Why does the world need Facebook? It is a fool's game that tries to go deep sereptitously in making a buck. Obviously some of the anonymous whistle blowers to the NYT inside the company hate the deification of wealth and power to the detriment of the FB user. We should as well. We, after all, are the fools.
79
Nobody needs Facebook
Just a poison
78
who needs editors when you can have algorithms programmed to maximize your own advantage?
is this the revenge of the nerds, or what?
36
Ironic how this opinion piece warning of the evils of Facebook ends with a plug to "Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram." The author, herself, plugs her own Twitter handle.
136
...Well, the liberal New York Times certainly hasn’t severed its connection to FB - I just posted this article on my personal page! One wonders what it would take for one of our respected news venues to cut the cord, but I’m not holding my breath.
54
Just say no.
34
Handing over your life history and then some in order to post photos of what you ordered at your favorite beanery is insane anyway. Good heavens, just call or email ‘em instead to keep up.
59
" Facebook most certainly cause Donald Trump to win the election"....... ohhh, are you going to offer up any proof or just make a ridiculous statement. While I despise Facebook for many reasons, I do believe Michelle Goldberg has drank the Kool-Aid about the degree to which it won the election for Donald Trump. Absolutely preposterous
24
Ms. Goldberg, you've written a very thought provoking article. It is one that should be debated in Congress and addressed by them as well as the DOJ anti-trust division.
My late father in-law Dr. Richard (Dick) Bolt, was a department head at MIT. His company, BBN in Cambridge, MA, created the ARPANET, and with its underlying technologies of TCP/IP and Packet Switching, became what we know of today as the internet. The team of Bob Kahn, Larry Roberts, Vin Cerf, and many others, who all worked for Dick may have never realized the magnitude of change they were unleashing. It reminds me of the line from the bible used as the first Morse Code message transmitted in the 1800's, "What hath God wrought!"
Dick was very concerned about, as he called it, the "Acceleration Factor" of technology. That it advances faster than society's ability to understand and keep pace with it.
He was very concerned about the rise of technocrats, those who understand and abuse technology, and rise to powerful positions Not, just as elected technocrats, but worse, unelected industrial technocrats whose only motive is profit and not the public good.
Dick died nearly 20 years ago, before the advent of FB and other social media. But, he was a futurist who foresaw the potential for abuse and the problems that might ensue.
He'd be upset to see what's happened to the "neutral" internet that he'd hoped would come from their technological achievements.
Indeed, "What hath God wrought!
101
I deactivated my account two years ago because I got mad at FB for its crazy policies and privacy violations. I’ve reactivated it twice since then, looked around for a bit, and each time decided to deactivate again. I miss hearing from friends - and “friends” - but not enough to get sucked back into the vortex.
45
What a wonderfully apt turn of phrase:
"America’s widespread epistemological derangement"
Exactly right.
Goldberg has been a great addition to the Times.
53
I never liked FB. I only got an account years ago when it started because of pressure from a friend. I didn't have the time to hang out on FB so, I ignored it and then deleted it many years ago...when it was easy to delete.
I got a Twitter account years ago because my children wanted me to have one. I rarely used it. I wrote about 5 Tweets and Twitter froze my account accusing me of writing a bad tweet. I contacted them and told them to review my measly 5 Tweets to my children to prove that they had the wrong person but they refused.
Then Twitter said they'd unfreeze my account when I gave them my cell phone #. I promptly closed my account. I realized they made up an excuse to get my cell #. Twitter needed me more than I needed them.
I really despise Twitter because Trump uses it to bully people, spread lies and delude himself that he's worth reading anything he says which is mostly ignorant rantings. Twitter should have frozen Trump's account numerous times for his infractions but they don't.
No one needs FB or Twitter. Be a pawn if you want to but it's beneath people to allow them to do the rotten things they both do to monetize their users.
FB's hurting the election through sheer incompetence should bring all the Gov has to bear down on them. Zuckerberg has never shown any scruples from the minute he stole the idea from the Winklevoss brothers.
69
Lock them up. I won't use facebook any more since they are traitors to Democracy . They are still causing trouble months after Zuckerberg saw congress and promised to behave. We need to shut that company down and teach the internet a lesson. If you do treasonous behavior you won't be in business in America.
34
We need to break free from all of these Silicon Valley tech companies. Do not become (or continue to be) a slave to their algorithm(s).
20
You are right. Thank you.
14
First, done, just today, after listening to The Daily today. It was long overdue. Just needed that last push. Done with Facebook. Second. please take Facebook off the option for response to this article!! Practice what you preach NYT.
71
Michelle,
This not just a question of Democrats “un-friending” Facebook. There has to be legistlation regulating this menace if not totally banning it, like we ban drugs and child pornography (so don’t give me the individuals are free to... speech).
Beyond that, I question a society that “creates” a Facebook from its midst. The necessity of such an inane and vacuous tool of vanity should appeal to something like .1% of the population. Yet it is willingly sponsored by a significant mass all over the globe. All of these people couldn’t just be idiots who cannot see what Facebook is really about.
Zuckerberg and Sandberg are despicable people who exploit the vulnerability of masses. The care for nothing but personal glory and fortune. Concepts like nation, country, honor, public good and the like are alien to them.
But again, my question is why is our society so gullible? Is it a huge intrinsic problem that we enable people like Zuckerberg and Sandberg prosper ? Is it a huge intrinsic problem that we elect obvious crooks like Trump as President? Is it a huge intrinsic problem that we allow “Citizens United” type euphemisms exist on while priding ourselves for being the arch-democracy as opposed to an archaic oligarchy?
And. Facebook may just be a mirror we are looking into and not liking what we see: ourselves.
34
I dumped facebook and feel much better. Give it a try.
30
We all have it within our power to limit the effectiveness of Facebook. One by one we need to delete our accounts. I deleted mine a year ago when this mess burst forward like a rank toadstool. Yes, the world was fine before FB. Note though that the company is evil and it is nearly impossible to delete your account, but try we must. Zuck is a jerk, who cares not a whit about the world. He just wants money and more of it.
31
Mark Zuckerberg should be more than ashamed of himself. If he had any moral compass, he would scale back FB's reach and intensity. Alas, he doesn't, as he continues to lie about his knowledge of and participation in the toxic mess that is the company he created in college. Grow up Zuck, no one buys your baby face "golly gee Mrs. Senator" routine any longer.
23
In these comments there’s a very weird bunch of attacks on the Times for publishing these stories, and the attacks sound remarkably alike. What the heck is that about?
10
I am struck by the irony that Ms. Goldberg writes against FB in the NYT, which years ago, took great pains to modify their comments structure to reflect and (I would say sub-optimally) operate exactly as... FB comments.
2
Anyone that thinks Facebook is cute place to like your friends cat photos is a naive sucker, and should be held accountable for the degradation of democracy. And p.s., you’re probably spending way too much time alone.
17
Schumer is first an egomaniac, and then perhaps a Democrat second or third.
10
What has happened to dealing with ciminal behavior in this country? Maybe it is time to "clap them in irons."
5
From my first exposure to FB, I couldn't figure out what the big deal was. Clubhouse, that let's you post comments, for the friends you don't even have (on FB, that is) yet? Why not just use e-mail? The interface was opaque, no guidance on how (or why) to use it, notifications flooding my e-mail until I figured out how to shut those off. And as someone who has worked in journalism my entire life, I didn't need a social medium to broadcast the minutiae of my life, or badger mostly like-minded folks with my favorite political tropes. So I stopped using it. Life is great. Then, after all the recent abuses, I killed my account. We all should. Use email or text. Or, if think your life is so hot, start a blog and put all your cat photos there and let your friends register to get updates. So what if someone doesn't share something with some noodnik in Malaysia, who doesn't know you from whozits? Do something with your life. Lean out.
27
And Democrats continue to pile-on one of their own. Do you realize you are fomenting a mob? “Down with Facebook” you scream. Don’t you realize there are right-wing social networks already forming because Facebook is trying their darndest to fight fake news and hate speech. Wake up - Facebook are the good guys. Just you wait till you see what the bad guys look like.
8
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, where have the gotten us? I have never gotten invlved with any of these "social mediia" as I understood from the beginning the truoble they would us to. My wife did inform me that my older sister reached a high level in Candy Crush. She found out through Facebook. Do I really care? What are these social netwroking apparatus good for? They are really destructive as far as I am concerned.
25
I discussed with a friend on Facebook that sake is part of enjoying sushi. The following day when I opened my digital NY Times subscription the first thing that hit me was an ad for sake with sushi !
18
This piece should have recommended the easy and obvious solution that anyone can implement: Don't use Facebook!
11
I dropped Facebook long ago......way too much information in the hands of God knows who. It was not worth it as a way to keep up with friends whose families were growing. Zuckerberg is a youngster who has no idea what he started or the collateral damage it would ignite.
12
Interesting now that FB is public enemy number one to the NY Times, so much so that Ms. Goldberg attributes Trump's victory to FB and then castigates them for his victory. That is a rather odd position to take when every author promotes their own or the NY Times FB page at the bottom of their work.
While FB was certainly useful for Trump supporters, it was no doubt very instrumental in electing Obama too. You can't be a hypocrite here - the left heaped praise on Obama for his deft use of social media and now criticizes Trump for doing the same. It's a well-worn double standard.
Trump didn't win solely because of FB. He won because he worked hard to win, filling rallies in virtually every state with crowds Hillary could only dream about. FB did not prevent Hillary from going to Wisconsin either.
16
I had over 7000 "followers" on Twitter, and quitting was a great decision. I also quit Facebook. Both of these sites are like a grotesque funhouse distortion of the real world (and no - the internet is NOT the real world. The real world has flesh, blood, faces, feelings, and empathy). We were better off BEFORE these hideous sites dehumanized us all. We don't need them. Break them up, regulate them, make them stop selling our information. And until they do that - quit them. You'll be happier for it.
16
“Sheryl Sandberg ... reportedly helped cover up the company’s internal findings about Russian activity on the site, lest they alienate Republican politicians.” That coverup must have been why she was “leaning in” — makes it harder to see the evidence that way.
7
FB never "Friend-ed" it's users. They're FB's prey. Indeed they stalk their users all over the web preying on all the data they generate. Like arms dealers they sell that data for others to weaponize - against us.
Even though I've never signed up for FB, they are still stalking me wherever I go. How do I tell FB to "un-Stalk me"?
As for trusting local media, I no longer do. The likes of Sinclair and others are taking over and pushing their propaganda openly and blatantly, and sometimes in subtle ways. Yep - this is solidly trump area of the country in 2016 and 2018 and will likely be so in 2020. As such it is a real-news desert where real fake-news flourishes. I'm just waiting for the non-net-neutrality to kick in with my cable-ISP here and bars my access to the nytimes.com site.
So, is FB anti-Semitic (anti-Soros) or a victim of it (claiming criticism of FB as anti-Semitic)? That is such a trumpian strategy - instead of both sides have fine people, its both sides have terrible people. We are truly in the trump epoch.
Un-Friending FB should be easy, especially if there is another platform ready to take over and reap the benefits of learning what FB is not learning. That's the best kind of regulation there is. Hey, Apple? Was Mr. Cook really serious about privacy?
All I want is all data of me copyrighted - and the same anti-piracy laws and penalties to apply to companies who traffic in it without my consent or payment. Maybe I can get my own FBI warning!
4
Why aren’t there competitors?
6
agree but what else will spring up in its place (symptom cycle). thank you
1
Michelle, We don't always see eye to eye, but you are dead on here. I am ending my FB account at the end of this month.
8
Simpler:
Invoke the Patriot Act, declare it a threat to national security, and shut it down.
Enough already. You knowing your friends' relationship status is not worth our democracy.
11
Face this simple fact: Social media is destroying Western Civilization.
16
I have come to the conclusion that Zuckerberg and Sandberg should close down FB, and admit it was a totally messed up idea that failed. And let newspapers re-take ad revenue. So that the press might survive.
13
I unfriended Facebook before the 2016 election beause I grew weary of people asking me to disseminate information I believed to be inaccurate or downright offensive. (I confess I was never an avid user of the platform.) Have my friends forgotten about me because they can't reach me through Facebook? No. Do I miss some photos of friends and family? Yes, but most of them now text me photos instead. The article in the NYT earlier this week convinced me that I did the right thing.
10
The very fact that it's so easy to "unfriend" Facebook is proof that it is NOT a monopoly. A monopoly, by definition, is what you must accept. No one could unfriend Rockefeller's Standard Oil.
2
best op-ed all year.
finally, something trump haters can actually do to put a dent in his chances for re-election.
9
The way to hit FB is not to be on it. I left. Few others have followed.
11
I'm neither Republican nor Democrat, but I "unfriended" Facebook years ago when I started to get the uneasy feeling that it was encroaching on my life without my knowledge. Surprise! It was!
14
Thank you, Michelle.
Facebook is a natural monopoly. They are an accelerant to violence. Facebook has aided the rise to power of brutal undemocratic demagogues. Facebook, which thrives on lies, demonization and fear, elected Trump who was the candidate of lies, demonization and fear, and protects Trump who is now the president of lies, demonization and fear. Facebook used its monopoly market power to destroy the real Constitutional free press. Facebook has given us lie after lie. How can Trump Republicans really believe Facebook is biased against them? Facebook has helped them so much. Their claims of bias must be just a smoke screen to further obscure that help. Schumer whose daughter works at Facebook should, so to speak, recuse himself. Malevolent entities of every conceivable sort have coopted the algorithms and monopoly market power of one of the most powerful companies in the world, which is, we now learn, a bad actor itself.
Google Search and Google's YouTube division are much like Facebook in this regard.
6
Facebook’s only allegiance is to its bottom line. It provides a service we can all easily do without in exchange for us allowing them to sell our privacy and trust to the highest bidder. The best way to deal with a Trojan Horse like Facebook is to cancel your account and learn to live without it. It won’t be hard to do.
10
I'm seriously considering it but then I would miss seeing my Danish friends' puppy pictures although more of my photographer friends are emailing or blogging rather than posting on facebook.
3
I think that in the era of social media, it would be FOOLISH for Democrats to unfriend Facebook (and I suppose Twitter too) and just leave these powerful tools in the hands of the right wing.
I use Facebook to share timely news stories from mainstream outlets that are NOT fake and to counter a lot of the lies and disinformation being spread on the right.
I am sure the right wing extremists would LOVE it if we just walked away from setting the record straight and leave it to Trump to use these tools exclusively.
No, sorry. We live in a social media era. There is no escaping it. These tools are powerful means of communication and we need to use them more than ever.
9
Zuckerberg's act is wearing thin, behaving like a boy genius who doesn't know any better, but who gifted his miraculous invention to the world. Yet every time a conflict of interest, manipulation of public sentiment, or outright theft of personal data is revealed, he plays the innocent.
Imagine if we treated others his age like this - doctors, lawyers, or even factory workers. "Oops," says the 30-something, "I just didn't understand the consequences of trying a new, possibly unethical, way to make money." Most of us would wind up fired or in jail. Or, he could just ask his very smart wife what would happen if she tried something new in the emergency room at SF General. Bet she'd advise her husband to get some better advice, or maybe even finish college. (Never been on FB, never will, BTW).
