a wider cultural issue in teh USA. Even among the most progressives, there is a strong belief that lives that are not American do not matter as much.
7
FB thinks it's untouchable. It's not and it needs to be regulated. When you refuse to work with the local community to prevent hate speech from boiling over into real world violence than you become complicit in the deaths and injuries caused by that violence. Zuckerberg should be ashamed of himself.
7
Facebook does not do the policing any responsible organization would do. Twice I reported posts tying the financial crisis to international Jewish financial conspirators. Once they struck the comment and the second time they said it did not violated their community standards. Keep in mind that the two most public faces of Facebook are Jewish. It is a sloppily run organization too fixated on hitting Wall Street standards. Oh, and I was told use of the “n word” did not violate community standards. I have given up on challenging any comments.
6
Zuckerberg said FB doesn't allow hategroups yet Nation of Islam and Farrakhan have pages. NOI/Farrakhan are listed as hate groups by the SPLC and have almost 1 million members. Richard Spencer was kicked off last month and he didn't have 1/5 the following or hate speech. Likewise, twitter said it wouldn't allow verified accounts of racists and it kicked Milo off for calling a black woman fat. Farrakhan still has a verified account as is merrily spewing anti-Jewish vitriol. Twitter also invited Tamika Mallory and Mysonne to it's office days after both made very racist tweets towards Jews. Social media has the same biases and double standards as the rest of the left- very quick to censor vitriol towards blacks and Muslims, very wiling to tolerate hatred by both demographics.
3
Facebook is kind of like Opium. It destroys civilizations while enriching the few that traffic in it.
8
More like it "destroys civilizations" while "enriching the few" who own it.
2
What about a robust public media network platform paid for through taxes of wealth in countries with extreme inequality (including the US) to counterbalance this kind of information. The idea that media should be for profit is problematic at it's core. Code should become publicly available, with a royalty to the creator. Why should Uber, for example, own the labor of all it touches? We need cooperatively owned models where members license the technology. The nerds cannot hold the reins forever. They are inadequate to the task of moderating society and certainly incapable of acting privately in the public good. This seems obvious. We are undoing centuries of societal development because of a sleek interface?
6
I'm posting this article on FB and then closing down my account. What a devastating report.
4
If ever a story reflected our existential duality, it is this one. The internet, through social media platforms like Facebook, was hoped by some, including me, to be the means by which knowledge and truth could spread throughout the world, unencumbered by governmental lies and propaganda. That knowledge would facilitate human understanding and aid the march toward a more enlightened world united by the internet and social media to fight against ignorance, superstition, injustice and the forces of hate. But I naively did reckon with the internet and social media's dark side. For as indicated by this story, at the same time that useful, healthy knowledge was being spread and shared through the internet, so too were the hatreds of the very same forces I had hoped it would defeat, especially those based on race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender and sexual preference.
What's to be done about the internet and social media's clearly evil dark side? Certainly we should not throw the baby out with the bathwater. But neither should social media companies like Facebook continue to give the haters virtual free reign to spew and spread their harmful filth. The challenge will be whether those companies can adequately police themselves. Thus far Facebook seems to have failed miserably to do so. If it is due to concerns for profits, then governmental regulation may be needed. But whether it is governmental or self-censorship, it has to be done. And yes, that too has its dark side.
4
Is FB really the problem? Or, is FB the symptom? There are too many that hate and blame 'others' for what 'they' fear or experience. But it's not just FB. The NYTimes has become a promoter of hate when they publish articles on hearsay just because it fits their agenda. The poor illegal immigrant family being taken advantage of the 'system' or living in fear of deportation. The black man shot because he was black, never mind that he attacked a police officer with his gun and had just robbed a store (Brown). These premature reports do just as much harm. And it only seems to be expanding.
So, while FB is a vehicle that should be slowed or stopped, what will we do with all the hate, with the 'we' vs. 'them' peoples around the world given the fuel to hate and blame by the media?
4
Of course much the same thing has been happening in Myanmar, as solid articles in the Times have recently made clear. I am personally aware of the impact of Facebook as a tool of incitement there and the company's profound failure to respond effectively. This article on the situation in Sri Lanka is welcome and eloquent in its detail, but the genocidal situation in Myanmar should have at least been mentioned and compared...
3
Eye-opening report by Taub and Fisher. It presents an accurate picture of Facebook that reminds me of those local underground newspapers in the '60's. They published anything that they wanted to publish, but to get some market, they published outré material. Facebook is like that underground publication, but it has gone global, without any form of editing.
And Taub and Fisher, in their writing, make me think that it is well nigh impossible to alter Facebook to be a responsibly edited publication. After all, Facebook isn't a publication; it is a tabula rasa on which *we* do the publishing, "we" being the billions of people in the world. This vast material cannot be edited for responsibility.
Thus, while we are the publishers on Facebook, we must also be the *editors*. If there is false, inflammatory material against Muslims by Buddhists, then Buddhists readers of that material must themselves be responsible for mentally editing out that false material instead of becoming inflamed because of it. This isn't going to happen.
We are in a brave new world. It appears that social media will always carry with it the burden that it is the publication of the recalcitrant population, as well as that of the responsible. We can expect more upheaval.
8
Life is possible without Facebook.
9
Thank god this kind of thing can't happen in the USA.
Maybe not exactly, but kids killing themselves after being publicly outed or dissed on Facebook is still pretty bad. There’s really no practical reason for a platform that makes the dissemination of hate as simple as a tap, at least make the haters work for it. People who want to stay in touch will keep doing so regardless as they had done before. Maybe then it may even mean something once again, unlike now where we respond with smiley faces to anything in our junk folders. I can still remember how my mother so looked forward to getting the Round Robin letters that she and her family members sent around to each other, each contributing something as it was mailed along. Zuckerberg hardly invented anything do, he just poisoned a perfectly good spring.
3
The recent news about Facebook and its right-wing supporters was enough to convince me to delete my account there. It's been very valuable to discover what side they are on politically. Perhaps they should relocate their HQ to St. Petersburg or Moscow, maybe a satellite office at Koch Industries in Kansas.
9
The whole concept of Facebook is ridiculous to me, and I do not understand why so many are hooked on it - such a waste of time. They've become the vehicle by which any cretin can do real harm to real people at will and with impunity. Pull the plug on it. The sun will still come up, and you might have more time to establish friendships with other human beings. Come on - do you really need to "friend" or "like" your favorite coffee or laundry detergent?
11
Facebook simply proves a couple of basic facts about humans
1. Humans are tribal, they fear and hate the unknown and different.
2. Humans are dumb and reactive, basically if it gets us excited or sounds “good” must be.
Now we ask that they police us.
Feel no remorse for Facebook in its greed and failure, or humans in theirs.
A sad and distopian conclusion on my part.
6
Does fb track posts of politicians who accept money from the NRA in the United States. The NRA lobbyists are a hate group promoting gun violence, so that they can ostensibly sell more guns. But do they rate politicians on other issues, such as misogyny and racism, and proposed legislated agendas based on what is widely seen as religious hate speech taken from the Bible; i.e. do they see the unregulated gun culture they promote as a way for whites to intimidate blacks, husbands to intimidate their spouses, and the religious right to intimidate gays, while pretending not to notice the murder of children and over 10,000 gun deaths by suicide this also causes every year in the U.S.
The Russians sought to influence American voters by targeting the same appeals to the same voters as the NRA in their paid posts and phony accounts on fb. They appear to also have contributed funds to the NRA before the election. It is highly illegal for the NRA to use these funds in an election, and also it was highly illegal for fb to have accepted the Russian ads. Where is the prosecution here and why don't we know the extent of the NRA involvement including how they have moved the funds around to try to cover this up?
Again, facebook should monitor ads as hate speech posted by politicians that take NRA money. The 33,000 deaths each year from gun violence should be seen as evidence of the NRA's successful use of hate speech to prevent legislation that would prevent gun violence in the U.S.
2
Can't totally blame FB for the hatred and violence - remember how the Hutus used the radio to promote violence against Tutsis, creating a horrible genocide that the world seemed too paralyzed to stop. That does not excuse FB - but reminds us and should remind its creators that human nature has not changed and will use whatever means necessary to get what they want - whether through radio, print, or FB. The problem here is that FB is so quick and ubiqutious, that the rumors that might be easily squashed are amplified by those with the loudest voices.
8
Facebook began as a localized misogynistic irritant that, fueled by greed and vanity, has become a worldwide misanthropic curse.
10
It is no secret that the rise of Facebook is linked to the rise of nationalism. It is used to stoke the flames of hatred and distrust on both sides, and led to extreme violence. Now the same thing is happening with gun control and shootings. FB is filled with opportunists who delight in turning people against one another. This is especially effective in areas like the Midwest, where people don't have a lot of exposure to other cultures, and tend to accept negative stereotypes. But people continue to use FB, because they like its beneficial aspects, like maintaining long-distance friendships. I fall into that category. Silicon Valley leaders like Zuckerberg, Sandberg, Page and Cook are not as altruistic and idealistic as they try to appear. The benefits they bring to the table (jobs and innovation), are being eclipsed by devastating effects on the local communities: economic inequality, a housing shortage, and untenable traffic conditions. There's no easy solution, but a start would be that these companies, backed by their BOD, use their wealth and influence to support the local and global community, not just themselves and their shareholders. This requires ethics and true concern for others. I believe they could do it, but will they?
8
Facebook is, and has been, a playground for hate and anarchy. It has also been a platform for propaganda designed and targeted to negatively influence our elections, society and Constitution.
Unless this medium is MUCH more controlled, I would actually support restrictions, First Amendment or not. This is a new era, not conceived by the Founding Fathers - one with many more stupid, gullible people and hostile, divisive forces. If people do not have the critical thinking skills to avoid being conned by fake Facebook and Twitter connections (like @RealDonaldTrump), it is time for the companies and/or an independent government agency to make ethical decisions for them. Oh, I hate the thought of this, but much of our population increasingly seeks the lowest bar, and it's getting worse.
8
Yes, here is the wonderful tool of destruction they call facebook. It can destroy anything and everything it touches without even breathing. Anyone who uses it "surrenders" himself to it's lawyers and if fate intervenes endless cruelty and misery. No real thought goes into it and none certainly comes out.
2
Governments will have to start blocking access to Facebook.
3
As a woman in the article said, “Facebook does not cause the fire, but it is the wind.” Its been successfully weaponized. We abhor censorship and impingements on freedom of speech. I abhor the viral spread of lies that provoke violence and influence people in dangerous ways. For many reasons, fact-checking does not occur. Zuckerberg should take this seriously. Perhaps HE should shut the monster down until or unless he has truly tamed it.
4
"For months, we had been tracking riots and lynchings around the world linked to misinformation and hate speech on Facebook, which pushes whatever content keeps users on the site longest...)
Did Zuckerberg copy this algorithm from Google? (YouTube does same per NYT)
Let's face it, all the Socials use similar tactics because they make their livelihood by site traffic. Violent live streaming, hate-mongering and race baiting gets traffic. Regulation or not, Good luck getting any of them to change.
4
Facebook doesn’t care! Why should it? There is no down side. Arresting the CEO as an accomplice to murder would be a good start!
2
While FB, twitter, and other social media assist with spreading information, good and bad, real and false, this will always be the case when humans hate and lie to achieve their agenda. This is both a right and left issue as extremists on both sides have taken over. Minority that hate taking over the majority. And it's not just social media, but news outlets across the world. It used to be that if you printed or promoted a lie, in the west, you would be sued and forced to retract that lie. Now it's just 'free speech' without a face (that isn't free speech when the speaker isn't known), or anonymity (the problem with social media).
But I'm astounded that readers only see the 'right' as the perpetrator. Open your eyes folks and realize that neither side is correct; demand that those that perpetrate hate are held accountable! Regardless of their politics.