7
As a corollary piece to Ms. Goldberg's, here is a link to another NYTimes article titled, "‘I Don’t Really Want to Work for Facebook.’ So Say Some Computer Science Students."
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/15/technology/jobs-facebook-computer-science-students.html
It's about the young software engineers who are questioning whether they should leave FB or ones who are being recruited asking themselves whether they want to work there.
FB has given itself such a black-eye that it may fall by the wayside and decrease in popularity so much that advertisers don't find it worthwhile spending their money on the site.
To steal from Sam Cooke's song...What a wonderful world this would be!
4
Bravo Ms. Goldberg for pointing out the key fix: There is no reason why Facebook and other platforms should be immune to defamation and invasion of privacy—they are publishers!
7
I got off FB after the 2016 elections and I finally realized it’s a platform for propaganda. It’s also an unfiltered free for all of mostly junk and misinformation. Now I’m back to reality. The sooner FB goes belly up, the better.
5
"Some of the brightest people I know have deleted or inactivated their Facebook accounts," one commenter notes. I've never had a Facebook account. Millions have never had a FB account. I'd say we just got a backhanded compliment.
5
The NYT posts an article about the perils of Facebook, and opens it up to a social comment section, so subscribers can discuss on a private platform how to use or not use the public platform of social media. Well, this is interesting. While we’re at it, should we dump our phones, or just the apps? How about the cable company that brought the internet connection to the WiFi router, that activated the app, that sits on the phone that pushed you, Michelle, over the edge. Who do we blame?
Please. Facebook doesn’t tell you what to read, share, hide, or when to laugh and cry. Facebook just aggregates your hand picked social circle, and last I looked it's a free service. Whether you become informed, misinformed or entertained is determined by your life experience, values, education and more. Facebook is not the problem. The bigger problem is a general society shrug between fact, fiction and alternative facts. We have at our fingertips, more access to content than humans have ever had in the history of the world. And we can’t handle it.
13
cartel media doesn't like Facebook because that's where all the alternative media news sites exist. They would rather you only get your information from them. And they would like to punish Zuckerberg for not collaborating with them in their attempts to censor other news sources on Facebook.
So, it's your choice... do you want all your information to come through cartel media, the big-six corporations that control 97% of the conventional media in the US? Or do you want to read other information, from the free press.
6
My biggest problem with Facebook was that they kept changing the ways you could opt out to have the most privacy and I got tired of having to learn how to implement their changes.
So, I disabled/deleted/unsubscribed....whatever it's called.....at first felt disconnected and missed the photos and posts from friends and family, but then got used to not having that.
I never read news feed or clicked on any ads. I ignored any ads that simply appeared automatically.
I did, however, lose a couple of friends during 2015-2016 when they posted political articles that I knew were disinformation because I read reputable news sources, from all perspectives, and, luckily, have enough free time to research issues, and I found out that some friends of mine held such drastically different views and, in some cases, hateful views, that I could not imagine maintaining those friendships. And, I know that many people had what I call Facebook fights and unfriended people.
I stopped LinkedIn. I saw many lies on work experience for people I knew quite well and decided that it was ridiculous to trust that site.
I admit, I am a Twitter user. But, read only. Private. I like reading the tweets from my favorite journalists, and sometimes Twitter has breaking news quicker than anyplace else.....which is reliable if you choose the right people or sources to follow. And, the ads are few....and you just click on 'I don't like this ad" and they never send it again. No harm, no foul.
2
Interesting and ironic how The Times essentially turned the tables on Facebook - think of anonymous sources as "cookies," cross-site scripts, tracking pixel, etc. - with the The Times revealing and exposing FB activities and secrets to its clients (us readers), versus what FB routinely does everyday to their own users - record their activities and secrets in order to reveal them to their clients and highest bidders - to weaponize that data against FB's users!
Facebook can learn from what goes around comes around in the way they implement their business model.
1
I heartily agree that a movement to boycott FB would be a good progressive idea. I have refused to use FB, as it is to me a colossal waste of time. I can and always have, stayed in touch with friends by email or even phoning. The problem is that progressive groups like Indivisible--I serve on a local board--have needed FB to get the message out and to organize such things as demonstrations. This is a knotty problem. We would need a non-commercial way to communicate, like email or blogs. This is more cumbersome.
I appreciate the argument that government should not be controlling content. But we already do: dirty words, nudity, cigarette ads on TV? There can be some reasonable regulation short of censorship. For example, political ads could simply be forbidden within 7 or even 30 days before an election. The source of ads could be required to be rigorously policed. For now, we in the progressive movement still need FB; but we should perhaps find a way to wean our members off the beast.
3
I closed my FB account during the 2016 election. Between my annoyance that Peter Thiele served on the board, the rampant depressing political news, the viral memes, and my concern about allowing a corporation to know personal details about my habits and life, I decided enough was enough. Unfortunately, simply having a cell phone allows Google and Apps to have access to everything you say, everywhere you go, all the time. Big Brother is here folks!
7
the following is a definition of monopoly :Definition of 'Monopoly' Definition: A market structure characterized by a single seller, selling a unique product in the market. In a monopoly market, the seller faces no competition, as he is the sole seller of goods with no close substitute. ... He enjoys the power of setting the price for his goods.
How is Facebook a monopoly based on the above definition. Facebook offers a way to communicate over the internet, but how is FB preventing others from trying to compete with its services?
Goldberg dislikes social media which allows people to advocate ideas which are she thinks are basically bad. But that is a price of free speech. If we ban the broadcast of "bad ideas" how do we determine which ideas are bad without allowing censorship.
3
@tmonk677 Facebook is the new public square. Yes objectors can try other social media sites but most are akin to back alleys. Those who wish to be heard publicly, or stay in touch with friends are thus locked into Facebook.
3
Not really, I am on Facebook only with people I know personally and with my relatives scattered all over the world.
I do not have any republican friends except one or two relatives.
I know my husband would agree with you completely, I am not to post any of his pictures or such, but is is my decision to stay there.
7
It's a technology. A rudimentary social/neural network. You're not going to ban word processors because they contribute to the decline of cursive writing. Or cellphones because people can take invasive pictures with them. It is possible to use it in deep and meaningful ways which is the main reason why it is so successful.
None of which means it shouldn't be regulated. Particularly around transparency and privacy issues. But the politicians who'd regulate it need to demonstrate a much better understanding than they have in the past. You can't (effectively) regulate what you don't understand.
8
I got on Facebook because my kids and grandkids are on. They seemed to have lost interest in Facebook and the only thing I now do is communicate with others in a group about antique English porcelain.
I wish there was a stand alone system to accomplish this.
9
I use FB sparingly: to communicate with my Venezuelan family--and if watchers gain intel on that, fine. I share photos, mostly of our beautiful scenery in the seasons. I do not share anything personal (not with my relatives, either).
I know people are watching. I do not get information from FB. I do get invitations on it, but I respond elsewhere. Why advertise what I'm doing?
That's what I really don't get about some of my friends who are active FB'rs. Why do you insist on broadcasting your random thoughts to the universe?
That FB profits from them, or rather, on the information it has on you, my philosophy is: keep it to the minimum you really want to share, or open yourself to, literally, the universe..
Government regulation is possible, but we have to be vey careful we're not giving a tool to government, or private corporations, to control speech and thought. That road leads to authoritarianism, of whichever flavor.
13
The only way to "fix" Facebook is to prohibit collection of user data and targeted advertising. In other words, their business model is the problem. Their DNA is to make money, not make the world a better place, no matter what they say. They need to be subscription-based.
Their system, designed by beloved feminist and liberal Sheryl Sandberg, depends on maximizing exposure to ads by promoting posts that get attention -- read: gin up outrage -- and then micro-targeting ads to susceptible users based on detailed psychological profiles gleaned from their massive data trove.
Unfortunately, when push comes to shove, Republicans will not want to regulate Facebook, since it has worked mainly in their favor. Republicans used it to micro-target ads and misinformation to particular subsets of users in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. It only has to be slightly effective to have a big impact. If they send out millions of ads and it only influences one or two percent of voters, that's the difference in close elections -- as we have seen.
15
I can’t say I deleted my fb account -I belong to groups that don’t distribute everywhere- but I removed all my info in 2016 and only login when I need to access the group pages. I find I don’t miss it at all. I’d get off completely if I could, but fb has its claws in me.
13
As recently as five years ago, social media was treated as a savior that could spur political activism (like the Arab Spring) and empower non-elites to have a voice. Now, it's treated like a plague that spreads division and disinformation. Both responses are wrong. Technology helps us do things better, whether for good or for bad. If you think fake news began with Facebook, read up on historical events, like the Partition of India and Pakistan and McCarthyism, which were fueled almost entirely by disinformation. The difference between then and now is that people who normally believe conspiracy theories are now online and easy to track, becoming more visible. But that doesn't change that the forces identified in this article have been with us long before Facebook.
18
I agree with both Michelle and Kara, social media is toxic and the tech giants must be regulated. It is a TOOL, and like all tools throughout human history, it can be used to build or destroy. The problem is that it always takes time and effort to build something good and lasting, but destruction can be in the blink of an eye or a typed word on twitter.
9
This has been already been done and I recommend others. of whatever political views, to consider doing the same.
By being on the fb platform, one is fueling conditions that contribute to greed and ignore the common public good.
13
I never joined FB, never will, and my social life is exactly where I want it, under my control and not a commodity for greedy self-interested tech salespeople to market while they pretend to care about social progress. They don’t, they just want to get rich. I think the world—adolescents especially—would better off without FB. Sometimes the cost of making money is too much.
31
Why only Democrats? How about everybody?
I've treated Facebook as a kind of plague from the beginning. That didn't prevent me, however, from signing into something online that, without my understanding what I was doing, somehow made me a member for life.
I'll hope further reading of these comments shows me how to obliterate that account -- not as easy to do as it sounds. Yes, it's the right thing to do.
26
@Percy41
I cancelled my FaceBook account a few years ago. Sorry, but I can’t remember how I did it. Keep digging around and be persistant.
Probably the best thing I ever got from FaceBook was a short, cordial conversation with an Indonesian judge.
I originally joined for contact with family members, but the conversations were rather inane.
I really haven’t missed FaceBook. I have plenty of real, live friends who I frequently see in person.
9
There's a scene in The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Universe - I think that's the one - in which an animal comes to the table in a restaurant and offers parts of itself to be cut off and eaten. It's a hilarious scene but, alas, not so funny anymore, the skit having become a metaphor for FB and Apple and Google et al and their 'customers.'
I quit FB years ago, then rejoined a few years ago for business reasons. Well, that second go at the 'relationship' lasted maybe a year, until I took the business hit and deleted it again. I was growing quite weary of 'babysitting' FB and its needy cohort. And realizing that, putting it in that context, I realized how much the 'platform' had morphed into an electronic succubus rather than a hub for intellectual and social interactions with people I might have cared about.
Delete your FB account (also Chrome), for a month or two or three, as a personal challenge. See if your life improves or deteriorates. I'm guessing the former.
There's nothing social about 'social media.' It's either a redundant phrase or a tautology.
17
PASS LAWS THAT HOLD SOCIAL MEDIA COMPANIES LEGALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT IS PUBLISHED ON THEIR PLATFORMS.
Social media companies should be held responsible for what is published on their platforms the same way traditional media companies are held responsible for what they publish. Let social media companies get sued for liable, slander, intentional infliction of emotional distress, invasion of privacy, etc. Online discourse would improve and the bogus stories and foreign government interference in elections would decline.
13
@Margaret AMEN. I never have used Facebook. And it's not because I am a technophobe... I am a science journalist who has been involved in the development and evolution of digital media from the very beginning. One of the reasons, I have never used Facebook is because they aren't responsible for the content that is published there. But there is a more important reason NOT to use Facebook. Everyone needs to answer this question? How does Facebook make ALL this money. It's not just through advertising. They are data miners. They harvest ALL the information users post on their FB pages and sell it to the highest bidders. Wake up people. Take your power and individual privacy and freedom back. Delete your account. For FB it has never really been not about "global, social connection". That's just a ploy. Their corporate mission is enmeshed in greed, money and power.
10
@Leslie374, you are exactly right. Starve the beast.
I've never really understood the allure of FB. At one time I was involved in a political group that only disseminated its information on FB, so I joined under an alias to be able to access information. But other than that I only look at information from people I know and trust. I would like to delete the account but haven't been able to figure out how to do that. If FB was sincere in its professed desire to be "of service," that information would be included somewhere very prominently, like the "unsubscribe" option offered by entities that send you email messages.
Privacy is a precious commodity these days. Why throw it away so that some greedy corporation can profit from your info?
5
Social media companies should be held responsible for what is published on their platforms the same way traditional media companies are held responsible for what they publish. Let social media companies get sued for liable, slander, intentional infliction of emotional distress, invasion of privacy, etc. Online discourse would improve and the bogus stories and foreign government interference in elections would decline.
7
For simple and blessed relief take my advice for Facebook: (1) post nothing except Happy Birthday or Merry Christmas and (2) when Facebook appears on your email mark it spam or have it sent to the trash file automatically. Check trash bin once a month. Give your actual genuine friends, if you have any, and they do not already have themt, your real email address and phone number. Get the same from them. Have something to say?
Email them or call them. I remember when people wrote to their friends often. Alas we have gone to fountain pens to emoges and the end of privacy.
17
Facebook is a menace to society.
37
It's mostly an ego platform to brag somewhat, about their lives.
I hate to think of the people who get photos, updates, etc., know that people looking in to all that, couldn't care less.
9
How many times does a corporation have to exploit people for profit before they say, "NO!"? For me, it was once. FB is already gone. No second chance.
Years ago, I had a psychology professor (a former Jesuit priest) who said that some of the most evil people in the world sit in board rooms. (Remember the Ford Pinto fiasco that cost many people their lives in a fiery death?) One day, I made it up to the board room, and I am still haunted by the hatred, scorn, misogyny, and racism I heard. (As a former VP of Finance, I was allowed to sit in but had no vote. I would have been outvoted anyway.)
I get daily news and analysis from the NYT, mostly, not all. I tend to trust veteran journalists who spend their lives -- some of them actually giving their lives -- reporting on the condition of the world we live in.
Unfriend Facebook. They have already unfriended you.
63
Some of us left FB long before it was cool to ditch FB. It's really shocking to me how many suckers (i.e. Americans) bought into a platform in which they were the commodity. Anyone who has understood Facebook's business model has always known that the only way Facebook has ever made money was by selling people's data. How else can you achieve a $400B market capitalization without actually making anything? Nothing in this world is free. The bigger question that Democrats need to be asking is why have they allowed the venture capitalists who have paid long term capital gains on their investments for decades are still permitted to receive such a ridiculous tax treatment when they too produce no value to anyone other than themselves. Where has Nancy been for the last 20 years on closing the carried interest loophole? Right, the donors who make her the most effective fundraiser in history would be hit by doing so.
18
@McDiddle I left them too "before it was cool". However, now I'll be phoning my Virginia senators, House Representative, and Miss Nancy too!