3
One of the obsessions that contemporary elites demonstrate is their desire to establish regulation over the Internet. They have failed to find solutions to modern problems. The control they maintain over the public discourse prevents new ideas to emerge and solutions to be found. And then they find a scapegoat on whom they blame their own failures. Technology, the Internet, Facebook are not our enemies. Our enemies are those who obstruct creativity. Facebook does not cause violence and atrocities. It may very well constrain them. Why? Because it provides information and let's us make informed decisions. Without Facebook and the Internet, we would rely on rumors that are far more insidious and far more destructive. Yet the elites have one desire: they want to have more control over society and thus perpetuate their domination. They are the problem, not Facebook.
Like gasoline, Facebook has it's use, but also can be abused for ill purposes. As a society, we figured out how to reduce the misuse of gasoline as an accelerant by would-be arsonists. We, like most other countries, passed laws that require safe storage and dispensing of gasoline, and prohibit gas sales to those who want to fill up, let's say, a couple of glass bottles. We didn't rely on gas stations to police themselves; it was just too dangerous for laissez-faire. And, generally, gas station owners and attendants comply, as these laws and regulations are enforced.
So, as Facebook is clearly abused as an accelerant of violence, hatred and election fraud, let's treat it like that and regulate it, just like we do gasoline storage and dispensation: With clear laws, and significant penalties for noncompliance.
6
The title of this report could add: "Where Countries are Tinderboxes and Facebook is a Match, and Lynchings, Arson and Murder are Cash Registers".
3
Okay, you've convinced me. I am getting off Facebook. Just let me post this article first.
3
"in developing countries, Facebook is often perceived as synonymous with the internet and reputable sources are scarce, allowing emotionally charged rumors to run rampant. Shared among trusted friends and family members, they can become conventional wisdom."
Doesn't seem all that different from the US, where people have limited access to reliable news (or a diet of Faux News).
3
Facebook, and all social media, is a communication revolution, and revolutions have unintended consequences. The invention of the printing press enabled the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment. But it also exacerbated European religious wars, which killed millions, through the dissemination of cheap pamphlets reporting fake "news" of atrocities. I don't know how to better manage the flow of information, but with the rise of Fox "News" and Sinclair Media, I'm not sure we can blame all these problems on social media.
One small solution may be to make Facebook, etc., less ubiquitous would be for the NYTimes, Airbnb, and other "log-in" sites to end access via Facebook, Google, or Amazon account name/password.
9
It's all about Facebook and what motivated it. Facebook was a dork's revenge vehicle. It was an engineer's revenge play against the girl who rejected his awkward nerdy advances. He'd show her. She would feel what it was like to be rejected, uncool, etc. That is Zuckerberg's big story.
Then Zuck went on to code and appropriate code until he perfected what turned out to be the ultimate frat boy machine for extorting popularity and monetizing friendship. It also incidentally turned out to be the perfect instrument for prodding corporations to climb all over one another's backs to become 'most popular,' which it turned out they could do by hiring 'social media directors' within their corporations, often by hiring the consultants that they hired initially.
The pattern that followed usually involved their exhorting their own employees to post (sometime, gosh, under false identities), and Facebook's membership burgeoned. It become the ultimate home invasion tool for the whole family.
It is a stock whose value has been set based upon questionable data, and an extortion business plan. I have not joined it and am not it's friend. But, I am in a tiny minority. In many corners of the world I was told, "but it's better than nothing." - Of course that was before the local FSB/GRU/ or alt.right moved in. And that is the FaceBook model problem - extortion models are made for fascists.
There's nothing "social" about "social media" except for the name.
17
After decades of inflicting harm on other societies - with Trump - our CIA ways seem to be coming back home to roost.
This is like the automatic gun debate. When a new tool or technology introduces the means to more efficiently target and injure or “kill” someone, society must decide when and how to minimize or eliminate the resulting losses of life and liberty. It’s not a debate as to whether to blame the tool or the people abusing it.
4
Free speech is a wonderful ideal. When it's not suddenly a free-for-all composed of a pack of rabid dogs in the midst.
For those people who think every crazy dog has the right to free speech too, I might ask, "would you give a gun to a three-year-old?" Facebook has a dilemma of having to sort the wheat from the toxic chaff. It's a very wealthy company that could lead the world in solving this problem. If they don't do it they are complicit.
5
Instead of blaming Facebook, why not ask why this nation is a “tinderbox” in the first place? Does anyone seriously believe that eliminating Facebook would resolve the underlying problems? If Facebook is banned or otherwise eliminated, something else will take its place - perhaps something that is more uncontrollable and dangerous than Facebook.
2
FB needs a major overhaul. Think of the frequency with which you see the phrase "Like Us On Facebook." Think of the impact that turning the noun "friend" has had by being made a verb. Both appeal to tribal instincts. Both need to go.
1
Some of you may become angry at me for this superficial comment, but there's seems a whiff of the Bond movie, Spectre, in some of these reports. Is there some coordinated effort behind all of this? A grand scale? I am not usually a conspiracy person, but there has been a lot of rightward movement over the past 5 years and now Hungary. Formally a country that even when it was part of the USSR, was pro-democracy. What could have swung the population's opinion like that? Brexit?
So when India, Iran, etc. temporarily limit Internet access because of actual or impending violence, or ban a book for fanning religious hatred, what will our lecture to them now be?
"Ah, you know what, you've been right all these years? We're beginning to understand that free speech is good, but sometimes, those seeking to incite hatred, violence and persecution, use "free speech" to very bad ends. Though isn't it hard to tell what to do and how to act without undercutting the whole concept of "free speech?" Absolutely. Maybe it's impossible to both have "free speech" and to try to "manage" it. But what's the alternative? Allow "free speech" to be used to build hatred and kill the innocent?"
Imperfect choices. Imperfect world. Reality.
4
I remember asking a young woman before the 2016 election why she was voting for Donald Trump. She shockingly replied that she saw on Facebook that Hillary Clinton had killed 10 people. After the election I remembered her comment and had to think how many others like her had read such scurrilous rumors on Facebook to determine their vote.
The election came down to 77,744 votes in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan, enough for Donald Trump to win the electoral college.
I always wondered how many of those votes were Facebook friends with whom that young woman and thousands of others had shared "likes."
Facebook has consequences not just in places like Sri Lanka but right here in this country.
9
I'm in California and had virtually the same experience - overheard co-workers saying Trump should be careful because HRC might have him killed. This was before the election. I couldn't understand how/where they had gotten such nutso ideas. As soon as I first read about Cambridge Analytica over a year ago, I understood and I've been waiting ever since for someone to pay the price for this massive disinformation campaign. I used to be a political moderate. No longer.
3
Apparently, your conclusion is that peace only comes from isolation---that the ability to communicate on a broad, unregulated scale is the proximate cause of unrest.
Facebook is not responsible for the hatred in men's hearts and their willingness to believe any fool thing. But they're using Sri Lanka people as the product for ad money (or are gambling on the possibility of future ad money) while not taking responsibility for what their platform is magnifying. If the the Sri Lankan region doesn't financially justify full moderation, then they shouldn't be in Sri Lanka. If you're going to be in a region, you must have the staff and contacts to be fully responsible for your product in that region.
3
Think of all the serious journalists that NYT and other news organizations could hire with even a fraction of the ad revenue that goes to Facebook, revenue that used to support those organizations. If FB is intent on expanding outside the US, it has a responsibility to use some of that income to open an office with native speaker moderators in every country where it is available, not just in some faraway "regional center." Right now it seems as though the company is more focused on its stock price than on the lives it is being used to destroy.
2
I cannot see how this does not bother a lot of people who work at FB. Maybe the best we can hope for is that FB will cease to become a cool place to work and no longer be a magnet for top talent.
2
I used to think it was terrible that China blocked FB but now I understand the government's logic. It would be disastrous to the country's stability if FB was accessible by all. FB does not care about its users- look at how it did not respond to the Sri Lankan situation until the government blocked most social media websites - pathetic. Search FB's website and you'll be hard pressed to find a "Contact Us" link with phone numbers or email addresses. You have to ask yourself what and why are they hiding?
6
i spend at least one hour a day on facebook because i service my peter handke page & have 5000 plus f. b. friends, a lot of them Austrian & but scarcely ever encounter tribalism or similar incitement. occasionally problems with Austrian dissat isfaction with refugees. at any event i think it is silly to blame facebook for the human capacity for vengeance or its manifestations. the kind of killings thatthe article mentions happened everwhere long before there was a facebook which is merely the newest transmitter of rumors that would spread some other way. the causes for these explosions need to be addressed, and these are multifarioous, often of an economc nature, and hiistroially determined.
1
Michael must have a loose definition of " friends ", 5,000 +.
Tweek the algorithm to privilege long term interests over short term? Lets pretend we know what that even means. Just how does a tweek fundamentally alter the consumerist psychology that fuels the biz? Dopamine hits for long term interests? Good luck guys. Or not
1
Facebook has become a scourge on the world community and all the while the company's fresh-faced officials stare at us in wide-eyed innocence as more and more damage is done.
2
Facebook initially sold as a tool of democracy has instead become a tool of tribalism and hate leading too often to violence and death as well as mob mentality and misinformation.
While it’s direct impact is hardly close to chemical and nuclear weapons, it’s unintended impact is much the same: the elevation and distribution of non reality based information and as a result the destruction of civil order.
Governments regulate many things in order to protect society as a whole and we accept that regulation as necessary for the good of all. Facebook and other social media require massive regulation and control for the good of us all. There have always been limits on freedom of speech and expression and the need to regulate Facebook and others is no different.
Frankly the world would on balance be a far better place without it and its progeny. It’s intended social benefits are easily replaced by people talking by phone and emailing which of course would eliminate Facebook’s current real mission: making money. Zuckerberg should be ashamed that his well intentioned idea has become so perverted.
5
run by the 30 year somethings peer prats with smug patronising of anyone older with less tech savviness than themselves ... break up the company, no commercial or ongoing use of user data, no profits from core interpersonal service (try subscription), all ads and sponsored posts to be sent to all in large regions, with public scrutiny like any other public media form - facebook is a scam, public mass communication sitting on interpersonal frame that prevents competition. how has america allowed this?
2
"Words have the power to both destroy and heal. When words are both true and kind, they can change our world.”
― BUDDAH
Facebook is engaged in capatilistic colonialism. It sees these developing nations as nothing more than market shares to conquer, much as the imperial powers viewed colonial subjects as a means to exert the superiority of their masters. FB pretends to be agnostic to the deep divisions it is exploiting to gain upper hand in marketshares, in doing so it is redefining colonialism
7
Brilliant! I wanted to post about this article, something I rarely do. Since I am no longer on social media, I don't have that "outlet" to express my views regarding FB and other conundrums and complications that code and connectivity have visited upon us. I encourage any of my fellow readers to 1) subscribe to the "failing New York Times - print edition." It is an analog marvel. No hyperlinks, videos, troll commentary, rumors, fake news, Trump Twitter posts, etc. 2) delete your Facebook account and anything else online that sows division, rumor, fake news, violence, and generally promotes the popular over the true. 3) reject the notion that "connecting everyone" ala FB is somehow more important than assuring the stability of fragile institutions, such as our free press. Our freedom is directly linked to our ability to know the truth, especially when living in the world where one can argue, with a straight face, that there is such a thing as an "alternatve fact."
I love what Mr. Papa has written here. Facebook's casual, arrogant dismissal of the damage wrought by their "popular, not necessarily true" viral content - and by the way, it is "their" content, since they publish it - is indeed evocative of the rationalizations offered by colonialists, who propagandized that they knew better what their subjects needed, than these subjects themselves.
1
This should be required required reading for every member of Congress—coupled to a pop quiz on what steps they have taken to pass legislation recognizing FB as a "private utility," which must nonetheless be regulated to ensure that it serves the public interest. We do no less with privately held phone companies, water companies, gas companies, and other utilities we recognize as more or less indispensable to modern life.
7
Facebook and other social media platforms have become First World solutions to Third World problems. People in America have difficulty differentiating real from fake news. In Third World countries where the quality of education is low and tribalism runs high it is even worse.