1
Something that I had suspected some time ago - and is now increasingly obvious to me - is that the advancement of technological innovation on many fronts (including social media) is outpacing homo sapien's ability to handle it wisely and responsibly. I'm not feeling optimistic.
21
@David
David, very interesting point you make. My late father in-law was a department head at MIT. His consulting company BBN in Cambridge, MA, created the ARPANET which was the precursor, and what we know of today as the internet.
He was very aware and concerned about, as he called it, the "Acceleration Factor" of technology. And as you've said, that it advances faster than society's ability to understand and keep pace with it.
It also caused him to be very concerned about the rise of technocrats. Those who understand and abuse the technology and would rise to positions of power. Not, just elected technocrats, but worse, industrial technocrats whose only motive was profit and not the public good.
He died nearly 20 years ago much before the advent of FB and other social media. But, he was a futurist who could foresee the potential for abuse and the problems that might ensue.
He'd be upset to see what's happened to the "neutral" internet that he'd hoped that would come from their technological achievements.
37
@David
This is true of most technological advances. It is not by accident that so many inventions we use daily today started as a means to kill enemies and win wars. The legend of the discovery of fire and the consequences of "Man" for having stolen it from the Gods is prevalent in so many societies as a warning to everyone about humanity's limits and its tendency for hubris.
Any fad out there needs to be seen with skepticism and caution. The media is a big part of the problem with their hyping everything. I have always wondered why TV reporters and print reporters keep asking us to "follow" them of Facebook and Twitter. Why? To get for free what your company is paying you to report??? It is a mental illness, low-grade, but of high consequence due to scale.
1
Really? FaceBook "accelerates" school violence? Then, yes, let's ban it. Along with automobiles (complicit in drive by shootings), cell phones (that trumpet verbal insults) and pencils (that facilitate written ones.)
6
Actually you came up w that idea. The question is whether/how to regulate. Not ban. Pencils (lead) are currently regulated. Autos too.
6
But Facebook is so Progressive! All the gender options, Lean-In, etc. How can this have happened?
3
You mean like a “market” ?
I never could understand tech's "progressive" tendencies, our "progressives" hate capitalism and are envious of any successful capitalist.
1
@jaco
Incorrect. Progressives seek responsible capitalism.
Why on earth would progressives hate capitalism? My husband started his own company, made a lot of money, and made it a policy that his employees all share in the profits. It wasn't-- 'you get minimum wage and I become filthy rich.'
Please try to understand that dog-eat-dog vulture capitalism is not the only option. I know it's really hard, but please try.
4
Why stop at Facebook when Google’s record on sexual harassment is equally troubling .
6
Are all Democrats quoting Twitter, Google, Android (part of Google), free web and smartphone apps, store discount card programs, etc?
I'm willing to abandon Facebook. What are the alternatives? Is there an alternative?
Are people willing to pay to participate in a Facebook-like social media website, and become customers not the product? Now, as noted here in Comments and elsewhere, FB members are the product because of their exploitable personal information that FB monetizes.
There is no such thing as a 'free lunch,' on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and social media, period.
11
@Bruce Stern FB is not alone in this. Every Google services, all retail discount cards, all free apps, etc use the same monetization model.
7
@John I agree. That known, are there user-focused, pay social media apps or services as replacements for FB, Google, Twitter, and so on?
2
@Bruce Stern The alternative to abandoning Facebook is to abandon Facebook. I quit FB and I'm happier for it. But if I were considering another site I would only choose to become a paid subscriber. I would also prefer a site owned primarily by women. Facebook and Twitter are grossly misogynistic.
For the vast majority of us (and I'm a political junkie) FB is a place to catch up with old friends and communicate to friends and family. It works well for that.
If, as a liberal, I'm supposed to be opposed to FB and should stop using it, what good alternatives are out there?
4
@Skillethead Life, for one.
7
@Skillethead It's hardly a "liberal" matter. Zuck has lied to Congress four times--4--with NO consequences, and continues to deceive those who use his platform while raking in billions to sell their information.
Before deleting my account I lost friends over posting comments to their political misinformation. Those same people were known to drink at night and felt empowered behind a computer screen to cast labels and speak in ways they would NEVER have if face to face with me. I'm with Ralph who answered your question with "life, for one." Try it sometime. You'd be surprised at how enriched your world can really be without contributing to the gross greed of others.
2
@Skillethead Why have we allowed ourselves to believe that the only way to communicate with friends and family is in PUBLIC on a site where they sell our friends' and family's personal information? How about developing ACTUAL INTIMACY with other human beings and calling them on the phone or meeting them for lunch? Face to face human contact worked well for thousands of years. Try it. It's amazing!
2
It's not just Facebook. It's the Internet period. You don't have to go to Facebook to find reams of misinformation and platform after platform promoting hate and bigotry. How you control that, I don't know, but I firmly believe that, while the Internet has made the world a more convenient place, it hasn't necessarily made it a better place.
11
@John Lewis There are negatives that come along with all technological advancements. Cars allow us to travel more easily than ever. One of the down sides is people die in car crashes. The internet promotes a lot of useful things. Working from home, scientific collaboration, easier access to education, etc.
4
@John True, but the production of automobiles is heavily regulated and auto companies are not nearly as monopolistic as internet companies. Also- when an auto company comes to a city, working class people gain jobs. When an internet company comes to a city, working class people lose their housing. The internet is a new technology in desperate need of serious regulating.
11
The fundamental problem is that whether it is FB, Twitter, or any other "free" system, someone has to pay for it to exist. What Mark Z harnessed was a way to monetize YOU. Make no mistake about it. YOU are not the customer. YOU are the PRODUCT!! I'm a retired senior exec in Silicon Valley. We've known this from the outset that it was a corrupt system being created by Mark. But, it worked and made him into a billionaire. The joke in the Valley is that Mark would monetize his own mother if he could figure out a way to do it.
If you want to be the customer rather than the product, you have to be willing to pay for it, not receive it for free. Otherwise, you'll have people who are seemingly nice, extracting your information and selling it to the highest bidders.
24
@GaryZ Oh please. I have been the PRODUCT(!!) since the first time I watched a tootsie-roll commercial on Captain Kangaroo. Not sure how far you go back, but if you ever watched broadcast TV, you've been the product too.
By the way, I pay for the NYT and I am still the product as are you, I'm sure.
5
@GaryZ This is true of all Google products, all search engines, and the vast majority of the internet.
3
@David A., I don't recall Tootsie-Rolls harvesting information about its advertising audience, or distorting our social discourse the way FB is doing.
3
I concur with the other commentators who have opined that The New York Times choosing not to use Facebook and to remove the Facebook share links might help our democracy.
15
@Sándor I've been away and I despise FB. What were the reasons for taking away the FB 'share' icon? How will that help our Democracy?
If you don't like gay marriage, don't marry someone who's gay.
If you don't like Facebook, stop using it.
As for 2016, neither Facebook nor Russia is responsible for the absurd electoral college that results in popular vote losers becoming presidents, or for the preponderance of nativist, white supremacists or for the amazingly low turnout of voters. Good ol' local voter suppression, the DNC's handling of Bernie Sanders, the campaign strategies employed by the Clinton campaign all had greater effect.
81
@David A. How do you know how much Facebook's irresponsibility and profit fetish and Russia's propaganda, lies, and media manipulations affected the results?
Yes, voter suppression, Clinton campaign mistakes, and the outdated and unrepresentative electoral college affected the results.
I would argue the half-baked, saturation, anti-Hillary rhetoric by the Republicans and the Russians, and on Facebook, had a larger, more demonstrable effect.
40
@David A.
I had a facebook account for about 14 days. The reason why I got one was solely to add a review to a law firm's Facebook page. A lawyer from their firm had visited a relative's hospital room, taken some information and then for over two weeks refused to return my calls to find out what had been done on his behalf (my relative didn't remember since he had been groggy and in pain).
So I joined Facebook, wrote a review and was immediately contacted by the firm. I then retracted my review and closed my Facebook account.
The problem I see with disengaging with Facebook is that so many companies and non-profits use Facebook it's hard to avoid. This is where your analogy with gay marriage doesn't hold.
That said, it's easier to just say no to social media if you never start and I'm glad it's not part of my life.
13
@Bruce Stern Well, I know a whole lotta people and how they voted. Some for Trump, some for Clinton, some for Stein. I don't believe that a single one was influenced by social media. At most, some of them might have become more venomous by tuning into their echo chambers. But no votes were determined. How about you? Know anyone for whom a FB post nailed it? The burden of proof in this sort of things lies on the people who make the claim that FB had an impact.
BTW to state that FB's impact was minimal, as I believe it was, doesn't excuse FB from its obligation to be responsible. But the hysteria is really unjustified.
6
This makes sense "Warner has laid out some intriguing ideas in a white paper. Among them are amending the Communications Decency Act to open platforms up to defamation and invasion of privacy lawsuits, mandating more transparency in the algorithms that decide what content we see, and giving consumers ownership rights over the data that platforms collect from them."
9
@Doug That's my senator! I couldn't be happier with him except he needs to push this Act now!
A number of respondents to this article have said that they use FB primarily for maintaining contact with their friends and relations . I am surprised that a decentralized , standalone application has not been developed which enables people to communicate with a community of others which can be limited to only friends and family without any outside interference. It could have all the features of FB but would eliminate the "pushing " or "pulling " of information .
102
@Charles It's called email. It also went by the name telephone in the past. Writing or talking to someone has always been an option until social media made "instant" so convenient. I see the problem as not being able to distinguish between the rush of being able to answer a family or friend question and taking for truth the spew that appears in some of the extreme memes and videos. Being a thinking adult should be a prerequisite to using social media for anything other than casual communication.
47
@Charles This already exists. It's called email.
27
@Humanesque and SHC,
Nope. Not at all the same and you both should know it. Email is a private platform - I mean, yes, you can send a mass email to a bunch of people but it's very different than posting something publicly that all of your friends and/or family can see and respond to at once. I think Charles has a great idea, one I'd like to see come to fruition.
15
This is incredibly naive. "AT&T, railroads, and electric companies are not monopolies from the past, but they are in the present. Burning coal and fossil fuels is killing the planet--that's what railroads and power companies do and along with oil companies exert their extreme monopoly interests over the common good. AT&T just bribed Trump over an extended monopoly merger, which was acceptable to the FBI, FCC, Republicans in Congress even though both the merger and the bribe are against the law--monopoly power, and cable companies routinely charge all the traffic will bear. That's why it's so important to them to do in net neutrality--how many bribes and pay offs to Congressmen can they make to get away with this.
Fb is about "friends and family"--that's what people use them for. They were hacked and knowingly by the Russians. Inside facebook, it's about advertising revenue. Their business model allows this. (we are all hacked every time fb puts a paid ad in our feed) The change that needs to be made is a mandated (they are not going to do this on their own) option for users with NO ads, and that the EU privacy rules be adopted in full. Even further--a button in plain view to opt out of tracking, a user history of any tracking, and defined privacy rights, ownership, of any personal data.
Assuming in a Democratic society this is readily possible, what about the rest of the world, specifically Burma. A solution here is needed right away just to stop the bloodshed.
3
So should Republicans and Independents.
1
I had ditched Facebook once before, before the Cambridge Analytics story broke. That event was the last straw for me. I closed my account immediately and haven't missed it for a second. I invite you to join me.
9
Not too sure about "We've seen analogous types of corporations in the past.....railroads, AT&T and electrical utilities". Sometimes the conglomerates worked for the good of society. I worked at Bell Laboratories (AT&T) before the divestiture and besides the government giving them large contracts to work on the anti-ballistic system, they were doing research on equipment betterment, DNA, and other worthwhile projects. Their scientists were working on international systems, in a non-competitive way. They were also the deliverers of a quality-oriented telephone system with fair pricing. After the divestiture, it seems that "junk" systems were proliferating all over the place and communication costs have been escalating till this day. So research on quality assurance went out the window. Maybe it's not the size of a corporation but the ethics, common decency, morality and the promotion of trustworthy leaders of said corporations that should be administered with more concern for the betterment of our society. Maybe governance should be taking care that corrupt and greed oriented behaviour be denigrated not proliferated. By the way, what the heck is happening with our railroad travel now? Anyone bothered by that?
5
I watched Zuckerberg testify...er...lie to the Senate awhile ago and I immediately remembered the 7 disgusting lying tobacco execs in their testimon...er...lies about nicotine not being addictive.
My only recommendation is to just shut the dam platform down.
13
@jerry mickle
Breathe life back into the antitrust division of DOJ. It's been gutted over the years since 1998 when they slammed Microsoft to the mat for being anti-competitive. The result of that was giving Apple a chance to get off its back and not going into bankruptcy which it nearly did, and finally thrive. Amazing results.
The enemies of capitalism are the anti-competitive greed artists like Mark Z, the gang at Google which in my opinion is far worse than FB at selling your personal data because you aren't a paying customer; you're the product!!
Listen to Tim Cook's warning at the International Data Conference in Belgium. It'll make the hair on the back of your neck stand up.
https://forums.appleinsider.com/discussion/207911/tim-cook-calls-data-collection-surveillance-in-blunt-forceful-speech-on-data-industria
Have the gov't shut them down? No, have the people shut them down by not using them and making them worthless to advertiser!!
The question is what function should facebook serve, what regulations are necessary if at all. Facebook has according to its own account 30% of the worlds population as active users.
The U.S. is about 5% of the worlds population. Facebook is clearly out of control. Facebook likely also accomplishes useful tasks. Its hard to figure out what to do with such an organization.
1
@Michael Cohen Why is Facebook out of control? Is it because the platform is popular. Is it because the platform makes a lot of money? There are certainly growing pains issues with Facebook and social media in general. What to do with it should be a question left to the free market.
3
@John
The gov't regulates the airwaves, advertising, TV, radio, traffic ... a whole lot of things that make the USA a good place to do business.
Regulation is not the problem or the enemy of legitimate firms. Assuming FB is one of them is most people's mistake.
And, recall, pet rocks were once popular. As were foot binding, leeching, and castor oil. But education unmasked these items, and many others, as essentially fraudulent and useless.
History; it ain't your enemy.
3
@Michael Cohen Then Apple is also a monopoly. WalMart is a monopoly. Amazon? Ocean Spray? Monopoly. Do you see the problem here?
I could see a case being made that the government could regulate commercial ads on the Facebook platform, however, regulation involving user created content that shows up on the platform would likely be problematic.
2
The FB connections to Chuck Schumer make me sick to my stomach. But still, Congressional members go after Pelosi
and give Schumer a free pass.
17
@cg.
Not to mention that out of sheer personal pettiness, Schumer went for Franken’s head as fast as he could, costing the Democratic Party a spokesman it desperately needs. (Sorry, folks, you may not want to hear it but Franken is innocent. He didn’t do any of those things and anybody near the Capitol knows the whole sad affair was one of the most brilliant Republican Party hit jobs ever done.) Schumer is an embarrassment, an incompetent, a corrupt hack, and a publicly angry whackjob. At least Pelosi knows what she’s doing.