Media must be open but it doesn’t mean unregulated. Even in America broadcast TV is regulated. Regulation and policing is not the job of private enterprises whose financial objectives are to serve their shareholders.
2
There are too many corporations like Facebook that are led by reclusive billionaires who, ironically, don't engage much with the public, and are hence blinded to some of the negative impacts of their products. In Zuckerberg's case, he's spent years hiding from serious scrutiny. Despite the fact that "sharing is caring", to borrow a phrase of his, he's been famous for building his personal residences to hide from the public and has until only recently been infamous for shunning interviews and PR.
This is on top of his long resort to that well-worn screed of the oppressed billionaire class that any government or public say into how their products should be made or monitored would be "stifling innovation".
Social media technology is different from broadcast equipment or printing presses that have been sold to different stations or publishers in some key respects. From its inception Facebook has insisted on centrally owning the platform... and not coincidentally centrally extracting all the profits. I encourage the NY Times to continue to highlight areas where Facebook and other social media is being misused. If they want to own all the money that comes in from their social media products, they need to be publicly educated that they own, too, the social responsibility that comes with it.
13
Let's not forget we've seen this in the U.S. (Remember PizzaGate?) While I do not use FB and do not approve of many of the company's practices, I am also reluctant to simply bash the site as the root of all social ills. I think we'd do better to focus attention on improving political climates--local and global--and equipping people with basic information literacy skills.
10
Facebook has morphed into something that it can barely contain or fully understand. It is being used and abused in ways that no one could fully imagine and will be used as a case study about human behavior for years to come. However, we now know beyond a doubt how the platform is being corrupted for nefarious purposes. What is unimaginable to me is that Facebook somehow believes it can successfully contain and moderate content. This is the same idealism and naivety of Facebook that first produced its current problems.
Ask yourself this, if you created a product that was being used in this way would you not simply discontinue this product in those areas of extreme abuse until a more robust and permanent solution could be found? This indicates to me that Facebook is desperate to try and save its business model and market share at all cost even if its platform continues to be used to incite violence in the meantime.
12
When truth is manipulated by people with a dedicated or devious point of view, or for avaricious purposes, the outcome can be predictably evil. Facebook didn't start out as a platform to be misused or corrupted. It was a way for friends to meet-up and keep in touch.
As the world came on board and started to use Facebook, the opportunities for misuse were too good, or great, to ignore and we can clearly see the ways in which our personal information and lies have rampantly spread without check.
It goes without saying that we need to rein in certain aspects of what is allowed to be posted on Facebook. Hate-speech isn't acceptable anywhere in the world and must not be allowed to be passed off as something allowed without dire consequences.
Our actions have consequences. Doing nothing only allows unacceptable behavior to grow. While I ordinarily wouldn't advocate for any sort of governmental intervention, in this case, it may ultimately be the only way we can stop the spread of misinformation and personal information manipulation.
It is unlikely Mark Zuckerberg can accomplish the changes that need to be implemented on his own. The truth is too important to leave in the hands of one person, or one platform.
8
Facebook because of its scale is forced to make decisions using computer algorithms. Humans are too costly and far too slow to make billions of assessments.
Facebook’s motives are not pure, of course, but their entire process is inherently incapable of filtering out trash. And, in addition, Facebook has extended their operations far beyond its initial goals of helping people communicate with bona fide “friends” to pushing “news” they cannot possibly vet and displaying ads and come-ons their algorithms simply cannot appraise.
2
Facebook's business model is fundamentally flawed. To make the most money it needs to excite users, and the most efficient way to do so is through provocation. It's time to either regulate it effectively as a media enterprise, or to shut it down.
21
It's the same with Twitter -- these platforms make money off of hate. I dream of a post-social media world. Maybe we can all just go back to writing emails...
2
Freedom of speech isn't a blank check. At some point lies become propaganda and have harmful effects. As long as the means of propagation was slow this wasn't too much of a problem but social media changed that. Even in the US, a supposedly civilized country, we're living with the results. Russia, which knows all about propaganda, used social media to manipulate the 2016 election and arguably affected the result. As this article shows, the effect of social media in less developed countries can be catastrophic.
We need to find a way to mitigate the problem, not only for ourselves but for these other countries. It won't be easy to balance Facebook's business model against freedom of speech but if we fail other freedoms may be lost.
8
As the article says FB brings out the confirmation bias in all of us through the like button. We are constantly telling FB what are preferences are, what we are are willing to spend time and/or money on, who are other friends are, where we are vacationing; just about everything about us.
FB is a great way of finding old friends, connecting to family members and even finding new potential friends with similar likes; motor cycles, birding, expat groups, St. Patty Day marches; the list is endless.
But it is also the way that people that would normally find themselves alone with hateful thoughts and fears can join together, gaining great strength in numbers though they share those thoughts with just a tiny fraction of their local communities. So they can find confirmation no matter how perverse their inclinations. This could be sorted out, but it would take a concerted and expensive effort by FB. My bet is that a lot of the damage has already been done...
4
Time for Facebook to go. It has morphed into a global monster, wrecking everything in its path.
17
It will go as soon as users give up on it.
It won't make a difference in any of these places. It's not facebook, it's the people themselves.
Gee folks. When new technologies come along they displace old ones, including “communication technologies.” So, with the rise of social media has come what has always been called “creative destruction.” It happens with the adoption of any new technology. It sounds like everybody’s in favor of the the creative part, but, now that it’s becoming visible, not the destructive part. Or.....perhaps it’s the way we deal with the destruction—the way we deal with coal miners and their families, the way we deal with displaced small farmers, the way we deal with former steelworkers no longer able to find jobs. There’s destruction everywhere, including Sri Lanka, we can now see, thanks to this marvelous reporting, and it’s not just industrial technologies that are wreaking havoc with the world, but communication technologies—in short, the way we even talk to each other. Gosh. No need to panic. We’ll just look at how we’ve dealt with other creative destruction—like in coal, steel, and farming—etc., etc., etc. Problem solved......
5
Regulate the ENTIRE social media empire.
10
So become like China, and North Korea. Good plan.
1
Facebook is the dominant player in the social networking business, but other corporate media conglomerates are competitors- how they would like to move in on Facebook's territory.
One wonders if the huge conflict of interest isn't a factor in a big take-down going on towards FB right now in the media industry.
This story offers anecdotal observations as an indictment of Facebook influence. Didn't other opportunities for social networking arrive at the same time? How much is the arrival of cell phones with internet access the real basis for the ability for tribal hatred to organize?
I look forward to more complete investigative reporting on these important issues going forward- I'm confident the NYTimes can provide it.
2
Facebook cannot and should not censor speech merely because it is seen as prejudiced. But it can and should try to stop all speech that incites violence. In the US, probably the most plausible route to Facebook-driven violence is not talk of racial differences, but incitement of riots in the inner city in response to supposed or actual police use of excessive force against blacks. Such speech will not in most cases be explicitly racially hateful, and it will even present itself as fighting racism, but when it comes combined with calls for killing the police or white people, it could lead to deaths.
2
Social media does not shine light on ignorance. Too often it amplifies its ills.
7
the vector is pernicious
3
That is not the fault of Facebook. It is the fault of 2 religions. One is the "religion of peace" and the other Buddhists. Just as it is the same all over the world with one of them.
3
Misinformation, falsehoods and bating based on religion, ethnicity and race have plagued the world for as long as humans have walked on earth. Some regions of the globe have been in a perpetual form of civil unrest and retaliations which the Super Powers have fed upon to sell weapons. Social media has, simply, accelerated the process of spreading misinformation and falsehoods which reduces the time frame between incidents. The key influential change since 2016 is Donald J. Trump, his enablers and his 95% (ers).
The Tea Party activists, who continue to claim they were grass roots, exploded onto the American political scene to protest that an African American was elected president. Their premise for public consumption was their anger aimed at the federal government but their actions and words reflected their hatred and prejudice for Obama. Donald J. Trump harnessed that prejudice, anger and hatred and used social media to make it acceptable and fashionable. How can we expect to preach peace and civility when the most hate-filled person on the planet is the president of the United States.
1
Facebook owes the greatest responsibility to its users, and not to advertisers or developers. I don’t think it would take much to hire third-party contractors who are local and can help censor hate content.
1
Facebook has encouraged bullying all across the world, which has caused the teen suicide rate to rise. This "platform" does nothing to stop libel and slander, against individuals and groups. The proliferation of rumors stemming from "secret" groups hurts people and Facebook gives no one the tools to fight back. Facebook is an enemy of society.
6
Now Zuckerberg is tbe criminal and Facebook his weapon. Eight years ago social media was being heralded as the savior of democracy in the first successes of the arab spring. What all of this tells me is that 1) we need to stop deifying successful and creative entrepreneurs as if, by magic, they are going to save us from ourselves and the complex problems the world is facing. They are business men, not prophets and don't deserve the kind of rock star treatment the popular culture bestows upon them. And while we're on that topic, adulation of rock stars has long been over the top unhealthy. Acknowledgment, yes if they deserve it. Bizaarely over the top wealth and adulation, no. 2) This cultural phenomenon takes the place of the recognition of regular old, everyday, workplace level individuality, skills development and maturity, the ability to get along without resorting to gross judgments and identity politics, and glamorization of a stifling bro culture and whatever female culture develops to either adopt to it or work around it. Either way energy is being wasted because though supposedly individual freedom is paramount certain individuals gain, many others lose, but its all justfied now by a deep allegiance to whatever the predominate defining ultra-coolness is irrespective of what life actually demands of us.
2
Terrific journalism. Terrified.
3
OH NO!! NOT 'HATE-SPEECH!!
As one astute student at Harvard once solemnly intoned "I'm not against freedom of speech; I'm against 'freedom of hate-speech'!!
(So much for 'higher-education'!)
3
The new technologies of Facebook,Twitter, and Instagram were all developed to appeal to the widest population as quickly as possible.They went public on the stock market and the rush was on to attract as many users as possible to inflate the stock price.There was not much concern about this social media platform and the havoc it could wreak in communities around the world.These platforms are news sources and need to be moderated well.Facebook can well afford to hire all the language experts it needs.It is a wild, Wild West out there in social media land.
1
Facebook and virtual media have caused a quantum reduction of revenue for the convential print media. And much like the misinformation propagated by Facebook, the conventional media is likewise capable of spreading false and disrupted information. Incessant news reporting of riots, lies and covering for the favored politians while constantly discrediting those out of favor is not the sole domain of Facebook and their electronic breathern. This article presents a particular point of view with an overriding self serving messages that newspapers are good and social media is out of control and promotes misinformation. Many Americans believe that fake news comes from both. National polls reflect that people don’t trust the main street media. Why buy a newspaper or watch tv news when you know they are always pushing their fake agendas. At least with Facebook you have an opportunity to respond with your own point of view.
2
By reportibg on the negative blowback of facebook enabled rumor mongering you condemn authors of the article as biased toward print media. This either/ or reductionism is what Facebook enables and your insinuation on bias ignores that this discussion is occuring on line. What the article ignores is that the Sri Lankan government has tolerated and encouraged racism against minorities for decades/
The death and destruction can directly be attributed to Facebook. The response 'the post does not violate community standards' shows them to be willing accessory. Facebook acted when it was shut down, ie, only when their business was affected. Can Sri Lanka not issue an arrest warrant to the Facebook officials for their role?
4
The death and destruction are only the faults of the people who actually carried out the acts. If Facebook was gone tomorrow do you think any of this would end? It was happening before Facebook, what was different?
1
Terror groups like Al Qaeda, the Taliban and ISIS love Facebook.
Mark Zuckerberg must be so proud!
2
Having a platform that does the positive of what Facebook does — linking family and friends —requires a platform without a profit motive, like the Post Office used to be. That and up-to-date hard copy address books. Even 20 years ago I was maintaining a hard copy. Now, the Post Office is barely used for letters. I suspect serious sunspot disruption will be the major impetus to moving to the next level of human discourse.
4
FB entered Myanmar before 2014. I had FB friends there in 2012 and it was not new then.
It is a mixed bag. 80% of all have access to a smart phone. That permits communication with relatives who have moved to the cities or abroad. It allows farmers to learn what their crops are worth, But yes it gives voice to Buddhist reactionaries who should have been banned long ago.
1
I would love to know how Facebook plans to make money off people who can only afford smartphones and not much else. It's still a free app, right? How do these markets "represent the company’s financial future ?" Are advertisers craving access to such populations? If not, how will Facebook generate income from these users? Obviously Facebook likes to brag about their two billion members but what financial incentive does Facebook to have court users in so-called developing countries?
17
Unfortunately, it is not about making money off of the end users. It is about building mass usage in order to collect data on the users in order to sell the information and in the case of raising funds from investors, to increase its value. Nothing is for free. We should all take heed of this because we are all being used for some company's purpose. Did you see this article lately? https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/11/technology/personaltech/i-downloaded-...
1
For the network effect. For Facebook to stay relevant and competitive they have to have the widest user base. That means going after every single person on earth. They want to make Facebook the ultimate human phone book to force everyone to participate.
So, bragging rights? Doesn't make sense to me. With all the problems it's causing them now, maybe they should re-think.
Facebook is an excellent hate amplifier, and that's not about to change. That is, after all, where the greatest profits lie. FB also serves as the medium for mob violence, often bridging the gap between virtual acts of hatred and real physical ones. It's having the same general effect here in the U.S. as it is in Sri Lanka albeit muted by better policing and community norms. Unfortunately our society has the equivalent of leprosy when it comes to feeling the pain and destruction that FaceBook brings with it. I doubt we'll be able to stop it before the essential social fabric that holds our nation together is shredded beyond repair.
16
Facebook right along with 99% of all the news media outlets in the U.S. along with people who believe as you do because your being brain-washed daily, yes, absolutely. A the truth only has to be told once; you can recognize propaganda by the need to be repeatedly disseminated over and over and over again. Drip, drip, drip, until you become a zombie.
When people become billionaires due to the success of a business enterprise, they will never do anything to threaten the working of the enterprise.
FB? - It's a computer program that they have shared with billions of people all over the world, they can't run customer service by proxy. Customer service will never ever exist.
9
I've argued for years, long before Russian use of Facebook to meddle in US domestic politics, that the platform is a huge net-negative for society.
It continually pushes us into narrower and narrower silos. Worse, it has seemingly created millions of deeply credulous people—some of whom are very smart—who no longer use their critical-thinking faculties. People too often "like" or "share" content that appeals to their biases (on whatever quadrant of the political graph they may occupy) without taking even 30 seconds to vet the source and try to understand if it's true.
There are solutions to this, of course. One is, bail on Facebook. A perfectly reasonable solution.
But another is to exercise a little discretion and introspection. When I started out as a young journalist, a grizzled veteran urged me to skepticism with the following advice: "If your mama says she loves you, check it out."
If Facebook shows you something that ignites your passions ... check it out.
23
The solution to Facebook is another platform that serves the connectivity and social needs Facebook does now without the bogus news and bots that also infect it now. To some extent, "fake news" and rumor-mongering are going to be a part of any social media network -- that's an innate part of human communication -- but Facebook's business model and algorithms seem to encourage this rather than discourage it. Build a better business model that doesn't misuse personal data and which discourages false news and people will come.
4
You cannot put all the blame on Facebook. In fact, it's ridiculous. You cannot edit away everything without stomping on the the First Amendment. We have enougb speech police as it is.
Unless it's exdtremely blatant, it's difficult to do. You can try your best, but Facebook has obviously done nothing.
13
Facebook provides the illusion of free speech, with secret algorithms changing the audience and thus your context of your intended message. There is nothing free about it.
11
The First Amendment does not protect every kind of speech (even if it doesn't really apply to non-governmental interference anyway.). Good old Oliver Wendell Holmes said "There is no right to shout 'fire!' in a crowded theatre." If you are inciting violence, the govts in the US can stop you from speaking and there will be no protection from the First Amendment.
2
Facebook allows people to essentially yell "fire" in a crowded theater. An act that the US Supreme Court rejected as an exercise in free speech long ago: https://www.britannica.com/event/Schenck-v-United-States
If Facebook cannot control its content, it should be prevented from posting it.
1
Freedom of speech is one thing
Giving crazy or evil people the world’s largest megaphone is another
Facebook needs a facelift.
110
Blue: "Facelift"?!? More like a brain transplant - from a donor with some sense of ethics, compassion and humanity.
3
I don't believe the vast majority are crazy or evil people. They are fearful and needy people who feel empowered when they think they are part of a movement doing good in the world (eradicating evil, taking extreme measures to protect their children...) In other words, everyone is susceptible.
Have we learned nothing from the Holocaust? From the imposition of state-sanctioned slavery? From the brutal lynchings of African-Americans in the South? Bias, rumors, fear, scapegoating and a tribal sense of pride to defend one's community against an "enemy." Historically, there are always those who have benefited financially from this tragic cycle perpetrated by the hordes.
Perhaps Zuckerberg isn't directly responsible for spreading hate, but he is indirectly responsible and in a position to do something about it. Yet those who question him seem woefully ignorant (eg congress) or star struck (most reporters I've seen).
If Zuckerberg was "smart" enough to create Facebook and willing to take a billion dollars for it, he is "smart" enough and has the responsibility to solve it. He could spend three quarters of his personal wealth (gained from the Facebook user hordes) to hire staff and put infrastructure in place in developing and developed countries to solve or stem the problem and provide a quick mechanism to shut down or mitigate false and incendiary content (for example, couldn't an emergency public announcement be pushed out and prioritized?) and STILL be filthy rich.
3
We are no better. As humans, we are all hard-wired to fear the different. As Walt Kelly’s comic character Pogo once said: “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”
In 1955, 14-year-old, black Emmett Till was beaten to death and thrown into a river by white men who believed he had made a pass at a white women.
In Massena, New York in 1928, the police acted on were rumors that jews had killed a Christian child for blood to make matzah for Pesach.
And in 2016, nut-job Edgar Welch traveled to Washington, DC and shot up a pizza shop with his AR-15 because he believed it was involved in a child trafficking ring.
As the article aptly acknowledges: They have the germs; Facebook is just the wind.
Todd W. Grant
Ann Arbor, Michigan
15
I read this and still ask, how is this Facebook’s fault? These communities have been at war for centuries. Rwanda, Kosovo, the Nazi’s, genocide has existed and will always exist with or without Facebook. I disagree with even the premise that Facebook is the match. These communities are out there, salivating, waiting for any reason to go on the offensive. Where are their governments? Who’s going to jail for these lynch mobs? If anything, Facebook should have made it easier for the inciters to go to jail as they can be identified, their followers can be identified and the extremists among them can be weeded out. As we’ve seen in all wars, in all genocides, when local governments turn a blind eye to hate and violence it escalates until it’s out of control. It’s time for the Sir Lankan government to get it’s act together.
8
Yes, it is not Facebook's fault - per-se - but Facebook has the power and means to mitigate the problem: so, therefore, they have the responsibility to do what they can. Power inescapably incurs responsibility! To the extent that they have the power to help, their inactivity can, morally, be seen as criminal and may, in fact, be legally criminal. Who is powerful enough to charge and prosecute them?
How long until the country in question isn't some far flung land but facebook ignites violence in the US. Any regular reader to the NYT can cite a number of examples when this had almost happened, most recently the convictions of the 3 men in Kansas who wanted to kill muslims. Pizzagate? I could go on. Polarized politics lead to violence as people are incapable of civilized discourse.
16
It’s already happened on a small scale with teenage bullying.
6
Facebook for your news is like getting your news from the National Enquirer or some other news outlet that do not follow rules of responsible journalism.
29
Hold. Zuckerberg. Personally.Responsible.
23
“The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices – to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill – and suspicion can destroy – and a thoughtless frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all of its own – for the children – and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is – that these things cannot be confined – to the Twilight Zone“
Closing narration by Rod Serling, The Monsters are Due on Maple Street episode of the Twilight Zone. 1961.
24
Maybe it’s time you really leaned in, Sheryl.
9
Who the hack invented the term „social media“ for all this? It’s simply the opposite „anti-social media“
12
"The germs are ours, but Facebook is the wind."
That has got to be by far the most accurate description of Facebook's role society I've ever heard.
23
For all the talk of 'giving back' that billionaires indulge in – including Zuckerberg - they seem to think that however they make their money is OK and nothing should interfere with growth and profit.
Well, Zuck, this is not how social responsibility works. You cannot make money from death and then loftily promise to give it all away whenever and however you see fit. Your responsibilities *as a businessman* are not limited to your shareholders and yourself.
After reading this, I think any government that has had to deal with Facebook- and Whatsapp-fueled violence should shut the platforms down until they provide enough staff, language services and direct lines to deal adequately and immediately with any social and political crisis they create.
(Sure, demonstrations for democracy, as in Egypt, have also been fueled by Facebook. But social media activism, among people and people who have not developed real-life networking, has shallow roots.)
17
Facebook is poison. A business model of algorithms and addiction, more and more finely tuned to our thoughts and, unfortunately, worst tendecies as well. If I hear Zuckerberg say one more thing about making the world a better place I will be sick.
19
If we are going to "blame" Facebook for disinformation campaigns can we do the same for traditional media? Shall we hold Congressional hearings about how the NY Times: (1) helped to mislead us into the Iraq War; (2) spent ridiculous amounts of time covering DJT amplifying, his platform; and (3) breathlessly covered HRC's e-mail "scandal"? While traditional media is spending lots of time speculating about the impact of "fake news", there hasn't been nearly enough focus on the impact of irresponsible journalism.
Also, I've yet to see anyone point out that the hysteria about fake news on social media is driven by a traditional media that is still playing catch up with large tech companies as information tools. Must be nice to have a platform to sway public opinion and smear your competitors without calling out your own culpability.
12
Maybe we need someone with more maturity than a 32 year old running facebook.
10
indeed - along with the peer prats with smug patronising of anyone older with less tech savviness than themselves ... break up the company, no commercial or ongoing use of data, no profits from core interpersonal, all ads and sponsored posts to be sent to all in large regions, with public scrutiny like any other public media form - facebook is a scam, public mass communication sitting on interpersonal frame that prevents competition. how has america allowed this?
Outrageous. I guess this is what you get when immature, amoral, college dropouts are allowed to start loose canon businesses that make a pile of $ playing to the trivial and base. I'm not always in agreement with what the nyts publishes but I like to think somebody is at least occasionally checking the stories over before they go out. More proof that not being on FB has been a good idea.
9
Facebook, like others, want to act like it is equivalent to only the supplier of ink and paper, not the newspaper. At the same time it claims all of the ad space and is content to allow anything to be published by anyone. Basically a "paper" of ads with letters to the editor filling the rest of the space. Letters which are free of pesky requirements like avoiding slander and libel and which Facebook can decide to make into headline "articles" as it pleases.
6
Commumal violence existed in Sri Lanka and elsewhere long before Facebook. You have to show it has made the problem worse. Anyone can find a few anecdotes to back up a story they set out to find.
1
Facebook, like all unmoderated social media is dangerous. Of course, we're dangerous as a species, but Facebook just fans the flames.
10
Why do you keep on using the phrase “hate speech,” as if it is a proper noun and neologism? Why not just call it descriptively, “speech and words that are hateful.” The problem with your usage is that you end up conflating this idea with anything that particular political groups “find” hateful, even if it is simply based on political disagreement, and has no hate in it as far as the opposing side is concerned.
When it is obviously pro-violent, angry speech call it “violent speech,” or “angry speech” as direct descriptors.
Stop trying to tie it in to silly American campus politics, whereby if the speech is offensive it is “hate speech,” and other Orwellian neologisms, when it is really simply a disagreement on ideas such as on abortion etc, which opposing sides find hateful.