3
Is it not a strange coincidence that at a point when the Times' revenue is slipping, at least partly due to the rise of social media outlets, that they start a series of articles and opinion pieces about how horrible social media outlets are? I'm sure there could not be any connection between the two, could there?
9
@Socrates.
Thank you. One desperately wants to ignore the Trumpist trolls but sometimes they need to be told just how crazy they are.
6
@mikecody
Please address the content of the article and not try to create your own conspiracy theory.
10
@mikecody Actually, NYT, like other major news outlets benefits A LOT from FB via links to stories. Nice try.
1
I agree with the premise of the article and the danger of social media, but I wonder: Why is any criticism of George Soros specifically anti-Semitic? Can people have a problem with a powerful, politically connected billionaire's supposed machinations without being anti-Jewish?
3
@Fox They can, but often criticism of Soros is cloaked in vague and even not-so-vague anti-Semitic language, imagery, etc. It is rare that one finds a criticism specifically about the man himself that does not also demonize Jews in one way or the other.
17
@Fox After the mud that's been thrown at him, quick answer: No.
I stopped posting to Facebook after Cambridge Analytica.
At first it was fun, getting to see what past classmates were doing, and to be honest; how they looked and what kind of house they had.
During the 2016 elections, instead of elevating the conversation it was a race to the bottom. To begin with Facebook isn’t the right platform to have logical, intelligent dialogue. It’s about the “likes”, not the discussion.
I'm done. With Facebook everyone’s life is perfect. No one is having an affair, no one has a drug-addicted child, no one is over his or her head in debt. It feels like I’ve stayed at my high school reunion too long and it’s time for me to go home.
39
Democrats should un-friend Facebook immediately. Great article thanks Ms. Goldberg.
13
Maybe you'll have better luck than I have, Michelle. I've been off of all social media for YEARS (having only ever had FB, so never even had to deal with getting off Twitter, Instagram, etc. because I never started them). People keep coming back at me with the same thing: "I HAVE to have it." Almost no one admits to actually liking it anymore (contrary to, say, 5 years ago), but they all say that they need it because of their job (roughly 80-85%), or to keep in touch with friends and family overseas (the remaining 15-20%).
If your job requires you to be a member of an online social network originally designed for college kids to share photos of themselves getting wasted and find other college kids to sleep with, perhaps it is time to find a new job. Miss that college friend who lives in France now, or did your mom retire to Florida? Guess what; PHONES STILL EXIST! So, for that matter, does email. When I tell people this, they shrug, they look away, then finally just reiterate in spite of everything I just said that they "need" Facebook and that I “don’t get it.”
They’re right; I don’t.
What exactly is going on here? Is it an addiction? Are people addicted to spying on one another, or to playing those ridiculous, repetitive games that try to manipulate you into spending real money on a fake couch or a fake dress? Seriously; WHAT IS GOING ON?!
PS: I am a millennial. People who don’t know that often dismiss my perspective as an example of “generational differences.”
13
At the top of each article, the NYTimes has the [f] button. I have called on them before to remove it and anywhere else it appears in NYTimes news articles.
13
@Wyatt I suspect there is a financial benefit of some sort to the NY Times for allowing the (f) button on its web site. Since I have never been a member of Facebook, it never concerned me.
2
"Without Facebook, Donald Trump probably wouldn’t be president, which is reason enough to curse its existence. The platform was an essential vector for Russian disinformation. It allowed the shady “psychographics” company Cambridge Analytica to harvest private user data."
Note that Peter Thiel, a Facebook board member, is associated with Cambridge Analytica?
12
On a macro scale, not sure what to do. Regulation seems appropriate. Perhaps some other smart, well-meaning person can offer an alternative platform that only connects actual friends, loved ones, and communities.
On the micro scale, the solution is simple. Delete your account. Your life will not be lessened in any way. Just trust me on this.
6
@NJohnson Some smart, well-meaning people have: those "platforms" are called phones and email.
2
As the Times article also mentioned, Schumer's daughter works for Facebook. Another of his daughters is the executive director of the developer-fronted organization promoting De Blasio's streetcar line. The first director quit after it appeared it wasn't going to be the cakewalk it was supposed to be and Schumer's daughter was hired. Not long afterward, it was "determined" that federal funding might be required for the moribund line.
It would probably earn some organization several Pulitzers just investigating where the children of politicians are employed and their subsequent votes on policy. It's a method of influence that circumvents campaign finance rules and, sleazy as it may be, is absolutely legal.
19
@stan continople This is really important and should be a Times Pick.
5
@Humanesque.
Indeed.
1
@stan continople
Interesting idea. I'd like the Times to do the research on this and get back to us with their report.
1
Facebook and other social media outfits are not really the problem. What is different today, compared to 20 years ago, is the ubiquity of mobile phones, and more recently smartphones. And add to that the advent of texting. Everyone is available everywhere and anytime. This creates the environment for rampant, dangerous abuse of these devices. It is like an addictive drug, and the solution to improve things might be very similar to fighting habit-forming drugs. Treat it as a disease. Combat it with an education campaign, much like the one that has been used against cigarettes.
2
@Jeff I know cigarettes are bad for me, but I still smoke them...It is going to take more than an awareness campaign to get people off of Facebook. They need to have the individual will power to do so.
@Humanesque
I'm sorry you haven't been able to kick the cigarette habit. No one expects 100% success from an awareness campaign. But smoking has decreased dramatically in the United States. Maybe that's also because laws have been passed forbidding smoking in public places. There's a thought. Pass a law against using smartphones where they disturb other people. Imagine people being forced to go outside of restaurants, away from entrances, to make or receive a call or text. Out in the rain would be nice.
4
Maybe you'll have better luck than I have, Michelle. I've been off of all social media for YEARS (having only ever had FB, so never even had to deal with getting off Twitter, Instagram, etc. because I never started them). People keep coming back at me with the same thing: "I HAVE to have it." Almost no one admits to actually liking it anymore (contrary to, say, 5 years ago), but they all say that they need it because of their job (roughly 80-85%), or to keep in touch with friends and family overseas (the remaining 15-20%).
If your job requires you to be a member of an online social network originally designed for college kids to share photos of themselves getting wasted and find other college kids to sleep with, perhaps it is time to find a new job. Miss that college friend who lives in France now, or did your mom retire to Florida? Guess what; PHONES STILL EXIST! So, for that matter, does email. When I tell people this, they shrug, they look away, then finally just reiterate in spite of everything I just said that they "need" Facebook and that I “don’t get it."
They’re right; I don’t.
What exactly is going on here? Is in an addiction? Are people addicted to spying on one another, or to playing those ridiculous, repetitive games that try to manipulate you into spending real money on a fake couch or a fake dress? Seriously; WHAT IS GOING ON?!
2
@Humanesque PS Not that it should matter, but I am a millennial, so no, my perspective is not illustrative of "generational differences."
1
I quit Facebook in July. Best thing I ever did.
4
Boycott Facebook (messenger included) November 25th through December 1st. Cost them a nice chunk of revenue.
R's and D's alike find the behavior of this company appalling. We may just pick different examples of behavior.
Send a message by ignoring the company during what must be a lucrative time of the year
5
Facebook needs to label the fake news as fake news. The alt-right should be banned outright.
2
@joe parrott What Exactly do you qualify as news. If a user posts a statement of opinion and his friends read it, is that news? Are you referring to articles posted by news agencies? Not everything on Facebook is news.
I removed Facebook from my phone two years ago and do not regret it one bit. Zuckerberg doesn’t need to know where I am.
I’ve also pulled back what content I add to my profile which has an erroneous birthday. The ads and contact I get based upon that incorrect date are humorous, numerous, and wide-ranging. It’s also scary in its pervasiveness.
With photo recognition, I will not post photos with people’s faces in them. Paranoid? No, just prudent.
I use Facebook less and less as time goes on. My life is slowly improving.
1
Does it not contain algorithms which mimic dopamine?
3
The "free stuff" model is broken. It is NOT free.
2
@Tracy Rupp
As the pundits have it. "if the software seems free then you are the product."
1
@Tracy Rupp All “free services” use ads to create revenue. Would you prefer to pay a subscription fee for everything from search to email? Local over the air television and radio is ad supported. Should we get rid of that too?
"Now we’re nearing something close to a progressive consensus: Facebook is bad."
The NYT's sudden onslaught of anti-Facebook coverage seems very coordinated and deliberate. I especially like the way that the columnists keeping hyping the NYT's own reporting as "blockbuster."
Has it occurred to anyone else that the NYT has a conflict of interest as one of Facebook's chief competitors for control of the progressive party line?
8
@Wiener Dog What is the "progressive party line"? And please explain who it is you think controls it, and what said control entails?
3
@Wiener Dog Their investigations stand clearly on their merits. Perjury, misinformation, and hiring PR firms to perform opposition research on those reporting on their actions does not make for an innocent corporation.
@Wiener Dog, the NYT is hardly a controller of the progressive party line. They broke the Clinton email story which ended up getting way more coverage than it should have considering it was hardly a scandal. They have never shied away from running stories that hurt Democrats or liberals.
2
The NYT (and other businesses) should also "un-friend" Facebook. How much money per year does NYT spend in Facebook advertising? Buying ads on Facebook validates their business model of monetizing user data. Stop feeding the beast.
11
Facebook is mostly a do-it-yourself echo chamber for those too physically and mentally lazy to go out and join a real mob. As Pogo said “we have met the enemy and he is us!”
Oh. Also vacation photo show off - look where I’ve been.
2
@Alex M Sure. That is why you have the option not to join.
Facebook.
Can't live with it, can't live without it.
1
@YD I have lived quite well without ever being a member of FB.
1
@YD Can and do.
1
Time to put an end to Facecrookery!
1
Facebook, a scam from the day Zuckerberg stole the idea for it from college classmates, is now a monster whose overriding purpose is to make billions more for its scruples-challenged multibillionaire owner.
There is no justification for it. We have written mail, phones, text messages and email. Which serve nearly every socially useful function of Facebook, with almost none of Facebook's myriad downsides:
Facebook and its "gateway drug" Whatsapp are engineered to addict vulnerable users, especially teens. Ralph Nader rightly terms that digital child molestation.
Facebook rots the brains of its addicted users.
Facebook causes traffic accidents, saps worker productivity and disrupts real, meaningful interpersonal relationships.
Facebook is tailor-made for criminals, Russian hackers, spies, fake news peddlers and terrorists.
Facebook made Brexit possible and was decisive in electing Donald Trump.
Facebook execs shed crocodile tears and pretend to be remorseful but have actually done next to nothing to change their addict, trick, spy on, steal and rape the customer business model.
It is past time to throw the book at them: Public nuisance, monopolization, fraud, racketeering and danger to national security.
Most of the above applies to most social media "platforms" but Facebook has always been the worst.
If Zuckerberg had half a conscience, he'd give away most of his billions and publicly apologize. He'll never remotely approach that unless Congress acts decisively.
7
@Sage Unless congress acts decisively to do what. I believe there is a term for what is being suggested. It’s called tyranny.
I deleted my FB account. What I lost: cute pics of other people's kids. What I gained: free time to enjoy real people or good books and freedom from both toxic political outrage and obnoxious ads targeted to my age group.
10
We don't need to figure out how to regulate Facebook or to listen to their lies any longer --- we just need to quit using it.
There are, I learned, no downsides to deleting your FB account. None.
6
FB doesn't even seriously try to address the problem they create. For example, instead of simply deleting the accounts of Russian troll farms, they could have messaged all their users who reposted those items, educating them into the way they were used by a US adversary. A learning opportunity, but that might cut down slightly on their traffic. Can't have that!
5
Not quite from day one,but close to it the internet has been an unfiltered sewer. There are few exceptions, such as NYT, I never participate in social media. Once I keyed into a chess website, thinking interesting competition might be in my future. Almost immediately in their comments players were basically vulgar. Expletives flew back and forth between players. That was my big ugh.
So with the billions of Facebook subscribers I figured not for me. I was correct.
3
By any reasonable definition of monopoly, Facebook (+Instagram) is a monopoly in the US.
We can and must update out anti-trust laws to account for a handful of new tech services.
The Times report shows how (most) executives simply cannot handle extreme power responsibly. That's just a combination of human nature and the forces of our political economy. As a society we need to change the rules of the game if we want to see better behavior. That's on us.
If you read this article and then forget about it in three days as the news cycle gets to the next storm, nothing will happen. You'll be abrogating your responsibility. If you care about a fair political economy, do one thing in the next month to advocate for monopoly regulation of social networks: call your new congressperson, send a couple of emails to companies you see advertising on FB and boycott their products, boycott FB altogether,....
There are things you can do. Sure, those things on there own won't move the dial. But, politicians need to sense that an issue is worth putting effort into, that there is a political payoff. So, do your part in signalling to Washington.
3
I’ve been saying half jokingly for years that the worst thing humanity has ever invented is the comments section. These stats on violence that begins online seem to validate that opinion.
I’ve been off Facebook for almost five years and am happier and more productive for it.
When people challenge my disdain and dismissal of social media I lay my trump card; “Trump is President.” They can’t help but concede the point.
2
Interesting that this column appears in the NYT, the newspaper that definitely influenced the outcome of the democratic primary by endorsing Hillary Clinton from the time she expressed interest in running while insisting that Bernie Sanders wasn't qualified. Facebook was responsible for much of Sanders' success. I'm not the only one who believes that Sanders could have defeated Trump. Any source of information needs to be scrutinized by the reader for accuracy as well as bias, including this newspaper.
The vile chain emails I remember seeing and receiving when Obama was running in 2008 were far worse than anything I've seen on Facebook. And for fake news, how do you like those supermarket tabloids? Facebook didn't invent this problem.
6
Mark Warner and others seeking to regulate social media, go for it! Chuck Schumer needs to stay out of it.
1
It's always been a fool's errand to believe FB was really interested in professional journalism. They simply allow charlatans masquerading as journalists to fill our "news feeds". My family and I use FB and texts to keep in touch, and I'll click links from friends I know are legitimate news organizations. FB simply proves the advice from my first ISP gave me in 1995 that, "You'll stay safe if you remember nothing on the Internet is real."
@Keith Everything is twisted and interpreted including television, radio, websites, etc. why make an example of Facebook which isn’t creating any of the content, just hosting it.
"unfriend"?, no just delete FB. We don't need it, people who constantly use it are displaying intense addictive behavior, and would be mentally healthier if they simply got off FB. If we started talking to each other again like normal human beings, in the street, on phones (not texting!!) there can be a return to civility. FB is a roadblock to natural human communication, get a life, delete FB.
5
Not defending Facebook -- I think it is sort of a weird way to spend time. But there is absolutely no evidence that any of the ads on FB changed a vote. After all, Hillary and Trump had been in the news for 30 years give or take, they'd been the subjects of intense news coverage for over a year -- and they spent zillions or so on campaign ads. Do you really think that a handful of cheap ads on FB, or trolls, would change a vote given the magnitude of info on both -- and the fact that most people had made up their minds on those two long before the Russians appeared. So, you make a statement that Trump wouldn't have won without FB and the Russian disinformation?
Prove it. So the statement that Trump wouldn't be prez without FB is preposterous.
5
2/3 of today's Democrats are NOT allowed to think for themselves and they let big media and those that control it do it for them. Facebook came along as a neutral format where the real working men and women's voices could be heard and Trump followed. A real American would never suggest shutting down free speech. If someone here does not like free speech they can easily move elsewhere, there are plenty of people outside this country willing to take your place.
3
@dan You are confusing shutting down free speech with the regulations that have been on the books for years for our media companies. no one wants to regulate Facebook more than what we already have on the books.
3
@dan
The Facebook issue goes way beyond "free speech". Your post is a gross simplification. The Second Amendment, for example, gives us the right to "bear arms", but we may not legally own fully automatic weapons, bazookas, or mortars.
Clearly, regulation of social media is required. Republicans will never regulate anything that benefits them, so it's up to the Democrats. This column points that out and is absolutely correct.
99
@Vesuviano Actually, what it points out is that Democrats want to regulate it because they feel it disadvantages them.
I agree, Ms. Goldberg. And yet, as my state chokes and burns in these catastrophic wildfires, I see FB playing an invaluable role in connecting people--many of them elderly and desperate--with services, with family, and with other individuals who want to help in any way they can. FB's sheer ubiquity makes it an effective medium for doing that. In the end, tragically, this relatively isolated good may be outweighed by the destructive forces the company has unleashed.
4
Welcome to the seamy underside of the information age. Mark Warner is a politically motivated promoter of anti Russia hysteria. Clearly there is an abundance of offensive noise and abuse of good order in society. But the NYTs laying the blame for the election debacle of 2016 on Facebook is way off base.
3
Facebook started as a digital medium to share photos and personal notes with friends and has now become an international propaganda machine that spreads lies and propaganda for untold millions. Zuckerberg and Sandberg are extremely and have used Facebook as a profit maker to assist the Russians and Republicans put Trump in office.
All Facebook users should cancel their accounts in protest.
9
No need to regulate Facebook. The real need is to exit it.
We should let the market make this decision.
9
Before the election, I was disenchanted. I unfriended it as soon as the election was declared, that Trump won. It was a good decision for me. I see no merit in it for a variety of reasons. The election sealed the deal.
6
Long before I was aware of the more serious issues, I gave up on FB because I hate the user interface. Most of the real estate is taken up with stuff I don't want to see. Email is a vastly better way to communicate with people. A forum is a vastly better place to meet with people with a common interest. A news source you trust is a vastly better way to stay informed. The things people post are almost all inane.
I kept my account because every now and then I want to look at something, and maybe once a year I'll message someone whose email address I don't have. Other than that I can't see what value it adds.
10
Two major internet resources, Wikipedia and Craigslist*, operate entirely or mostly as non-profits. These platforms are built on mature technology, and do not require a lot of staffing to operate. Most of the required resources are for servers to accommodate their massive scale of users.
There is nothing preventing competition for other internet resources by non-profits. Beyond social media companies like Facebook, GoFundMe is a prime example of a resource that need not be for-profit. DuckDuckGo is an alternative to Google search that is still for-profit, but less invasive of users' privacy.
I encourage public-minded people in the computing community to develop and offer alternatives to the large for-profit players. Perhaps more people will gladly move to the less-harmful competition if it exists.
---
* I acknowledge the problems craigslist has had, but they pale in comparison to the problems with Facebook and some other companies.
4
@MidtownATL
It's true a non-profit social network would have no incentive to harvest and sell user's data. But all the content regulation (or non-regulation) problems are still there. Someone always has to decide what speech is allowed and what isn't. So that problem never goes away (unless you allow everything).
Pulled the plug right after the election.
10
Long over due. Michelle does it again.
5
Michelle, why are you on Twitter (Trump news), and the NYT Opinion section is on Facebook. All you reported is Democrats Should Un-Friend Facebook is true. I cancelled with both of them. If I want news I go to NYT digital ,Boston Globe digital or NPR or PBS. I am quite content with this and although we can't ban social media, I think anyone reasonable would not use them.
10
To borrow a rant from John Lennon;
I don't believe in Facebook;
I don't believe in Twitter;
I don't believe in Instagram;
I don't believe in Pinterest;
I don't believe in Google;
I just believe in me, face to face with others while holding today's edition of the free press under my arm.
8
I hate to be the Luddite in the room. If you have a problem with Facebook, turn it off. Do something different with your time. Take a walk by yourself. Hear the sound of the door closing you off from your obsession. Then come back in and find a new obsession, like writing comments to the NYT. Oh, my God, what have I become.
20
@richard wiesner, I haven't used social media much at all, but I find myself commenting recently on NYT, too. I can't help it!
1
@richard wiesner Not as simple as that. FB is being used as a propaganda/misinformation platform, and that is what needs to be addressed before we have even more conspiracy theory lunatics. By connecting Soros to anyone, FB was precisely indulging is very shady practices. That is worth looking into so that there is no repeat, regardless of whether people stay on/off the platform.
2
In the words of Chef Gordon Ramsey: “Shut it down!”
4
@Adapt To A Crowded World
Wow, why don't we go step further, and completely shut down anything that you don't like or are incapable of dealing with, for everyone.
2
Not a member of Facebook and never will be. I agree with Charles Barkley who said “I do zero social media because . . . that’s where losers go to feel important.”
10
Michelle Goldberg is just plain scary.
"Facebook is bad. The question, as always, is what is to be done."
This sounds like a line from the Crucible.
The real question is:
Who will Ms Golberg next decree "is bad" ?
And do we want to wait til she decides what is to be done to them ?
6
@G Michelle is simply reporting on what shady stuff FB has been doing behind the scenes. How is that scary? Wouldn't you as a member of society want to know if a given social media platform is trustworthy or not and is being used to stir trouble and peddle conspiracy theories?
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@G
Exactly correct. Goldberg and her ilk are the SJW scolds who currently decide the limits of "acceptable" opinion and speech.
They have turned on FB because it hasn't been sufficiently "progressive" and failed to keep Trump from getting elected. They won't let that happen again.
3
@Weiner Dog.
That’s just right-wing hogwash. When a company starts hiring PR hitmen to go after its enemies, it’s time to pay attention. When they start lying about what they did, it’s time to figure out how to stop them. And when they participate in the subversion of our democratic institutions, it’s time to put them out of business. Facebook is corrupt from top to bottom and in another era would have been subject to antitrust legislation a long time ago.
1
The GOP cannot regulate Facebook without losing one of it's major advantages. No other media allows the racists such a voice. There are many that try but they do not have the reach into the average home that Facebook has. All of the other sites who were created to accommodate the far right (although far right doesn't adequately describe their evilness) are known for being just that. Facebook has pretended it was agnostic, and people believed them. However, they need the far right just like the far right needs them and that is why we have the expansion of fascism worldwide and why we have the Trumpublicans. Alternative facts live in Facebook, and are brought into the houses of average people. Otherwise, one must muck about in the dark corners of the internet to find these deviant beliefs, where you know you are in the dark areas.
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@Chris
The far right consists of probably 100 delusional punks living in their moms basement. The far left consists about 10 million.
1
"America’s widespread epistemological derrangement"
Its a perilous vulnerability.
3
I like FB a lot. I enjoy seeing what my friends and family are doing when I don't always have time to call them. I have other friends a little bit outside my immediate circle, who I wouldn't call on a regular basis, but who I also like to know their news. I also use FB as a promotional tool, to advertise performances and appearances, and I think it's helpful in that way. It's a tool that I enjoy but try to use with careful consideration.
All that said, after all of the FB hoopla and shenanigans, I do agree that it could use some regulation and oversight. And that it can be a total time suck. I post less details about myself than I did previously, and that carefully. I have stopped chiming in to friends' arguments/opinion posts, as that too is a waste of time and resolves nothing. I do see my friends post about every little thing in their life, especially their kids, and I wonder if they understand that all of that is on the internet forever. So I do understand people's concerns about FB.
I don't believe that FB is evil, because at the end of the day, we are in control of our minds, and how we focus them. If FB causes addiction for you, by all means, stop using it. But for others, FB is a helpful and pleasant way to stay connected, that doesn't necessarily forego connection in the outside world, but otherwise supplements it.
7
While it is arguable that the internet is a utility and should be regulated as such that doesn't apply to Facebook any more than it does to the NY Times e-edition. Facebook is a media company with millions of contributors. What Facebook should do is state it is a media company and like all media giants will monitor and edit its content. Then it should establish editorial staff to keep the wackos, as determined by Facebook, off the site. If they lean to far left or right for your taste go find another platform.
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@Mark The problem is what to do when FB itself becomes a wacko and peddles falsehoods as it was caught doing.
2
Facebook is not a publisher. Facebook does not own the content that users upload. They have broad license to use the content, but that is not ownership. A media publisher owns the work that is on their site. The difference being that Facebook is selling ads to the user not against the users work where as a publisher is not advertising to the contributor. They are selling ads against the contributors work.
@John
That’s actually not the case. FB makes very clear that it owns the right to store and reproduce anything you put there. You’ve given up control of your family photographs. That’s as good as ownership gets.
1
Mark Warner is right. We need laws giving Internet users undisputed ownership over their data, and making platform owners partly responsible for harm that is done. Until Congress addresses the needs of the people instead of bowing to campaign contributors, though, nothing will get fixed.
1
The real solution is competition. Remembering that there was a teen oriented version of Facebook called My Space that I believe preceded Facebook and eventually succumbed to FB's dominance, what is needed is some entrepreneur or (hopefully) non-profit to create a rival to Facebook and urge people to abandon their FB's accounts, publicly, and switch to this new platform, bringing their friends with them.
@Nicholas There are plenty, like Twitter, already, plus a lot you've never heard of because people aren't motivated to take your advice.
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There is absolutely nothing preventing anyone from creating a competitor to Facebook or Twitter or Reddit, et al. How can any of these companies be called a monopoly if that’s the case?
2
Has not the US moved beyond the 'absurd' into yet uncharted territory, undreamt of before? American 'paranoia' has been a kind of fact of life. Is there something unusual in American thinking? W've seen it all before and we will march, once agone again to the dulcimer tunes , associated with Old Glory--flags never dipped, however bloodied they have become--with, as added spicing-- predictable hysteria. America is in harmony with these old songs--it marches proudly, arms akimbo--eyes moistened by American-style tears--unique amongst the nations. We are God's choen people, we never can err, we are so flawless, never wrong, always marching, eternally marching, behind that beautiful Red White and Blue--a gift unparalleled at any time in history. We are the ministers dispensing heavenly grace to all the peoples and we will never case our crusade to make a better world that will last ten thousand years, if not more. We can not lose for God himself is on our side. With ot without Facbook we shall overcome all enemies here and abroad. We march proudly in step with the All-Mighty, an eternal beneficent people, dispensing justice to all and making the earth a heavenly place. And we have that special divine instrument to mold the world in the form we prefer--the American Marine is anticipating yet another victory over the forces of the devil without--or the more hidden one, deep down inside us sll. We shall not falter. We shall not change. We are predestined to rule the world.
4
Yes, Facebook and other virtual monopolies should be regulated. Zuckerberg and Sandberg are greedy and duplicitous, particularly Sandberg. I continue to have the feeling that Zuckerberg is in over his head.
But the real issue is education and media literacy. I'm on Facebook and will continue for the time being because scores of former students and distant family members use Facebook as a medium for real relationships. There are touching, funny and genuine moments that wouldn't otherwise occur. My wife is even more connected within the Facebook milieu. And we're retired!
None of the nonsense affects us. We have critical capacities honed over years of skepticism, reading and dialogue. My adult children and my college age granddaughter are similarly able to distinguish propaganda and commercial nonsense from real information. I read the NYT and other legitimate sources of information daily.
My 18 year-old granddaughter won a Bernie Sanders essay contest two years ago writing about media literacy education in schools. Her essay should be printed in the Times and used to prompt educators around the country.
So yes, Facebook should be regulated to within an inch of its greedy life, but an educated populace won't fall for sucker schemes in the first place.
(As a side note, I'm very "connected" to many young women and men. To them, Facebook is nearly a relic of the past.
If I were a wealthy guy, I'd short Facebook and fund my remaining retirement years.)
7
If Democrats unfriend Facebook, will that make Facebook the platform for the non-Democrats, i.e., Republicans and extremists to connect to each others and flourish? I can see that will aggrevate the situation much worse
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@Beau
There are far more extremist on the left to worry about.
1
Facebook appeals to the venality in humans. The officers of the company are fixated on greed not good. The platform has been manipulated by evil forces and enemies of the republic just as school children use it to bully their victims. Thinking people should reject the platform and government should regulate all of social media. Look at the lies our dear leader promulgates on Twitter. Social media has an enormous negative effect on our culture and distorts that which is truly valuable'; thought.
1
@C "The officers of the company are fixated on greed not good." What international corporation is that not true of??
Facebook never worked. At the start, it was a new way to stay in touch with people you knew, and to meet new people. The problem was, no one really knew who those people were and many of them were "fake" people. Eventually, some people figured out that it was a great medium for spreading "fake news" and distorting reality of millions of ignorant and intellectually lazy people. Facebook became the main source of the "daily news" (aka "fake news") for tens of millions of people. The Russians saw this and used that medium to change the "reality" of those people. How ironic that the man who whined about "fake news" was elected by its use...
1
I have always avoided Facebook. Originally, it was because it felt narcissistic. It feeds the idea that people with no hard-won skills can become famous - the Kardashian syndrome - though I admit that some YouTube stars actually have talent. Then when I found out that Facebook began as a sexist exercise at Harvard to rank photos of women on a scale of "hotness," my impression of Facebook as a vapid and faintly dangerous phenomenon grew.
The more we know, the worse Facebook looks. There was Facebook bullying in middle school and beyond, resulting in not a few suicides. Now we know that Facebook has grown rich in part by exploiting the spread of harmful, racist memes at a political movement scale. A totally useless enterprise, a perversion of what the internet was supposed to be and could still be. Just say no.
4
As an aged in the barrel Luddite, I don't use Facebook, but my family does. It clearly addictive, far more so than marijuana.
Were the spirit of Theodore Roosevelt alive among the Republicans (it is confined in Mt. Rushmore, with Alfred Hitchcock's) Mitch McConnell would be clamoring for anti-trust action. If Paul Ryan existed, he would have written a book about how to assure competition in the platform universe.
If wishes were horses, anti-trust would ride to the rescue. Fat chance with Whitaker mired in his less than shiny title. For FaceBook addicts, a long term boycott may be a bridge too far.
May I suggest a NATIONAL WEEK OF FACEBOOK ABSTINENCE, to punish them for using a scurvy PR firm to spread a white nationalist anti-Semitic trope (George Soros is responsible for all bad things, among them, criticism of FaceBook). No amount of Ms. Sandberg's greenwashing should obscure FaceBook's culpability.
Remember, Facebook covered up a substantial element of Russian interference in our elections, reportedly even from its own board. Democrats, Senator Schumer among them, should renounce political contributions from FaceBook's world.
4
What's wrong with charging Facebook with sedition and treason? An individual would by now be in prison or in an embassy on foreign soil. Perhaps this is an example of how we let corporations get away with far, far too much and minimize their responsibilities.