It’s creepy, and it hurts the point you are making, let alone serves as an agenda beyond your reporting- that of approving of the concept, that “where there’s offense there must be hate,” which is an unintelligent, childish idea. Right??
5
Does any Facebook user ever pay for the service ? Do they ever wonder how the company makes money ? As they say, when you don't know what the product is, you are the product.
Once the company has amassed enough influence over the populace, that is when they can exact their demands. Altering the course of democracy ? Check. Inciting revolution and regime change ? Check. Promoting chaos and instability ? Check. Character assassination ? Check. All for a fee. This is where the big money is, not by selling data to advertisers.
The banning of Facebook by the Chinese government was a smart and prescient move. Few other countries truly understood how dangerous it could be until it is too late. This is how the US dominates the world in the 21st century.
6
Yes, AW. Everyone who uses FB pays for it. The currency used to pay? Your privacy.
As with ALL social media: When YOU are the product... Caveat emptor, users.
1
All Facebook has to do about this is get rid of the 'share' button. This makes it too easy to spread rumours and lies. Let people WRITE things themselves. I'm positive that this would cut down false rumours by at least half.
On the other hand it would probably halve Fb's profits, so not gonna happen.
4
International/global bullying. And yes, it starts wars.
7
Facebook has struck the the motherlode of unfettered capitalism by supercharging the dispersion of mankinds most base and sinister tendencies with virtually no regulations and bloody consequences.
7
Who could have thought social media's influence could be so destructive. There was a time only large, sophisticated groups and countries could engage in disinformation and propaganda. That power is now in the hands of individuals. Perhaps American citizens think they are safe from Facebook's dark side. They are not. One only has to study the communication of deadly gangs in Chicago to realize phony posts can result in the deaths of innocent people.
7
At the root, education is key. That and, getting out of your closed environment (town, church, village) and seeing the world. Only then can you truly gain a balanced, outside-in perspective on things you are said and told by those around you.
1
It would be nice if social media did police unethical behavior and lies. Great dream even! But see how religions and governments of all sorts have been trying to get their followers or citizens to stop lying and be polite to one another hasn't worked since history began I'm pretty sure throwing the responsibility over to social media won't have any success either. I understand that Rush Limbaugh is still on the air after decades of spewing lies and hate. Now his ilk have multiplied and they all have prospered by doing the same.
We have to face the facts. There are no parents to govern us and we are responsible for ourselves which means we must police ourselves. If I person lies to you then don't talk to them again. Don't support their business(es) if they have one. Regardless of their ranking at the place they work or the place they worship at, we do NOT have to have anything to do with them. Be guided by that old adage of 'do unto others as you would have them do to you' or go back to kindergarten to relearn social graciousness. Regardless, we decided what is acceptable or not. So if we don't like being lied to all we need to do is turn our back on that person.
1
Not surprising at all. We humans have long known how to manipulate others into acting in particular ways. In this Post-Freudian age, we have it down to a literal science. Social media is just the latest medium to be used to manipulate others.
What we humans need are crash-courses in critical thinking. Unfortunately, to most people “Likes” and other forms of ascent give the messages a legitimacy that they do not deserve sending the crafted message onwards to wreak havoc. It doesn’t take a lot for someone to convince you that an outright lie is the truth and to get you to act on that lie.
Those who desire to tear-down societies, create divisions, sow discord, incite violence and all the rest have an open platform to manipulate our minds. We are seeing democracies shudder as the anarchists take over the medium and the message. We can change the medium but the message will just find another vehicle.
We have been repeatedly warned but we don’t listen. Dare we call this “Brave New World” the time After-Freud (AF)?
2
I'm curious how COO Sheryl Sandberg, the darling of the rich women's business set, has managed to keep herself out of the news of all this Facebook chicanery. The cynicism involved in selling rumors and private information is at odds with her carefully crafted caring reputation.
It's also a major problem for the Democratic Party, who cater to these techies. It's why that party can't show that they're any different than the Republicans.
6
One of the most horrific examples of media contributing to violence on a massive scale is the Rwandan genocide. There, radio was an important source of information and communication, but became a chief source of misinformation and calls for violence. Well known personalities and pundits stoked the hatred and mistrust that already existed and helped precipitate one of the worst ( and swiftest) genocides ever. The entire event took a mere 100 days but the killing was beyond imagination and covered almost the entire nation. I imagine had social media existed then, it would have had the same result. One of our greatest challenges is how to cultivate freedom of expression and belief while avoiding making our tribal instincts worse.
It would seem this issue is extremely serious and deserves actual research based analysis- reporters can only collect anecdotal events when data is unavailable and this may be "real' news that conveys mistaken analysis.
The changes that Facebook brings cannot be separated from the organizing potential of cell phones and the internet in general- they all arrive at the same time to these countries.
The groups perpetuating tribal hatreds can be organized without Facebook- it is just the quickest platform. Corporations may not be people, but they are still deserving of a fair trial- this is becoming a press lynching.
2
Worse atrocities were committed before the invention of Facebook. On the whole, I think the invention of Facebook probably reduced the chance of genocide. Look at the attention drawn to someone getting killed by the cops nowadays when before you had to hope it was featured on the evening news. Can you imagine a regime getting away with rounding up civilians who use Facebook live?
In any event the democratization of mass communication isn't going away. That's the nature of the internet. Nor will liberal democracies ever be able to regulate it for content or viewpoints deemed out of bounds unless we adopt a Chinese style censorship policy. This article could be read as simply "traditional society learns what free speech looks like, warts and all".
And finally, the Facebook platform essentially remains a tool for peer to peer communication. So a simple group text or email chain can accomplish a lot of the same thing. Ever get an outrageous political article forwarded by your crazy uncle?
I'm really wary of what almost reads as an argument to regulate Facebook's content.
1
I already quit Fb, and even in the USA can confirm what is said in the article, that reports against hate speach have, in my experience, been answered with "this doesn't violate our community standards". This happened when I reported someone advocating violence against an entire sociopolitical group, also when I reported someone telling another person to kill themselves.
The only time I got a response was when I reported what looked like a human trafficking site. At first I got the usual ignoring by Fb, so I reported it to the FBI, and informed Fb that I had. Finally I got a response that said they had removed some of the offensive content but not the group.
Facebook is dangerous to our health, human rights, and democracy worldwide, and we need to make them be more responsible, or unplug and subscribe to real, credible news. It is one reason I subscribe to this publication.
6
More irresponsible than Facebook are journalists who play on the idea that racially, geographically, certain groups are incapable of discerning information responsibly and that their own dialogues should be suppressed because of this defect. We are not even discussing classified information. This is a dialogue between two groups in the same region. Is the result an ethical example of action? No. But this rhetoric that infantilizes all Sri Lankans is completely untenable.
2
“The germs are ours, but Facebook is the wind, you know?”
This pretty much sums it up. The few month I had a FB account I saw posts from friends such as well respected lawyers who simply shared these germs.
FB simply deleting the fake posting does little to stop the tribal mentality. A notice to users from FB that they shared fake news would make them be more careful - especially if it is repeated.
2
Facebook is a grand experiment, gone completely awry. It’s a runaway train, that neither it’s creator nor the government can stop until it runs of its tracks.
Zuckerberg testified before Congress, and it became clear that he no longer has control, or perhaps even understanding of the beast he helped create.
It’s Jurassic Park, but this time the park is our planet.
130
Looks like the dystopian novels of my youth are coming true. When anyone can say anything and everyone with the same prejudices hears and believes them, the world is bound to go up in flames.
87
Remember Arab Spring? A sword cuts both ways
1
Wonderful reporting
This is so valuable
It just goes to show how vast the gulf of understanding is between Menlo Park and many Developing Countries
Facebook must be regulated in a mature and responsible manner
7
Mark Zuckerberg and his fellow FB corporados can protect their own privacy and their persons and those of their family members. Billions in profits buys a lot--but what it can't do at the end of the day is wash off the stain of Facebook's victims; people who have been bullied, brutalized, manipulated, pressured to commit suicide or murdered.
17
Mark's "dating app" is doing an awful lot of damage, worldwide.
It's too bad he forgot that people photoshop even their profile photo.
"Fake news" accepted as fact "because it's on the internet/Facebook/Twitter/? is a terrible problem, and ALL the social media services need to step up their responsibility to humanity's future.
22
Facebook's use of the terms "community standards" would be laughable, if it weren't so darkly cynical. Facebook's "community" consists of its investors, period. So the "community standards" it applies and adheres to have nothing to do with the well-being of actual human groupings in regions and areas around the world. The term "community standards" means the self-defined and self-policed standards that support and benefit Facebook's corporate investors. While Mark Zuckerberg may be a bright youthful face in a suit, Facebook, like all corporations is not human, and without regulation and oversight, it has no loyalty to anything but its bottom line.
37
I'm no Facebook-booster, but it seems to me that it is being scapegoated to a significant degree. The violence in Sri Lanka, for instance, goes back decades - well before Facebook ever existed - and from the beginning, the tribal/sectarian violence utterly consumed the island and nearly destroyed its society. FB had nothing to do with it then, and even now, it's just one tool among many used to foment violence. Let's look where the real problem is - not just Sri Lanka, but many societies, including the U.S., need to address root causes. Turning our fury on the messenger just delays any true reckoning with the underlying problem.
6
Why do people have to attribute events to a SINGLE cause? Yes, the violence and enmity is old and not created by Facebook, but Facebook is spreading and magnifying it. And there is something that Facebook could do about it. From a Sri Lankan presidential advisor quoted in the article: "The germs are ours, but Facebook is the wind."
1
I disagree that Facebook is a scapegoat.
Yes these conflicts existed before Facebook, just like teenage peer bullying and jihadist recruitment.
Facebook and other social media are the turbo boosters that amplify and empower these phenomenons letting them grow to unprecedented levels.
6
True, but the point is not that these hatreds are long-existing. Facebook makes it much easier to weaponize them.
2
I've had it--posted it to my Facebook page, listing reasons for cancelling my account tomorrow.
This company's irresponsibility and abdication of any decency in its quest for social media domination embodies the worst of corporate America.
How many more people have to die from fake news, propaganda, and false videos in developing and war-torn nations where, as the article says, FB is one of the few places to go for "news"?
In the meantime Zuckerberg and Sanders blithely look the other way, speaking out of both sides of their mouths in touting the values of "global community" and "social engagement" as people in Malaisia, India, and the Middle East lie dying
157
Me too. I've had a facebook account since 2009, and have enjoyed making connections with people. But it's not worth it. And I'm sure I'll survive, and those connections that have any depth will survive.
16
Good for you, and well said. This is getting out of hand. I have no use for Zuckerberg. The "Too much, too soon" kid, who is but a greedy man-child.
4
As a child I remember being told "Don't believe everything you read", I don't remember the first time I heard this, but I heard it several times. This is why critical thinking is so important, and why schools need to teach it.
This is one of the dark sides of social of social media, and Facebook should start caring about what goes onto its pages. Right now they are looking at short-term profits, but eventually people may get to a point where they decide that nothing on Facebook is credible which will hurt it in the long run.
22
There need to be more of a focus on solutions.
Here's one suggestion:
Since it would be impossible to verify every newsfeed for this giant platform, FB can put a validity stamp like the good housekeeping seal on news sources they have verified. Everything else calling itself news would have a FB warning label similar to cigarettes: this is not a verified news service, it could be an enemy government, it could be a felon, it could be a pedophile or a Nazi or it could be the police or FBI pretending to be any of the above. To request verification that this news source is real, click here.
70
It's a good start. Why does news about everything have to be shared with everyone all the time? No one can deal with it. It's the standard Republican cover up the crime playbook. Throw more and more kitchen sinks out there every day. Facebook does not care, as long as the advertising revenues keep coming in. Know what? I stick to MSNBC and my local newspaper (The New York Times, online) and I miss nothing and sleep well. I still can call - or even text - friends and family as needed to communicate. As Barbara Bush so eloquently said, "The third choice that must not be missed is to cherish your human connections, your relationships with family and friends. For several years you’ve had impressed upon you the importance to your career of dedication and hard work, and of course that’s true. But as important as your obligations as a doctor, a lawyer, a business leader will be, you are a human being first and those human connections with spouses, with children, with friends are the most important investment you will ever make.