2
Thank you Mrs. Goldberg for writing up a piece dedicated to this.
Democrats can not believably use corporate abuse and economic inequality as a nationally unifying election strategy when people like Chuck Schumer, unsubtle advocate of corporate sponsor interests, are calling the shots and undermining that narrative every day.
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@Brewing Monk
Chuck Schumer's daughter works for Facebook, so of course he can't criticize it.
3
Facebook is all of these problems. A huge monopoly is a problem, always, and that should be no surprise. This is a monopoly of a basic service, as is Google and some other uber-dominant electronic media.
This is no different from the breakup of Ma Bell back when I was a kid. Or Standard Oil a century ago. It is something we know well. How we can be so surprised by such basic truth I can't understand.
However, the tiny push by a few foreign groups on Facebook is not what elected Trump. That excuse is a distraction from the real problem. Sure, it motivates those whose every motive is related to The Resistance, but it diverts attention from hundred-year-old truths of monopoly impact on our market economy.
Capitalism is not automatically the same as monopoly and oligopoly. It can become that, when it sickens. It has.
4
A course or segment on the subject of Social Media should be offered in every high school. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are as attached to us (especially youth) as our arms and legs. Who does not have a smart phone, and who does not have at least one constant connection to one of those apps on their phone? Our kids are experts with these apps, but only as users. Considering the impact these apps have on our lives (and not just politics and elections) it would be useful for all of us to view these tools from a critical viewpoint.
1
@Steve Social media is not unique in this. All forms of media should be handled this way. TV, video games, basic web browsing, etc. It’s up to parents to set boundaries. It’s up to individuals to decide for themselves if any form of media is right for them.
The solution is to the Facebook dilemma is relatively simple, even if it is not politically achievable. Because it operates over public airwaves and bandwidth, the Internet and social media should be regulated as public utilities, just as with electricity, water, sewer and landline telephones.
In exchange for the right to operate as a monopoly over public airwaves, entities like Facebook and Amazon should be required to demonstrate how they operate in the public interest, treating all of their customers equally and with full transparency (net neutrality, anyone?).
As with public utilities, this regulation should occur at the state level, through the various existing state public utilities commissions.
The institutional regulatory framework is already there. It is just that Facebook, Amazon and others have been able to avoid regulatory scrutiny through their immense political power and their financial sway over the Washington political culture.
6
@John M Not true. It's not like broadcast networks or AM and FM radio; more like cable TV — it's a purchased private service.
"He pointed to "network monopolies" like railroads, AT&T and electrical utilities . . . ." The Internet is not at all comparable to previous monopolies. To begin, it is addictive and is used by everyone (a majority of people, at any point in history, never road a train). The Internet is now first a psychological force and a means of communication second. In 30 years, tech will enjoy "servant" status: computers will "understand" and "talk" like in the movies, robots will be a mushrooming status symbol; and when we figure out how to get sex out of them, our godhead will be complete. Pandora's box hasn't been opened, it's been smashed. Culturally, we're addicted to free/cheap and no structure; reasonable regulation would have to involve all three; we're not going to change. The solution to Facebook is obvious: don't use Facebook. The simplicity of the solution tells me the problem isn't Facebook; it's Facebook's "users," as in "addicts."
As far as Zukerberg and Sandberg engaging in antisemitic behavior is concerned, I know I never expected better.
2
I closed and permanently deleted my Facebook account two years ago, shortly after Trump was elected. Aside from the fact that scrolling through Facebook posts was a monumental waste of time, I was fed up with the overt hostility - sometimes coming from me - that seemed to permeate the platform. It should be called "anti-social media" or "confrontational media." Unintended consequences can certainly come back and bite you. Adios, Mark and Cheryl.
10
FB is a predator. Like trump and his corrupt cronies, FB is all about the money, and will do whatever it takes to dominate the world and make more billions for its investors. That's the name of its game. Assuming that there's value in FB's ability to connect people and community, the core issue is its business model - how it derives revenue and profits. No need to shut them down. The thing to do is either regulate them as a monopoly (think California energy utilities with strong regulators) or nationalize them and redirect its underlying values and purpose for existence as a public benefit entity. Instead of FB as a predator whose "soul" purpose is maximization of short-term profits at ALL costs (e.g.; selling out to Russians and anyone for a buck), use their technology for public good instead of private profit. This is what we'd call "business leaders for scandalous profits." They make their money by stealing your private information and selling it to others who will then turn around and advertise to you. FB is a symptom of how American capitalism (I'm a business person for 35 years) has devolved into "predatory capitalism" - ANYTHING goes for a buck. This is exactly what is destroying lives (think NRA and gun / ammo manufacturers; think "food" with zero nutritional value - Coke, Pepsi), and the destruction of our natural environment (oceans filling up with our garbage, plastics, turning acidic due to burning fossil fuels). FB makes visible systemic rot.
5
@EWH, Also, we're now learning that California energy utilities may have had a role in the two most devastating fires in the state's history. Think of the consequences of the blaze ignited due to FB's meddling in our political system – for profit!
1
I wish the tone of this was less snide. I have been looking for one simple article with links to more information that I can send to family members that might help convince them to dump Facebook, and this was almost it... but once Michelle got into trashing Facebook's consultants because their founders are Republicans, I gave up.
I have family members who no longer inform me about things like the births of their children because I don't use social media. I really want them to take back ownership of their data, but have not yet found a resource that I can use for support with folks who don't read critically. Can someone at the Times please take the chip off the shoulder for an hour or two and write or draw such a thing?
3
The FB anti-social monopoly should be subdivided into discreet bubbles just as it has done to its users and their communities. "Tit for tat." Break it up.
3
So if gang members mailed each other insulting letters, you would get rid of the Postal Service? From there your flailing just gets worse. Once upon a time television was the beguiling beast luring us from our better natures. Before that it was automobiles or radio or yellow journalism. I also remind the exploited masses that Facebook does not belong to the government -- any more than the New York Times or Radio KRP in Cincinnati.
3
Most people employ the Internet not to seek the best information, rather to select information that confirms to their prejudices. Given this demand, its natural that peddlers of conspiracy theories and fake news step in to supply whatever misinformation satisfies the consumer.
Facebook cant fix this problem, its innate to humanity! ... None of us are as dumb as all of us.
1
Michelle fails to mention that Chuck Schumer's youngest daughter works at Facebook as a marketing manager, which might also explain his request that Warner tone down his criticism.
And establishment democrats still wonder why us liberals and progressives are so furious with the party.
And Facebook executives playing both sides of the anti-semitism 'angle' to distract and to discredit their critics, is **exactly** the type of disinformation that they were all too willing to allow Russian operatives to post to their platform!
Bottom line: The people who run Facebook cannot be trusted to fix this problem on their own. Period.
2
Um... there's a Facebook link in your article. Why did you allow your editor to have it on there?
The "do as I say!" crowd lives on.
3
Facebook is gradually killing itself. It is doing so with
advertisers by lying about target audience delivery. It is
doing so with users by bombarding them with maximum amounts resented ads plus a lack of data privacy and objectionable and political content. They are gradually
killing the golden goose.
1
So, is Facebook the problem? or is it people´s stupidity?
3
What's important to remember about Facebook is that we - the people who use it - are not the consumers. We're the product. Their whole business model relies on monetizing our data - without that, they'd be making zilch.
So, if you can't delete your Facebook but want to hit 'em back, here's what you can do besides just using it less:
-Go to your privacy settings and remove any apps you don't use anymore. You might be surprised how many there are that you totally forgot about. And anything you've logged into using Facebook, maybe consider switching to a typical username and password.
-For those you do still use, make sure you're giving them access to as little data as possible. (You actually CAN choose to limit that in many cases.)
-Scrub your profile of any personal data you don't feel compelled to share, including work and educational history.
-Turn off location sharing if you use the app on your phone - even while you're using the app.
-Any time you see an ad on Facebook, mark it as irrelevant. Eventually, you'll see far fewer ads - you might get lucky and start having a basically ad-free experience.
If you're Facebook's product, make yourself as unappealing a product as possible.
18
We need to re-enact the fairness doctrine in all areas of the media, including the internet. Do not allow anyone to vilify anyone or anything without offering equal time and or space to refute the vilification.
The Great Reagan got rid of the doctrine and we have had to suffer ever since with the likes of those media and now internet trolls.
Fairness, what a unique concept!
7
@Joseph Tierno The internet is not radio or television. There is no barrier to entry. You and everyone else already have the ability to counter any perspective found on the internet. Facebook is no different as you have the ability to either comment on a post or share a post and create your own comments around it. Additionally, you can post your perspectives and others can counter them.
2
Let's fix the headline: "People Should Un-Friend Facebook"
There.
The company profits from ad revenue. The users are the product, and Facebook uses everything it can to hook into our neural ape to keep users hooked.
Oh, and their research department of data scientists, sociologists, etc, who use the Facebook community as the experimental subjects.
Why stay on this thing? It's a tool based on manipulation and it's a platform that's easily manipulated.
4
Anyone who thinks Facebook is a problem needs to become better in touch with the USA's real problems including poverty, ignorance and lack of health and dental care. I generally agree with Ms. Goldberg's opinions but this column falls flat.
4
I quit Facebook and all social media in 2014. Everything that has happened since then has confirmed that decision. Maybe it's possible to construct social media in a non-destructive way, but none other platforms are there yet. Or really even seem like they want to move in that direction. Besides, Zuckerberg is a straight-up thief and conman and who wants to support a person like that?
2
I use facebook only because my wonderful children post pictures. I do not post. I do not do "likes." I do not use it for newsfeeds or any other infirmation. I basically despise it. Break it up.
3
I would love to see Ms. Goldberg one time write from a non-political point of view. EVERYONE should boycott Facebook. This isn’t a political issue, it is deeper than that. Society is at stake
1
I left Facebook a year ago after becoming aware of it’s inability and indifference to regulate the lies and hate circulating in posts. At the time, I felt like a curmudgeon. Now, sadly, I feel vindicated.
143
As so often happens, all of this hand-wringing about a mega-corporation is happening even as Adam Smith's invisible hand is doing its grim work of making the company irrelevant. Remember when AOL was going to take over the world?
Even as it keeps gaining users in the developing world, here at home, Facebook increasingly is taking on the aspect of a virtual old-age home. The few young people who haven't completely migrated to Instagram, or wherever the kids are these days, are trolls or weirdos.
I'm on Facebook less and less these days; after a few years, it's become depressingly apparent that most people there are lonely and don't have very interesting lives. So take a breath, Michelle, relax and think of MySpace.
3
@HKGuy
Of course, Instagram is owned by Facebook.
@Old Mountain Man I know. But the problem is with Facebook. Funny she doesn't mention Twitter, which I find far more insidious.
1
A Facebook meme has become widely regarded as the least reliable source available for accurate information. I have a few FB friends who believe them in spite of their reputation. At least we can tell who they are. One of many FB features I have found useful is the ability to gage the gullibility of my fellow users.
2
A few days before the reports of unbelievable theft of the information facebook has gathered on people my niece insisted that facebook was "totally secure".
Many people have their heads in the sand and their immediate response is, "I don't have anything to hide". The problem is that, because they know me, my personal information is endangered even though I do not use social media except to comment on news sites.
It's not about "hiding". It's about protecting OUR lives from corporate takeover for profit.
I sincerely hope that the facebook/amazon/google/instagram/snapshot users I love are not ruined by their trust in corrupt Robber Barons. The 0.01% own/control it all and all they care about is more wealth in their pockets so they can pay over
$90 MILLION for a painting.
Sick.
9
@njglea No one is forced to use Facebook. It’s an option. I know many people who do not have Facebook accounts. Whether Facebook exists as a business or not should be determined by the free market.
1
@njglea But it's true! A Facebook hacker would learn nothing about me that couldn't be found doing a cursory google search.
@John
FB is only part of the problem, every Google search or site you visit is tracked by Google, Bing, and other 3rd party providers.
The fact is even the NY Times tracks your searches; in case you have not noticed start looking for product and voila your NYT's page is full of products you recently searched.
Facebook is a business designed to address a social reality in order to make money. Moral rot, social conscience, integrity, honesty, and an ethical foundation shaping and driving the business are easily trumped by a business ideology. This is precisely why our nation needs well thought out and properly enforced rules and regulations. We see this play out in most human activities. It's our human condition friends and we need to face it honestly.
4
Create an alternative platform...just include a method to verify identity. Real people only. No corporations or businesses. Make it fee based and don’t sell personal information.
3
@Gershwin Go ahead and do so. Just don’t think that you or the government should have the legal right to force Facebook to do so.
After Trump was elected, I stopped using Facebook. I realized that Facebook tricks me into thinking I’m taking action by reposting articles and voicing my opinion either to people who already think like me, or don’t and just argue, both parties (myself included), being rather stubborn and not open to the others point of view. The platform ruins discourse. It is easy to not agree when the person isn’t actually there. My conversations about politics are different when I am face to face with a person, or even on the phone. When I fought with people over Facebook, I found myself anxious, waiting for the reply. afterwards, I was ashamed by my own rhetoric.
My friends and family still update me on their lives through text, phone and in real life. I spend my time making connections with the people I truly care about.
Instead of Facebook, every time I find myself idle and wanting something to do, I open up my news apps. This has made me more informed and understanding of the world. This has made me happier, more interesting to talk to and freer. I’ve never looked back. I miss nothing.
32
@Nell, I am with you 100%. I deleted my account a while ago and don't miss it one bit. It took time to get past the addiction of checking in but once I did, I realized how much more at ease i felt. facebook triggers so many unnecessary emotions and that is exactly their objective. And over time, i felt i could not trust anything i read on fb unless it was a link to a real news source that has real editors and pays real consequences for untrue and unverified news.
2
@Nell It's called "slactivism." I was really hoping you would conclude with "Instead of Facebook, every time I find myself idle and wanting something to do, I join/organize a real-world protest." Opening apps is only a continuation of the same "virtual" nonsense.
1
@HKGuy That's not fair. She's keeping herself informed, which is vital, and not at all "a continuation of the same 'virtual' nonsense".
2
Yes, I agree with Michele Goldberg that Facebook is bad. When I told this to my kids in the past, they just laughed. As it turned out, Facebook is no longer a laughing matter considering our present set of circumstances. I believe that if current Facebook users do not find a better alternative - and soon - to spend their precious time on, we shall deserve all that what Facebook 'gifts' to us, Trump comes to mind.
3
If Facebook (and Twitter) only allowed comments to be posted in a handwritten font, all would be solved.
5
Welcome to democracy - the worst form of government except for all the others. Facebook is used by billions who have no clue about politics, regulations, freedoms, etc. And no one dares tell them that. Ergo - lose lose.
2
@RobinOttawa Facebook is not primarily a political forum. Facebook is primarily a social forum. Why do so many deem it necessary to mislabel what Facebook is? The vast majority of people use Facebook to post pictures of their lives and stay in communication with people they know. Facebook is a neutral platform for user created content that survives by selling ads.