At the end of your life, you will never regret not having passed one more test, winning one more verdict, or not closing one more deal. You will regret time not spent with a husband, a child, a friend or a parent." Solution: Don't you or your kids touch Facebook until they have finished their daily family and friends time, and finished their homework.
2
Trouble is Fb has no journalists to verify "news." Letting a bunch of techy fact checkers get into the business of reporting news is no better than the algorithms they created in the first place.
Zuckerberg's protestations before Congress are his naive fantasy that all communication is good communication and will make us into one global happy family.
1
Yeah, right, 'common sense advocate.'
Too bad corporate behemoths like Fb would not recognize Common Sense if it came up and slugged them in the face.
1
Ah yes, NYT, we only want to allow communication to the masses by the corporate media. Does anyone seriously believe that Facebook groups got us into six decades of undeclared wars by telling the nation who we should fear and hate-on-command?
17
Fine, you can corporate media but that does not mean social media is sacrosanct.
1
I don’t think that’s what anyone is saying.
Facebook is a tribalism amplifier. Your comparison is a red herring.
Facebook has become the amplifier of murderous tribal impulses and the company says they will "tweak" the algorithm, as though they were adjusting the dose of some medicine in a complicated regime of treatment. They move the news stories off to a separate tab as an EXPERIMENT. And more people die. Their experiments and tweaking are instrumental in the incitement of murder and arson but only when Facebook is blocked do they bother to send an employee to the country to sort it out. Did I miss anything? The law of unintended consequences has always been unfailingly swift but rarely just. Now we have accelerated ourselves into a situation where the algorithms are determining what gets put in front of people with no functional oversight by an actual human being. There is plenty of human arrogance and concupiscence behind it all, though: of that you may be sure.
23
To keep it simple, we should explain to the world that relying on Facebook for news is the equivalent of eating chicken a month after its sell-by date: it says chicken on the label, but it doesn't really look like chicken, it really doesn't smell like chicken and if you consume it, your world will become a very sick, rotten and ugly place.
21
And to think at one point people were saying the Internet, with its easy information, was going to make everybody incredibly well informed.
2
So eloquently stated. Zuckerberg needs to go away.
1
Now China’s decision to ban Facebook doesn’t look so bad.
30
Social media owners should do the right thing. Shut it off for a period and implement rules. Sorry. Humans need rules.
Don’t have me dig into history about this. You do the work. Lots of examples. Start by studying the development of The Hitler Youth. Apply modern tech. There’s your example.
The owners of Facebook, Twitter, and all the other “social” media - you are ENABLING this madness. Help not do harm. Do the right thing.
28
Who or what will rescue us from turning this small planet into the setting for our own devolution into a living/dying re-enactment of "Lord of the Flies?"
37
Or worse: four horsemen of the apocalypse - Trump, Putin, Kim, and Zuckerberg?
12
"where institutions are weak or undeveloped, Facebook’s newsfeed can inadvertently amplify dangerous tendencies"
...
12
So... in Washington DC?
Facebook is merely allowing free speech. It is up to people what type of speech they consume and what type of speech they choose to spread.
If FB is shutdown, another FB will pop up. People must be held responsible for their actions and statements. And FB provides a place where we all can witness and hold accountable the people who spread lies and hate.
FB can develop better algorithms to detect and counter hate speech and lies. It is essential that FB do this by countering all propaganda with facts and truth. Critical thought by the users is the only remedy.
8
I don't know whether you ever signed up for FB. When I did, they insisted that they needed my full name, my birthday, much other information, and that I adhere to their terms of use. These included not posting photos, videos, or music to which I did not own the copyright (a policy they still enforce), not engaging in bullying, and not using hate speech. So, in fact, users agreed to specific limitations on their "free speech rights" in order to join the FB "community," just as users of the NYT agree to the terms for posting comments, and for the NYT's right to review them and refuse to publish those that do not comply. The NYT enforces that policy. The question is why FB does not. The answer is clear: profit maximization.
6
This comment isn't intended to be personally critical, but IMHO you have some dangerous ideas here:
First of all, free speech is one of our principles, so it's pretty arrogant to dictate that to others, no matter how well-intentioned. Your speculation that another FB would spring up disregards the considerable investment that would require. I have heard of other "localized" versions of the product; they are outside of our scope.
Most bizarre is your allegation that "FB provides a place where we all can witness and hold accountable the people who spread lies and hate". If anything, we've learned that FB has been successfully masking the sources of the most scurrilous, lying, idle drivel for years, I looked at who'd paid for my FB data and it included a name in Russian and organizations I'd never heard of.
Saying that "It is essential that FB do this by countering all propaganda with facts and truth" is just weird. Just how many editors do you think that would require?
Your last sentence "Critical thought by the users is the only remedy" is one of the few comments that make sense here, but I think the point of the article is that critical thought is like common sense: subjective and rare. People who decide FB is their only communication to the outside world are making a critical choice to read it. FB enjoys outsize access and credibility and morally and ethically needs to respond when that credibility is abused.
3
Blaming "hate" on FB is like blaming a child for killing a sibling because mommy left her gun laying in the sandbox. Trying to pin liability on FB for anyone's action grossly patronizes one's ability to differentiate between right/wrong and grossly inflates FB's perceived power.
5
Strongly disagree. They do have a great deal of power, are making boatloads of money, and need to take responsibility for the power the weild.
1
We are not blaming hate on Facebook. We are blaming Facebook for not taking any measures to shut down hate speech and incitements to violence.
10
Why are traditional media held responsible for libel, and racist housing ads but FB is not?
FB accepts and promotes negative / fake / libelous and seditious content to help it sell advertising and then it controls who sees those ads. No sympathy for facebook.
Ignore Zuckerberg’s blather about social responsibility - he is in it for the $$.
8
Zuckerberg, is Facebook capable of balancing social responsibility and profit?
10
No. They exist in different universes. Ne'er the twain shall meet.
2
Historically, religion, business and military might were used as battering rams by colonizers to invade countries. It happened in every attempt by a colonizer to open new markets from the Americans through Matthew Perry steaming up the Bay of Tokyo in Japan (and the Dutch prior to this) to the British, French and Spanish cutting through large swathes of continents to rule in centuries before.
Now technology is the battering ram and Facebook is the poisonous wind that blows insidiously through developed and developing countries alike. It has one interest only and that is to colonize and dominate. Facebook's corporate mantra has no interest in truth, justice or democracy. Its growth is typical and necessary for it to maintain its dominance and that spread is unprecedented in its ability to influence. It is only the shape of things to come as AI will replicate, enshrine and enforce these traits. The genie is only barely out of the bottle.
13
Facebook has created its own realm, providing a home to more souls than China. But its governors want no responsibility for the bad things that happen within, even tho' most bad things are fomented by them. FB is not a victim of fake news sources, it's a purveyor, and the FB ethos is to profit from its inhabitants, not to care if its newsfeed informs its citizenry or fools them.
Headed by the sly and self-promoting Zuckerberg and Sandberg, the leaders pretend Facebook is a news medium and defend it against "censorship of the press" whenever there's any talk of real-world regulation.
It's commercial greed paraded as communal good.
Meanwhile, the FB newsfeed violates the most basic tenets of good journalism. It doesn't filter out even blatantly false content, or limit the feed to solid sources of information, or offer representation to all sides on contentious topics, or edit for clarity or accuracy -- or anything. It's all about getting the eyeballs and keeping the eyeballs. FB hooks users like drug dealers hook customers, feeding them the "good" stuff until they can't turn away.
Facebook could decide at any time to offer news from outlets recognized to be authentic. You don't need a high ceiling, there just needs to actually be a ceiling. And you filter your pool of news-media sources first and don't wait for complaints before going in after the fact. Also, you don't exclude any based on partisan leanings -- so the Fox News's are in but the Russian trolls are out.
17
Zuckerberg looks like Data from Star Trek -
1
Zuckerberg might look like Data, but he is much more like his brother, Lore, an android who will enslave and lie to dominate all around him.
I too have tried reporting things that are wrong and hateful, only to receive the reply that the content "doesn't violate our community standards.". It seems Facebook may see more value in keeping people engaged, even if that engagement is wrong and hateful material.
There can be a danger though in Facebook deleting this content: People who follow and like it complain about censorship and bias against their side if Facebook takes any of it down.
But it does have to be called out otherwise it just grows.
Unfortunately Facebook makes it hard for people to call others out: Facebook tends to not find much of anything offensive. People who call out bias, hate speech, etc. against others can have their comments deleted, blocked, etc., allowing the guilty parties to wall themselves off in a cocoon of like-minded people.
15
When is the Board of Directors going to hold clueless Mark Zuckerburg and Cheryl Sandburg accountable for their failure to manage the consequences of their complete lack of corporate responsibility? Facebook has become a force for evil because these two have not cared to do the hard work that it takes to be a force for good.
61
I hope we haven't forgotten the 2016 memo leaked by Facebook's VP, Andrew "Boz" Bosworth:
"[Connecting people] can be bad if they make it negative. Maybe it costs a life by exposing someone to bullies. Maybe someone dies in a terrorist attack coordinated on our tools.
"And we still connect people.
"The ugly truth is that we believe in connecting people so deeply that anything that allows us to connect more people more often is *de facto* [i.e. by default] good."
You'd think Mr. Boswell and his ilk were getting paid for every utterance of the word "connect." In fact, that word seems to comprise half the vocabulary of social media evangelists--and look at what all this connecting has led to.
My supposition, based on the aforementioned memo and others like it, is that Facebook will only take prudent action when the turpitude of its existence destabilizes wealthy Western nations: less profitable spheres of influence are merely casualties of the data-scraping arms race.
19
Social media whether facebook, twitter or even you tube incentivises inflammatory rhetoric and falsehood. In the past, you had to earn your way and pay your dues to relevance. Currently in the current political climate in the US and many places, all you need is a twitter or facebook account and then you harvest likeminded people. Lets conduct an experiment here. Check the profile of all these rising political commentators in the US. The more careless, false and hyperbole, the more likes and cheers. We need some form of critical thinking around the world particularly in the US where internet is accessible coupled with some regulation from the owners. Mr. Zuckerberg please pay attention.
11
. . . some regulation to protect the larger public good FROM the owners. Their allegience is to their own wealth and power, not to human or planetary well-being.
Want change in behavior and actions? Take away the yachts and the mansions from the boy king by cutting his revenues.
A much more effective way of reigning in these silicon cowboys is by cutting ties with it.
Boycott Facebook.
29
This is one of the most difficult articles I've ever read. What, might I ask, is, the purpose, of all, if you can see it, these commas?!
"The rumors, they believed, were true. Still, the family, which is Buddhist, did not join in when Sinhalese-language Facebook groups, goaded on by extremists with wide followings on the platform, planned attacks on Muslims, burning a man to death."
6
Indeed. Can no one be accountable for these commas? Will our cries be unheard? Isn't anyone mindful of the harm that can result?
2
When I found myself arguing with what I now assume was a Russian troll (no history - fake photo from a mag) - I deleted my account, and regained my sanity.
9
It is not only 3 world countries that fall for Facebook mrumors and conspiracies. Remember the genius who tried to attack the pizza parlor when some nuts posted that Hillary Clinton and John Podesta were running a child sex ring from the non-existant basement. Blatant falsehoods should be monitored and tagged. If Facebook can monitor whether or not a friend of my buys a product, I've never bought; it should be able to warn people that what is being posted is just rumor mongoring and probably untrue.
24
the answer to false inflammatory speech is more speech, not censorship
3
facebook is absolutely a platform for hate, I have reported hate speech countless times and always receive the useless response that it does not go against community standards, the only time facebook every removed a comment I reported was because it said "Mexicans smell" which apparently does violate community standards but was far from the most hateful and violent post I reported. With facebook providing a platform for racists and also swaying the election for a president who ran on a platform of hate, it seems significant to me that Peter Thiel founder of paypal and avid trump supporter sits on the board, he denies racism exists and even wrote a book about it.
16
FaceBook MUST be regulated or shut down.
13
Another reason Facebook should be a public utility and regulated as so.
It should benefit the 2 billion people, instead of supply revenue of the a few shareholders.
And should become an actual B-CORP, a benefit corporation.
"The end of democracy, and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of the lending institutions and moneyed incorporations."
- Thomas Jefferson
12
As if Facebook is the only medium in today's world through which rumors, hate speech, screeds, vilification, whatever can come from.
Give the "Facebook is evil" story a rest, NY Times. I know it's current but it's not news; it's tabloid fodder.
3
To condemn Facebook, it doesn't have to be the "only medium" transmitting hate. It isn't the only one, but it is a major one. And Facebook could (and doesn't) exert control, while it would be near impossible to regulate the many other more minor sources.
1
It's not the only one, but it's the biggest one. So it makes sense to focus on it.
"You can't punish me because Billy did it too!" Didn't work in 5th grade, doesn't work now.
Case in point:
"Don't Believe Everything You Read On The Internet" (ALincoln)
4
I was reading in this morning’s LA Times that some California Republican farmers who support Trump say they are willing to take the hit on crop tariffs as long as it helps Trump achieve his aim for American greatness that they support him on. Likewise, I wonder if Democratic investors in Facebook who now realize the liability it has become will be willing to take the hit for pulling the plug on what is obviously now appearing to be a very bad idea, no matter how many bandages Zuckergerg says he’s putting on it?
4
All the worlds' a tinderbox. Social volatility circuit breakers should trip, shutting down social media before extreme violence incidents occur, and global standards adopted.
6
Thankfully fake-news and social media inspired anger and polarisation is confined to developing countries. Imagine if it spread to developed countries - all sorts of bad things could happen...
12
Yes. Who would ever think that "fake-news and social media inspired anger and polarisation" could thrive in a developed country whose citizens are well-educated, sophisticated, and capable of reasoned discussion of issues that concern us all.
1
Since I have friends and acquaintances on five of the seven continents, I appreciate the "keep in touch" aspects of Facebook.
However, I find them to be overly tolerant of hate speech. I have reported countless posts that consist of over-the-top bigotry and have been informed that the posts "do not violate community standards." Today, for the first time in a long time I was successful, in that someone commenting on a news story wanted to "send all the (immigrants from a certain country) back to where they came from and kill the ones who refuse to go." I was pleased that Facebook removed the post and warned the young man who posted it, but that's how bad it has to get before they will act.
10
"Although Facebook prohibits incitement and hate speech, there is no clear line between prudence and censorship." Who is going to draw the line? Gossip is sometimes a detonating cord--look at all the villages around the world where people begin to believe something and then act in a hateful way because of what they believe (Hello, Emmett Till--https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/27/us/emmett-till-lynching-carolyn-bryan.... Humans interact and will continue to interact. They can only intermittently be policed, especially as those interactions expand (thanks not only to Facebook, but to cars and other transportation innovations, telephones, smartphones, TV, radio--you name it). If there is an original human sin, it is this--tribal responses to what people from disrespected groups do. As the population grows, the complexity of that grows, too. Is there any hope? You've got to wonder.
4
Very misleading. FB is not responsible for unrest in Sri Lanka. It's simply another medium of communication. Such violence in Sri Lanka has been occurring long before the Internet.
7
To condemn Facebook, it doesn't have to be the "only medium" transmitting hate. It isn't the only one, but it is a major one. And Facebook could (and doesn't) exert control, while it would be near impossible to regulate the many other more minor sources. Violence in Sri Lanka may be old, but it is being amplified and spread by this modern and controllable medium. Quote from the article: “The germs are ours, but Facebook is the wind, you know?”
The article does not say it causes the violence, but it amplifies it through it algorithms, by spreading rumors faster, and making it easier to organized mob violence.
1
You missed the point of the article. It takes existing situations and blows them up. Sometimes literally. It is unethical for the company to make money by spreading rumours. If it's just a platform, let's break it up and regulate it. This much power shoudl not be in one person's or company's hands.
3
The shocking irresponsibility of Facebook and similar social media demands concerted international effort to restrict the manner in which these tech companies function, whether they are established or start-up.
Such social media are nothing more than distributors of unsupported rumor and gossip, much of it extraordinarily dangerous to individual safety and destructive to regional cultures.
As this article notes, these algorithmically amped-up sites have already triggered religious and racist riots and ethnic massacres in various countries. Yet these social media sites have no claim to being legitimate journalism that merits legal protection, not even under the First Amendment.
Even though no one could have initially contemplated such a monstrosity that would trigger violence in distant countries while churning out billions of dollars for boy-wonder technological speculators, that is what these sites have done. Social media must now be curbed with effective international laws and regulations.
6
Facebook is automated and uses algorithms for assessment and decision making. Algorithms are used because Facebook simply cannot cope with billions of costly and slow direct human evaluations of consequences.
Facebook algorithms cannot distinguish between selling deli cuts and selling baloney, between spreading bonhomie and spreading disorder.
Facebook should be pruned drastically by law to allow sharing only between verified bona fide “friends”, and disallowed from activity pushing bandwagons and non-commercial objectives.
7
I've never used FB because I know where it leads to. Friends and family have asked me why I don't join and I ignore them. When I meet them in person or on a phone call what I hear is their biases, without proper authority, of what they read on FB from another "friend" of a "friend" of a "friend". It's an addiction.
12
I see a lot of people are saying just quit Facebook. That sounds good and for those of us who are a little older it's doable. I'm in my 60's and I have never been on Facebook at all. However, for many people, particularly younger people, it's just not a very practical solution. Facebook now permeates our society to such an extent that for people who actually need to be engaged with the world they live in it's as necessary as a telephone was for us. If you are looking for a job or professional recognition or just trying to make it socially you will be out of the loop if you are not on Facebook. Just think of the number of non-Facebook websites you encounter that you can't fully engage with unless you are are registered with Facebook. That's not terribly important. I just don't engage with those websites. But, when you can't engage with the real world without Facebook it becomes more complicated. A while back I came across a comment by a young woman who said that if she meets someone, but they don't have an on line profile, she won't pursue the friendship because she doesn't know who they are. That may be a bit extreme, but it is the world people have to deal with.
33
Actually, I have two teenagers and they say NO ONE from their generation uses FB.
They do use apps owned by FB, but FB might just die out as we all age.
I have never had an interest in it because I would NEVER get anything done with such a distraction.
Besides, visits, phone calls, and Christmas cards are enough.
10
They don't use FB, but they use FB apps. In other words, they use Facebook. They may disdain it. After all that's what teens do. But they use it.
9
Facebook was supposed to be about sharing with friends.
What it is instead is a mob screaming"fire" in a crowded theater.
FB should be heavily regulated, better yet driven into extinction.
110
Alan,
I’d beg to differ, Facebook has only ever been about selling advertising. ‘Connecting the world’ is akin to Coca-Cola’s or McDonalds’ claim of making people feel good. It’s just marketing to drive profit.
4
Why must choices be reduced to binary ones? Facebook IS about sharing with friends and it is ALSO a mob screaming "fire" in a crowded theater. Not INSTEAD, it is BOTH. Just like speech itself, but more amplified. Hence, like speech, it must be regulated, but more so because of its greater power.
5
Because Facebook won't admit that. They claim their reason to be is solely to connect everyone. They then set default privacy settings that will give advertisers personal data, and let users figure it out (if at all). They don't disclose their users' data usage, how they collect it or the sale thereof. There have been clear, anti-social side-effects. What is the difference between the anti-social effects from Facebook and its lack of disclosure and big tobacco withholding medical studies showing a link between smoking and cancer?
Given all this, one must assume their loyalties lie with their advertisers, the source of their revenue. If you really want to learn more about Facebook, read their 10-k, publicly available at sec.gov. Read how they refer to 'people' in product terms, in how many sign-ups they get, in churn. You will have little doubt who Facebook's master is.
In 1993, Peter Steiner published a cartoon in the New Yorker with the caption "On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog." How prescient. Twenty-five years later, nobody knows who is on the internet. Until people learn how to verify, there is no reason to trust.
64
I still have a card of that. It’s a remnant from a box of them I bought. Could not get rid of the last one. It’s still the most spot on I’ve seen a summary of the internet workd.
1
The simple answer: if you don't like Facebook, then don't use it. We really need to get out of this nasty business of trying to protect people from themselves - especially in foreign lands.
2
I have been urging..."Shut it down" .. Think how time could be spent more constructively.
3
Name ONE human invention that hasn't been corrupted and its purpose perverted to become a self-destructive force...radio=Rush Limbaugh; TV=Fox news; the internet=read this article; the electoral college=Trump;atomic energy=the bomb...name ONE human invention...just one...
6
There are many human inventions or creations that have never hurt anyone. What people do with the creations can be good or bad. It's true that many things are corrupted. Money are power are temptations for almost everyone. The greater the power, the greater the danger. Ditto the money. It takes a very special breed of person to say no to both for the sake of doing something for the greater good. Mark Zuckerberg seems like a frightened child whose good idea got away from him. Too bad.
6
How about stethoscope ?
9
I wonder if rather than sitting in the safety of some Ivy League dorm room and coming up with this fantastic idea for keeping in touch with others, he’d been sitting in the jungles of Rwanda listening to war drums sending out the message to Hutus to go kill Tutsis, he’d think to himself as well . . . Hey, I’ve got a brilliant idea that can really speed this up that will also make me very rich?
7
Whoever opened Pandora’s box was probably also very naive as well. Technology should be like car keys.
1
He started Facebook to rate women unbeknownst to them. He is a hacker from the get go and had to pay the twins he was supposed to do the work for in the first place ‘cause he duped them in the end. Hardly naive; hardly innocent.
1
Oh, but hey, Facebook says they care about how people connect. This can't be happening in Zuck's comm-utopia where their main campus in Mtn View teems with people generally male and no older than 40 and whose worries center around commute time.
15
Facebook is located in Menlo Park. (Google is in Mountain View.)
1
Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg will be very concerned about these issues, once their image consultants explain how awful this looks and their accountant explain the potential downside to their stock options. Just like they found their outrage over election manipulation.....18 months too late!
71
Zuckerberg’s team will get back to the families. Just like he said to US Senators.
3
What a look at the worst instincts of human beings. Instant emotional arousal absent information or understanding.
Turning the world into a village of the worst kind: an ignorant hive of gossip and rumor, envy and suspicion. I'm not at all sure that "eliminating" Facebook ( which will not happen) would put the geni back into the lamp - because other apps would take over spreading that same garbage.
19
A personal anecdote about Facebook:
Some time ago, I entered into a “robust” discussion with a stranger on a Facebook comment thread. This person (who lived in the US) threatened to rape and murder my daughter. Now, I don’t have children and live on a different continent but I was shocked by his threat, so I reported it to Facebook via their online reporting tool.
Their response? “This comment does not violate Facebook’s community standards”.
I’d love to talk to a real person from this out-of-control behemoth of a company and have them explain exactly how a threat to rape and murder a child does NOT violate any reasonable “community standard”.
I’m so over this company. Any benefits from being a “member of the Facebook community” are totally outweighed by the dubious, predatory nature of its influence worldwide. I can live without Facebook in my life.
419
I run a small art business. Years ago a Facebook "friend" kept trying to get my attention by frequently commenting on my posts and tagging me on their own posts. I would occasionally, respectfully comment back, or thumb up or do some other inane thing you're supposed to do on Facebook.
Eventually his comments and tags became stranger and stranger until I just ignored him completely.
One day someone tells me I need to look on my Facebook wall. I find that he has posted, for my 1000 other friends & clients to see, and somehow without me being able to allow the post, that I am a Jew hater who needs to be stopped.