1
Oh Michelle, Michelle...you pen "...Without Facebook, Donald Trump probably wouldn’t be president..." Plu-eze, it's wasn't Facebook, the Russians, nor the deplorable hoi-polloi , t'was our Democratic party and our arrogance that put this man in office
5
@jwillmann: You are wrong. Both things can be true.
1
@jwillmann
T'was it?
Last time I checked the Democrat got three million more votes than putin's beard.
2
There are many comments about lifting anonymity from FB. It's really about the lack of civility in general. I like to use my real first name and real last initial only, but I'd like to think that my comments are mature, non- threatening and civil. Yes there are those who hide behind anonymity and are vile because of that ability, but those people were raised improperly. Our politicians and cable news pundits have been spewing divisiveness and hatred for decades and social media has empowered them and the masses to embrace their vulgarity. To them it feels good to put people down. No one talks about peace and love anymore. It's quite amazing that we haven't blown ourselves up yet.
3
After years of resistance, I finally broke down and upgraded to a Google "Smart" phone after my old "Flip" phone finally gave out. Unfortunately, the phone may be "Smart" but the new user, that being me, must be "stupid," since simple tasks such as editing contacts or adding "Ringtones," which were very simple on my "Dinosaur" phone are a major headache on my new "Smart" phone.
However, I digress, my biggest problem with my new phone is it automatically syncs my computer contacts and information without providing me with any notification, and as cited in the 60 Minutes report this past week on the European Privacy Act, as an American user I am not afforded those same basic privacy rights. I hardly ever use FB, except to make video calls, but even here I am probably better off just going back a landline or return my phone and get something simple to use, after all, I am retired, have access to a laptop, and my old phone was just that, a phone.
Additionally, although I have few "friends" they are mostly family, and the Right Wing nonsense they spew has me wondering why I even bothered "friending" them. What is even sadder, is their animosity towards the government, and a number of my family members are either retired government employees or their jobs only exist because of government contracts.
My apologies for the long rant, but I have said it many times, FB is the new Babel, and I should listen to myself and get out.
6
What would make one think that a super wealthy person has someone other than themself as their primary concern? Facebook was made to make money, what else do you need to know?
5
Being a Democrat never factored into my decision not to use FaceBook after initially signing up years ago. FaceBook is inherently lame, peppered with pictures of peoples pets, kids and detailed accounts of their uneventful lives. I have better things to do with my time like have a cup of coffee with a friend or take a walk along the waterfront park near where I live. Get out an explore and see the real world and leave the virtual one behind.
8
It seems that that the biggest problem with Facebook is that it exists. The abuse of it was bound to happen because it is human nature to abuse anything from automobiles to nicotine.
Should we ban automobiles because a few people are reckless drivers or drive while drunk?
2
Senator Chuck Schumer has disappointed me greatly.
He has put his principals aside for his own personal gain. His daughter works at Facebook in NY. His campaign receives large amounts of money from Facebook.
Is Senator Schumer protections the American people’s interests or his own?
4
@Robert Y,
"Large amounts".
That's one of those phrases that completely disqualifies you as a reliable source.
Sorry Bobby, this ain't facebook or fox.
We rely on facts here.
Who would praise or blame fire if it cooks your dinner or burns their hand? It is time for the grownups to take charge here. Big tech is not just another industrial revolution, where power gets consolidated. The computer revolution is based on the fact that ideas (programs/software) can not be privatized. The power of computers and their programs are freely available to all. In the early sixties the hippie programmers, at MIT as one example, resisted the privatization of software and it's programs, and made them honed and owned by everyone and anyone. Your call to regulate should acknowledge this, or you have no right to speak to the issue. PHP and MYSQL are two the central programs that underlie Facebook's operations, and ANYONE can use these programs. Do you really want to regulate this, and retard the progress that the cognitive revolution has brought us? Please become aware of the open source and free software movement, that empowered, as one example, the woman who founded The Huffington Post.
1
@timothy holmes: Regulation can be good, timothy
Either we control it or it will continue to control us. If we don`t control it the we are slaves to a cash register controlled by a guy who only owns one shirt.
2
In 1450 the printing press was invented, by 1475 it was really up and running. In the next century it produced over 100 million books, about two for every adult in Europe. And so people learned to read. The result was not enlightenment, but violent argument as they all read the bible and found they disagreed about what it meant. Suddenly the forum of public debate, till then mostly left to the priestly caste, became flooded with all sorts of half-educated people and their half-baked ideas, eager to prove the old maxim that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. There followed more than 100 years of bloody religious warfare.
In 1990 the internet was invented, by 2000 it was really up and running. In 2007 came the first smartphone and soon everyone was connected all the time. Suddenly the forum of public debate, till then mostly left to the readers of broadsheet newspapers, was flooded with Archie Bunkers, half-educated conspiracy theorists, xenophobic grandmas and middle-aged misanthropes living in vans. Suddenly people were brought face to face with the violence of their disagreement, even as they also found silos where everyone saw things their way. The result was not enlightenment.
Its Rene Girard's mimetic theory in motion. Its tribalism, Othering and schismogenesis leading to alterity (reactionary movements). It an explosion of demagogic populism, ethnic and religious violence. Its the worldwide advance of autocrats...
... It’s the dying of the West!
1
One might ask: why is there no open-source alternative to Facebook? I mean, Facebook was built on existing software technologies; they’ve figured out how to scale it enormously, but there’s no magic there.
The problem is the cost: Facebook keeps all its servers spinning and its engineers paid by selling your privacy to companies and politicians who want to use your desires to manipulate you. It only appears free— as the old cartoon with the pigs pondering their situation said, “if it’s free, you’re not the consumer; you’re the product.”
I wonder what Facebook would cost if you had to pay for it? The company is supposedly worth tens of billions of dollars... do you really think it would be worth it?
1
Lean out. WAY out.
Seriously.
when “ruthless monopolies” are as excellent & useful as facebook, i vote “more power to’m!”.
FB doesn’t need to be “un-friended” & it doesn’t need to be regulated; it needs users who have enough common sense to be skeptical of everything they read on the interwebs, whether it’s coming from FB or anywhere else, until they’ve reliably verified it or unless its credibility is widely acknowledged.
anyone who doesn’t possess that basic skill should have the cell chips, wifi chips, & networking ports disabled on all devices to which they have access. seeking professional help would also be advisable. problem solved.
2
Bravo!
@Frederick Round
But, easily said.
The only thing worse than misinformation is to have censors filtering out 'misinformation'.. gives too much power to the censor, assumes people are too stupid to figure it out themselves.
How ridiculous would it be to ban the pro Flat Earth folks.. Alex Jones types too
The strongest arguments against Facebook are applicable to social media in general and more broadly the incipient addictive nature of electronic media. They are corrosive of civil social interaction and genuine human interaction. I belonged to FB for a year or so and left because of this artificiality, the blatant attempts at manipulation not to mention the endless stream of grandchildren photos from friends and the petty minutiae of their lives.
2
Facebook is the modern equivalent of a newspaper's letters to the editor. The US Constitution protests the people's right to say what they want on platforms like Facebook. While as a left leaning Democrat, I am appalled by many of the posts on Facebook, trying to muzzle those comments is a direct violation of all Americans' right to voice their opinion.
2
I despair at the depth of ignorance revealed here, about basic economic facts, such as the grave consequences of monopoly power.
It shows that monopoly power over communications is even more dangerous, because it wilfully keeps the consumer too ignorant to demand a breakup of the monopoly.
133
Goldberg's column is absolutely on target regarding the historic similarities between Facebook and the new-technology monopolies of previous eras. Time to regard Zuckerberg as no different than previous robber barons.
7
I see Facebook as a medium, such as English or other languages. I've derived a lot of advantages from FB such as meeting old friends and getting business contacts. Yes, it is true FB has facilitated some bad stuff. So has use of the English (and other) languages. If it wasn't for the English language, Donald Trump wouldn't have been elected president. Ban English? I don't think so. Same goes for FB.
3
@Brian Fan of English? Look up "straw man argument". Just because FB And E have some things in common, that does not make them the same in this sense. Sheesh.
I use Facebook to publish links to interesting articles that appear in publications and on other Facebook pages. It is just a new way to publish information to people and groups I don't know. I also follow various pages that publish interesting articles.
I don't believe in "family and friends" as a category. Some people associated with work and school are in my "friends" list, not a lot. I don't publish pictures or personal information. (They do, mostly.) All my posts are "public".
Yes, Facebook is easier to use than a web page. Thus many nonprofits and other organizations use it, not very nicely. It is like a polluted river, dirty but still convenient for boating. Live streaming FB pages are VERY useful.
1
Facebook's structure and function ('a la Zuckerberg & Sandberg) copied their response plan from:
-the Catholic church (bishops, pope, vatican curia) &
-the Trump Foundation (papa trump, baby trumps, and
entourages).
Of course, there are others who have also adopted this model and are influences, but these above violators hold positions having pronounced influence on our humanity and democracy.
1
Most profound comment about Facebook (and other social media platforms): "The customer is the product."
I left Facebook in July 2016. No regrets and a huge relief.
7
This issue of whether Facebook is destroying democracy is worth discussing. But the author trivializes it by taking partisan view. Facebook may or may not have gotten Trump elected but we have no idea which side it will favor next time. But I think Facebook will fizzle out on it's own. Already young people have migrated elsewhere. I for one find it less and less rewarding to talk about anything more substantial than cute cat photos. In are world where no one ever changes their minds what is the point?
5
I find it fascinating that the left thinks that Fox News wields great influence on American politics and Facebook is a just a bit player.
If one wants to find echo chambers, one need look no further than Facebook and Twitter...
And you wonder why Trump has been so successful in going over the heads of the press...much to their great distress?
4
FOX is the reason Trump is the pretend President. I know a few FOX watchers. Old white males who watch FOX 24/7 . They are Trump cult members. They are so brainwashed I can't even have an intelligent conversation with them. Sad. Scary. Catastrophic for the U.S.
1
The problem is there is no effective competitor. Facebook has a reality monopoly because no one has chosen to build a more ethical mousetrap that can do what FB does. Who makes effective use of FB for under the radar organizing and execution? All the resistance organizations with closed, secret group by admission only, that cleaned out dozens of GOP reps in the House and will help bring down Trump as they clean the GOP Majority out of the Senate. It was use of Facebook Live that played a crucial role In Beto coming within inches of Cruz and raising tons of grassroots cash.
How is this to be reconciled with the dark threat of dishonest Zuckerberg and his two-faced partner, Ms Sandberg?
7
Facebook is a drug, for Narcissism. But not for treatment, it just feeds the beast. Seriously.
8
It is past time to regulate the internet
Anyone who posts or comments should use their full name. Want to start trouble? Then own it.
19
@Deirdre Diamint: Constitutionally everyone has a right to their opinion and cannot be forced to reveal their name or address when expressing their opinions, no matter how vile. Controlling the right to people posting vile, hate, or false comments in the media is a fascist objective. Freedom of the press and freedom of speech and yes, Facebook is a modern version of a newspaper and a public forum is one of our founding principles.
1
The National Enquirer and other tabloids still sell in San Francisco or Palo Alto, not 'news-deserts', we just have to wait patiently until Facebook turns into the world's largest tabloid.
1
Yes. Dump Facebook.
Live by the market. Die by the market.
7
@McGloin If Facebook goes down because users leave the platform and the market is responsible then I have no arguments with that. If as many espouse, Facebook is killed by the government as an overreaching attempt to control speech then that is a serious problem.
1
But it's free!
2
Comparing Facebook to a kitchen knife is comical. The knife doesn`t stab you in the back on its own unless someone has a devious intention. Facebook is not interested in truth or honesty and is being used as a tool to destroy lives and maybe even our culture. Yes, it is time to regulate and hold the man behind the curtain accountable for the misuse of this new weapon.
I dropped it over the summer and don`t miss it a bit. All of my contacts are still available through other means. Good riddance Mr. Zuckerberg!
10
It's fair game to pile on Facebook right now, but let's not think for a minute that journalists like Goldberg or even the hallowed New York Times are not engaged in the active manipulation of opinion and the concealment of their own journalistic warts. Goldberg, in particular, can hardly be reasonably seen as unbiased or objective in her reporting and writing.
2
I gather from the little "f" that ironically it's possible to share this article on Facebook? Please do so before you delete your accounts. (I have never tried Facebook partly because I don't see how freedom can survive without privacy.)
3
@Barbara: You exercised your freedom to speak your mind when you decided not to use Facebook. I exercise my freedom to speak when I post on the NYT comment page or on Facebook.
1
It's always struck me as amazing how such feature-poor software can suck up so much user time; users who are eager to let the owners monetize their information. People can be such incredible suckers.
Last century software developers actually created useful things (word processing, spreadsheets, online banking, etc). Now it's all about seeing who can get the most clicks while sucking up volumes of personal information. It's truly a pathetic turn for the industry. And the resulting harm to society is just getting started.
11
I deleted my account recently after I heard from acquaintances that my account had repeatedly sent out friend requests to people without my knowledge or approval.
4
Nothing is going to happen here. People will continue to wake up each morning and check their Facebook feed. It is as ingrained as pouring that first cup of coffee. An addiction most can let go of, be they Democrat or Republican.
Look at what's directly under the headline - An option to share this on Facebook. That should tell you all you need to know.
1
@Jack: And every morning, I read the NYT and my local paper online. I also read and write comments on both the NYT and Facebook sites. If one is afraid of Facebook, then they should no use it.
3
Facebook has never made sense to me.
It has only ever seemed to be a lazying technology that promises artificial connections by avoiding the need to make any direct personal contact.
It's one step short of entering The Matrix.
8
I had to evacuate Paradise when it burned. A Facebook page, butte wx spotter, gave me the information I needed to get out of the town immediately. That page probably saved lives. Now I’m getting heads up on what I need to do to recover from the Town, the County, from Cal Fire and other sources.
Now that I’m staying with a friend. Facebook is the central source for information and connecting with the resources I need to get things together in a truly stressful and chaotic time. I can also find friends and pass information to the quickly.
I won’t totally defend Facebook. I know of it’s problems. I’m starting to get ads from lawyers about suing PG&E. However, I not disconnect until a better source comes along b
10
Am I the only one who remembers that several Russian oligarchs invested heavily in Facebook prior to and shortly after it went "public"?
What was their motivation and what influence did they have in the beginnings of the platform?
Facebook blew off Congress after the 2016 elections, it's time to find out the truth.
Anybody who still is using the platform should consider themselves a tool of the Russians.
5
Never been on FB, and never will. The world existed long before and will continue to exist long after FB fades away to some new fad. The bad far exceeds to "good" that FB claims to make. Ask yourself, do I really need this? If you are honest with yourself, you will say NO!
5
@Theni; If you have never used Facebook then how come you feel qualified to claim that the "...bad exceeds the "Good." ?
Yep, let's blame Facebook. Always easy to blam someone or something else. But it's not Facebook which is the problem, Michelle, it's us.
You kind of hit on that answer when you wrote, "Without a trusted news source, people are more vulnerable to the atmosphere of disinformation."
Why are people "more vulnerable"? I'd argue it's because we educate children to memorize, regurgitate and conform rather than to think deeply and unflinchingly into what makes us humans tick. And that failure isn't just limited to Trumpistas. Just look at the cult of victimhood which has been embraced by so many liberals.