Half my family is Jewish; my two best friends are Jewish. If you went to my Facebook page, his disgusting comment was one of the first things you would see. I don't know how long it had been there - it could have been days. I quickly deleted it and notified Facebook, who deemed the comment within social norms and not worthy of any action. All I could do was block this person. I too have mostly abandoned Facebook.
2
The United States' greatest export is its culture. Facebook is a criminal nightmare, like addictive junk food destroying health and ruining longstanding societies around the world.
Enough with Mark Zuckerberg's deer-in-the-headlights naive nonsense about helping the world and Sheryl Sanberg's "leaning in." Time to bring them in to an international court.
And since they were complicit with the Russians in creating a 2016 presidential election which was neither free, nor fair and profiting to boot, hopefully they will be caught up in the net of Robert Mueller III's investigation and prosecuted. Treason.
Facebook and other social media need to be closely regulated and part of a new Modern Fairness Doctrine (along with mainstream media) which heeds to facts and truth, not false equivalency (giving air to flat earth proponents) or propaganda. Everyone remembers, or can check into old newscasts, when news was straightforward and factual. That's before Ronald Reagan removed the Fairness Doctrine in 1986, giving rise to American's own disinformation channel: Fox.
Clearly Facebook needs to be broken up and regulated and its responsible officers demoted and prosecuted, both in the US and abroad.
Pursuit of money is no excuse for fomenting terrorism.
129
Please read the history, even recently, of Sri Lanka. It was going on ling before FB. The US and our "cultural export" of Facebook is like blaming every crime planned with a phone on telecommunication companies.
4
Paulo in Paris, no you missed the point entirely. We are talking about United States media responsibility, not personal telephone calls. Until recently, the US was known for its open, truthful media. As far as history goes, have you noticed that we are in a new realm?
4
This is why Facebook and all social media need strict controls that the capitalists that run these companies do not consider while they ramp up their profits at public expense.
10
Call the class action attorneys. Mr. Z has really deep pockets.
4
History books are full of civil wars, riots, lynchings, massacres, international wars, started with nothing else than rumors and fueled by propaganda, centuries before social media.
Humans are the only ones to be blamed for those atrocities, not the media.
8
This isn’t news to me. I’ve seen my friends participate in witch hunts in the USA. Most recently during the Berkeley and Charlottesville protests. They were trying to identify protestors and “get them fired and their names known” - because they disagreed with the protesters. I try to report these things to Facebook, but my complaints have been universally ignored so far. It’s very frustrating. I absolutely and unequivocally condemn the new nazi protestors at Charlottesville, but starting social media campaigns to “hunt people down and get them fired” is not the right way to combat the problem, and I’m disgusted by it. Have we collectively forgotten when reddit believed they identified the Boston Bomber and harassed that poor family whose son was missing? Have we forgotten the professor who received death threats because he happened to look like someone at Charlottesville? How about the poor kid whose name happened to be Adam Lanza after Sandy Hook? What about the uninvolved family members, coworkers, etc around these people, whose lives have sometimes been ruined by witch hunts like this? Mob justice is no justice. And Facebook, Twitter and reddit knowingly allow this.There’s dedicated accounts for this stuff, trying to identify protesters by picture and harass them. Both on the right and on the left. Reported. Nothing done. I’m exasperated and exhausted because it seems like America had forgotten how to disagree without trying to ruin each other’s lives
77
Shaun King used social media to identify the two attackers of DeAndre Harris who was pummeled in Charlottesville. Both were arrested, so it can be useful.
1
At some point we need to ask ourselves if facebook is really worth all of this trouble and would we be better off if it was shut down.
I can live without hooking up with someone I knew when I was eight.
175
Facebook is simply another greedy Corporate America firm. They violate people's privacy, a well known fact, and now want to move the accounts of European customers to the US to avoid the new EU GDPR privacy statutes. Facebook is more addicting to many people than opiates. It should be shut down, or at the very least, highly regulated by each jurisdiction where their customers reside.
51
Delete Facebook. You can communicate by email, text, phone and ... in person. Reset your modes of communication. Be human.
148
Facebook is not destabilizing....the truth and analysis is destablizing...but isnt this the point of democratizing news. Must old print news be the gatekeepers for anti free speech authoritarianism? Just look at the beginning of our country when the Adams administration and Federalists enacted the alien and sedition laws....to restrict "destabilizing" free speech as the Administrstion interpreted it....when it was just a difference of opinion. Unfettered free speech as a bulwark to tyranny is the greatest guarantor of liberty....after all it is our First Amendment...as opposed to our Second. Ponder that.
4
Free speech without accountability is irresponsible and potentially deadly, as this article shows.
17
Facebook is a double edged sword and therefore it is controlled in some countries. It is how one uses it and regulates it. Too bad violence happens in Sri Lanka between people of different religions at each other's throats one way or the other. Don't blame Facebook on how anyone choose or misuses it. Those of us who like Facebook are not going to politicize it and response to the media hype and knee jerk reaction. I spread love on Facebook and not hate. Facebook is like a truck that can be used to transport essential goods or mow down innocent people the choice is the one made by the drivers.
5
Personal devices like "smart phones" are about making people stupider and lazier and, thus, easier to manipulate.
Social media is about making civilized societies into violent tribal societies. Think Afghanistan. That's why terrorist LOVE Facebook and I Phones.
11
All Facebook needs is a lobby group modeled after the NRA’s - never have so many been controlled by so few.
You can hear it now... “Facebook doesn’t manipulate people; people on Facebook manipulate people.”
16
Social media, Facebook in particular, is a pox on the world. That being said, social media is here and it's not going anywhere. The particular platforms may come and go. Facebook could disappear tomorrow, but something would take it's place. What we have to do is start holding these companies accountable. If they won't take their responsibility to humanity seriously then responsibility will have to be imposed on them. Right now the ball is actually in their court. If they don't want an imposing series of requirements and regulations imposed on them they need to show the ability to police themselves. Something they've mostly failed at so far.
49
I was a member of several off-road Jeep groups on Facebook. I suffered through a multitude of daily posts - fake news about gun legislation, the closing of off-road areas, eco-terrorists, etc. Finally I quit Facebook. It was just too easy for members to create hysteria by broadcasting vicious rumors.
102
I was waiting for the day when Facebook would be blamed for lack of world peace. Glad to see the day has finally arrived.
19
I am quite shocked to see likes on this comments. Just to be clear I was being sarcastic. I have family from this part of the world and the violence/paranoia was much worse there before Facebook existed (look it up). I feel the whole premise of this article is weak and counter to my own personal experience. Growing up, I have seen news of mobs whipped up to murderous rage before there was facebook, before there was internet, even before there was phone or tv.
7
If Facebook cannot police their news feeds they should not have news feeds. All the newspapers police their news (even Fox). Too bad they have “billions of users” - isn’t that the point? They also make billions in profits. Is it a social media company or a news company. STOP the news. The users are bad enough.
On top of that we know that Facebook and YouTube link users to more and more extreme content because their artificial intelligence engines know that it keeps users online longer. These sites need to be responsible for their actions and the results.
226
Wondering how we got to the stage where people think the only alternative to Facebook news is to go buy a paper newspaper? Do they not have access to the internet? There are countless numbers of "real" news sites including this one...the Guardian is open access as are many others.
1
If you’re still on Facebook, you personally are supporting the violence in countries like Sri Lanka. This has to be socially unacceptable in our country. Stop supporting Facebook and violence.
95
Oh, stop it. Just stop. Being on FB does NOT mean you support violence in Sri Lanka. That's like saying if you drive a car, you support drunk driving. Totally absurd thing to say.
42
it does mean that. Why. Because FB's product is YOU.
Facebook cares only about their bottom line, like drug dealers who care little about the fabric of the societies they parasitize and destroy. Social media are the insidious opiates of the 21st century, addictive and providing instant gratification, while propagating falsehoods so convincingly we can no longer distinguish truth from lies, and using personal data to manipulate us for their profits. They are ultimately much worse than the neighborhood drug dealers because their reach is so vast and their impact so profound.
120
It’s simply not possible for decent people to justify their continued use of and support for this company and its products.
The apologists sounds like the NRA... guns and Facebook don’t kill people, people kill people. Yep... Facebook is a loaded weapon.
I’m not sure why so many thought humanity was capable of acting responsibly and being nice / polite to their neighbors. Clearly this was a naive and dangerous assumption.
196
Because Facebook - for which I have no patience - was developed by entreprising upwardly mobile young people for upwardly mobile young people in a culturally pretty much homogeneous upwardly mobile young area such as San Francisco.
Have the app locate you to find the closest latte? Who wouldn't want that? Siphon your emails to locate all your friends and contacts? Sure! Don't think too much about the business model, its free ! Wheee!
The only problem is that when the tool and the model go global, they are inscribed in very different local contexts, sometimes improving things (we created a Facebook page to inform people on rabies prevention when I worked in Cambodia).
The shameful episode of Cambridge analytics aside, it's not Facebook but Facebook users that have to discipline themselves or stop using it. Camus's father said: "Un homme, ça se maîtrise" (a (hu)man must keep himself in check).
8
You're right, and that's why I'm shutting down after 11 years. If FB is losing people like me it has a problem.
I lasted this long because I almost never made use of the Share button and screen out shared news that other people post. The 'share' function is the root of Facebook's profits, and the root of all its evil.
80
I agree, FB was intended to share information of a civil type, In a workplace we are not allowed to talk about politics or religion. We cannot discuss what we make, and there is a sense of respect for other people. If you bully someone at work, are sexually explicite, or make racist remarks, you are fired. There are no consequences for what people say on social media.
If people need to pay something for sharing regular information and FB doesn't depend on its advertisers for making money, this would be an entire new ballgame. The advertising portion of FB is what is corrupting the system, in my mind. Greed ultimately is the root of all evil.
1
After the Zuckerberg testimony with the Senate, there was an op-ed article in this newspaper regarding our " need for Facebook". I have never been a participant in the Facebook community and I certainly do not feel my life has been diminished in any way.
I think the public needs to seriously reconsider whether or not Facebook is something that enhances their lives. If the answer is no, simply delete and move on.
86
You forgot to mention that social media played a huge role in the "Arab Spring" years ago that destabilized the Middle East. Social media gave a voice to the marginalized religious fundamentalists in the Syrian country side, which sparked the war. Also, it played a huge role in the Egyptian regime change, which now allows for more hate crimes on the Coptic Cristian minorities. Let's face it, our children are inheriting a much more unstable world and social media is at the forefront of this change. As with any technology, we need regulation. Governments cannot depend on a yuppie wearing flip flops in Silicon Valley to prevent ethnic cleansing and civil war...
256
Your last two lines are brilliant! thank you for your views.
1
The White House embraced the Arab Spring as well.
1
To my mind this is the biggest threat posed by Facebook- the viral spread of unchecked information connected to real people in areas of extreme conflict. It’s like the Rawandan radio station urging listeners to genocide on crack. Facebook must have editorial boards and stations on the ground staffed with trained journalists fluent in the local language and culture- just like a newspaper or media company. Too burdensome and expensive? Then shut down operations in that region. Simple. Its time for Facebook to open its eyes to the horrible human tendencies it is dousing with kerosene and for governments and users to hold it responsible.
405
Why doesn't Facebook hire all the staff, and other trained journalists to continue the services of the displaced local media?
2
Your reference to the Rwanda radio station is exactly what struck me. It could be coupled with the TV station in Bosnia, and probably other instances.
Flagrant incitement is obvious; control can be achieved without impairment to rights of free speech.
Responsible media is in a struggle. It's vital we insure that it wins.
7
Yes, Emma, agreed. But don't hold your breath waiting for them to 'open their eyes.' All they see is money, and whether it has blood on it or not doesn't matter one iota to them.
You want proof of that? Watch as, just as for years now, NOTHING CHANGES in how they do things. They care about image but not substance.
1