In fact, this column is a pointed example of that very embrace. We are all the victims of Facebook. No, we are victims of the fact that when given free rein to connect with each other, the demons of our nature are what come to the fore. 'Course, that fact will never be appreciated or even know since we have never been asked to do what the ancient Greeks taught -- Know Thyself.
5
I see many posts here about how bad Facebook is. Well here's something I use it for - every single protest and act of resistance I've engaged in since the 2016 election, beginning with the Women's March in January 2017 was due to the information I found on Facebook. I've made many new friends and reconnected with friends from grade school through college because of Facebook.
People can lie on email, in person, on Twitter, on any platform. Look at Fox News and what's in the White House. Look at the website for ALEC - it's a whitewash of lies.
I use Facebook to connect with people I otherwise wouldn't, and to find and sift through information; Facebook almost always gives me something to go on and it's quicker and then I go on to verify with other sources. I subscribe to The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, - keep up with breaking news on Facebook, Twitter and Apple news i.e. whether NJTransit is operating at all - all good things for me.
Use it; don't use it. We have a government run by liars and cheaters and obfuscators and nobody's doing anything about that. They're in power until 2020.
The ultimate checks and balance is the individual.
8
This is why we can't have nice things!
While Facebook is problematic, can we please stop excusing people's gullibility? I understand that some people are super susceptible to fear-mongering, but they were forwarding emails and believing fox news long before Facebook.
7
I call it "Fake"book. A friend of mine spends more time there than in the real world, writing about how she rides her bike in the snow - - except she doesn't even have a bike.
Facebook, Farcebook, Fakebook. It's all balogna.
4
Hey Michelle:
Agreed. I did it about a year ago. Deleted my account entirely. I figured that was the only way Zuck and Sandberg would hear my protests. Just think if everyone gave up that horrible time vampire!
3
Facebook would do well to take the same approach to comments and recommendations that the NYT does. The result would be fewer comments, better written ones, and a lot better discourse. The amount of time saved, multiplied by the minimum wage, would easily exceed Zuckerberg's net worth.
@Mike S...
Not necessarily.
Four years ago, the NY Times comment section was a cesspool of ad hominem attacks name calling. character assassinations, innuendo, and false accusations.
I spend three years compiling the really egregious postings that were allowed by the Times moderators and sent copies to Public Editors Margret Sullivan and Liz Spayd, Masthead Standards Editor Phillip Corbett, Comment Editor Bassey Etim, and Managing Editor Dean Baquet. There were rarely less than twenty in my daily e-mails. None of those sent actually met the NY Times's own standards.
(See: https://www.nytco.com/who-we-are/culture/standards-and-ethics/)
Significant improvement has been shown in moderating since then, but there are still far too many comments that are nothing but baseless screeds of bitter people venting their spleens.
It is somewhat a mistake, too, to characterize the comments here on the Times as "better discourse" except in comparison to some of the other sites that still allow comments.
Discourse implies measured discussion of all sides of the issues. And in most issues of import to our nation, there ARE "sides" to be explored.
Read for yourself, sir, and answer honestly are the "sides" actually explored?
I suspect, like me, you will understand just how one-sided, biased, and even bitter the "discourse" actually remains.
1
I wish Michelle Goldberg and others would just get over their intense antipathy for Facebook. A ruthless monster? Hardly.That sounds a bit extreme!
So you don't like Facebook; then don't use it. What about Twitter? Most of the harm done in the political arena, is right there on Twitter, with Trump right in the lead.
By the way, I am a Democrat and a harmless grandmother enjoying her family's harmless posts on Facebook.
3
Proud Luddite (or at least the 21st century version thereof) speaking here. I've never understood the fascination with social media. Facebook grew from a program written by a nerd to get photos of hot coeds along with information about them into a metastatic monster that is aiding and now, it is being shown, abetting political disinformation and potentially global conflict up to and including instigating war. The original intent was the very definition of "sophomoric" which, if memory serves, was Zuckerberg's 2nd year at Harvard.
College sophomore invents program to sponge up personal information on hot girls and scales it up to planet-wide proportions with essentially no adult supervision. What could possibly go wrong?
I'm not the only person with a cell phone who uses it only for the purpose of making and receiving phone calls and (grudgingly) an occasional text message, but I'm beginning to think there are fewer of us than there were Republican candidates for president for the 2016 election.
"Unfriending" Facebook is not the answer to anything. Shutting Facebook and its like-minded ilk down might in time help return us to civility and compromise in politics. It might also get people to speaking to each other face-to-face again.
Luddite than I am, I feel no pity or compassion for those addicted to their "smart" phones. You have no one but yourself --and Mark Zuckerberg-- to blame. He's obscenely rich, you aren't. That, too, is your fault.
3
With this argument, we should cancel cable and satellite subscriptions because they carry Fox News.
2
@Daniel B...
A la carte cable offerings would be a blessing...
But then Comcast couldn't pay billions for sports entertainment that few watch any more.
1
Michelle, why not take a real stand and delete your Facebook page?
Do you really need that garbage? Does anyone?
The human race managed to survive without social media for a long time. Personal communications should be between you, your friends and the NSA. No good can come from writing your private experiences in someone else’s diary.
As crazy as I think it is for an adult to share the minutiae of their lives with so many people, why in the world any parent would consent to having their children's every thought stored perpetually in a digital dossier, sold to the highest bidder, and potentially used against them in the future is beyond me.
I signed up for Facebook about 10 years ago, but quickly deleted my account after realizing that there are very few people I like and even fewer who like me. I have no interest in Pinterest, I’m not a fan of Instagram, and few things make me sicker than Flickr. (Also when it comes to search engines, if I want a recipe for kugel, I don’t search on Google)
Come on. Delete your page. If you don't, you're contributing to the company that put Donald Trump in the White House.
2
"As The Times reported, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer — who in 2016 received more donations from Facebook employees than any other member of Congress — pressured Senator Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia, to back off from his pointed inquiries into the company."
She forgot to include that Schumer's daughter works for Facebook.
But FB also played both parties so they could keep going without oversight or regulation. Republicans as well as Democrats should be paying attention to this level of corruption/manipulation and dishonesty.
Those two leaders need to go. Let them lean in to something else. I'm sick of their faces and their product.
1
I am a registered Democrat and I have no intention of giving up on Facebook. Any technology can be used for either good or bad. We just need to figure out how to make FB work for us and not against us.
Beyond using FB to keep in touch with relatives, I also use it for participating in various support groups, which have been invaluable.
And, I'm in groups that arrange get-togethers in person through FB. In one group we meet the first Saturday of every month at 6pm, each time at a local restaurant we haven't been to before and then we go to a bar afterwards. I've made new friends whom I met first face to face through this group.
Also, I had one job before for more than a year that I found through FB, I've also had a job where I was actually paid to be a social manager on FB, and I'm in a few FB groups through which I've learned about and applied to new jobs.
One nice thing about FB is that occasionally it can be used as tool to help me clarify who is a friend. If I send a friend request to someone I've met and that person never accepts me, it is often a clear signal. Whereas in person when I meet someone I'm not always able to tell if there is friendship potential.
I do make a habit of reading every article that appears on how to stay safe on FB, and bookmark those articles. In those articles I ignore the 95% I already know and look for the remaining 5% information that I haven't seen before. Always invariably something new appears in every article that I learn from.
2
FB had me scan copy of my passport and drivers license to prove I was I.
Yet they complain about fake accounts.
I seldom go there nowadays.
1
The solution is simple: log off. Facebook is only as powerful as it's network of daily users. Stop logging on, and you curtail its power. The history of the internet is littered with once-powerful brands rendered irrelevant by a dearth of interest. Let's make Facebook the new Myspace.
12
Jack...Jack...Jack...
That's a logical and common sense solution. Unfortunately, as we all know, the logical and the commonsensical are never acceptable as answers.
Shame on you sir.
You also touch on the simple matter of personal responsibility. If you insist upon that, you are taking away the right to use "the victim card" to excuse what, in most others way of viewing, as "stupidity".
And we certainly can't let that happen. It would ruin the "victim's" self-esteem.
1
I deleted my Facebook account after they had said they never meant to do what they did with data, apologized about it, said it would never happen again - and then they did that same thing again, and then again.
That was in February, 2013.
10
The problem with social media platforms is that they play heavily upon the brain’s dopaminergic reward system, in a way that has completely unknown long-term effects. This creates an addiction which is not entirely unlike that of cocaine, albeit a bit milder.
And then there’s the algorithm. “Satanic” would probably be the single best word to describe the manner by which it operates. If that point needs any further illustration, consider how many suicides have been directly linked to digital social media involvement.
100
@ubique I agree with this completely.
Of course Times Picks and (now secretly) verified commenters are a much milder version of this.
The Times should also acknowledge that it would only verify commenters, when they started up the verification system, if they logged in with a FaceBook account, because, as Mark Zuckerberg then said, that would be a guarantee of the integrity of the user.
(I tried to block Mark Zuckerberg on FaceBook. You can't.)
15
@ubique
C'mon Ublique, it's no different than the dopaminergic reward we enjoy when our comments are picked. Yummy!
But I'm with you on everything else, sooner or later, the algorithm is gonna get ya. Gloria Estefan is very wise.
11
Subvert their purpose. People use Facebook as part of valuable voluntary associations, political and cultural. These range from Indivisible to groups preserving traditional music.
If FB goes back to the extreme trolliness of 2016, then dump it. If not, use it. Watch them, criticize them and then do whatever best suits your purpose.
I enjoy the aggregation of information from well-moderated groups. Maintaining their own sites is often too much of a burden for such groups, but they can, with a little care, leverage Facebook for their purposes.
5
There is no way to safely use Facebook. Remember, we are the product. Limiting one's use to communicating with friends & family does nothing to protect those f&f from pernicious uses of their data -- the real purpose of FB.
Another platform could be devised that was clean. It'd make a lot less money. But even a clean version would do nothing to discourage the nastiness that otherwise-restrained people find themselves spewing on (faceless) social media.
2
@Hyde Parker...
If you enjoy the aggregation "of information from well-moderated groups", you are having your information source filter all that you receive.
That is not the way to remain truly informed. Indeed, it merely means that you have entered an echo chamber whose voice does not necessarily reflect "All the News That's Fit to Print".
You might want to consider the relationship between the concept of "leverage" and "finesse". both of which involve sleight-of-hand and entrapment.
1
If everyone stopped using Facebook, MAYBE we might return to having real-life relationships and substantive conversations with other people, waste less time, and keep more of our personal information secure.
The time I spent reading friends' rantings, other people's rantings, ranting myself, and viewing pictures of the trips/desserts/families of others after sifting through the cartoons/quizzes and general misinformation (sometimes harmful, like bogus health information) they also post has been enjoyably used in other ways. Don't miss it at all. I sometimes read a book or call a good friend! My blood pressure is probably lower too.
4
@Deb...
Is your cell phone or tablet permanently glued to your hand?
Put down the phone...Walk slowly away...Don't look back.
Come on, gal, you can do it!
1
@The Owl
It isn't, never was, never will be, amen.
The year facebook got out of campuses and rolled to the public, I and the rest of my peers in the ad industry were introduced to the platform. Facebook was, according to my multinational ad agency New Media Department, a marketing platform. The department clarified that what is marketed is the facebook user and that the buyer is the corporation willing to pay for, in marketing parlance, leads. This was years before the “if it’s free, then you’re the one being sold” thinking went mainstream. And of course, as with any multinational, there was a manual on how we marketers should behave on facebook, which could be summed as “don’t get high on your own supply.”
I got off facebook the day I got out of the ad industry. Cold turkey. Never looked back. The most liberating experience in my life.
A couple of months ago, I ran across the New Media person and asked about what the industry term is now for social media marketing.
The answer?
“Surveillance marketing.”
20
Having already deactivated my FB account on several occasions, I finally deleted it last night. Goldberg’s excellent column has convinced me that I made the correct choice. I did spend a few minutes on it here and there, but I also knew that, for me, it was a waste of precious time, and rarely, if ever, did it offer anything of value to me.
4
Who uses Facebook? That's so very 2004. Facebook was obsolete even before they went public. I'd say the company died the minute they stopped restricting access to edu emails. Everything since then has been a complete disaster. Zuckerberg and Sandberg should both be fired.
I honestly don't need one hand to count the times I've used Facebook since 2016. Right now my account serves as an unpaid photo repository and a Rolodex for people I never see anyway. I should probably delete the account entirely. Like all things tech, Facebook's time has passed. Bye-bye now. I wish the rest of Facebook's users would move on.
8
I quit Facebook and Instagram and I can honestly say that I do not miss them. We lived without social media before and we can do it again. it's nice to walk around and look at nature and not think I have to snap a picture and upload it! It's nice to go to dinner and not take a picture of my food just eat my lovely meal and enjoy it! It's very freeing.
10
What we have here, gentlemen, is a tool.
Like all tools, Facebook and other social media can be used for good or ill. To analogize, pharmaceuticals, another tool, can be used to alleviate considerable suffering, or they can be used to cause it.
The key is not the individual, in case you thought I was headed that way (I am far from libertarian). The key is that all tools must be sensibly regulated. We would not think to allow pharmaceuticals to market without advanced testing and fairly strict regulations as to their use, with feedback mechanisms and penalties for abuse of those regulations. (At least I wouldn't--again, not a libertarian.) Social media are not different--they should be tested and regulated closely, as pharmaceuticals should be--they are both potentially highly addictive, and have effects on the public commons in addition to personal ones.
And, it may well be true that, like certain classes of drugs, certain types of social media may be so potentially dangerous, so ripe for abuse, that they should be extremely closely regulated, if allowed at all.
I have never had a Facebook account. When it became popular, I took a good hard look at its model, its monetizing of networks and presence, its potential for hidden abuse, and decided it wasn't for me. But others have decided it is for them. That's okay, but they deserve the same degree of protection from abuse that patients, or vehicle owners, or consumers deserve (and yes, don't always get).
16
The "tools", Glen, are the ones that are hooked on the platform.
In the circus and carnival worlds, they are called "suckers".
2
@Glenn Ribotsky
You forgot to mention guns - the ultimate tool that needs regulation.
Perhaps media companies need to remove the Facebook icon that links their articles allowing them to be shared on Facebook. It would be a way to begin to starve the beast.
Facebook should be broken up (why was it allowed to buy Istagram & Whatsapp - hmmm?) & heavily regulated. Facebook, Twitter et. al. are not spaces that are necessary to human existence - if they were gone we would all be fine. Perhaps we'd, once again, turn to local new sources, subscribe to print & online journalism (I subscribe to the this paper & pay for access). Journalism isn't free & shouldn't be - Facebook as a seemingly free platform confirms the maxim "In this world, you get what you pay for."
12
I joined FB ten years ago to stay in touch with a daughter who was studying in Europe, her younger sister had a presence on FB too. Today, they (the generation of first adopters of FB, now about 30) have all but abandoned the platform. They still have accounts there but are rarely active, they have moved on to other platforms. Why? Because when the Boomers flocked (me too) to FB the neighborhood went downhill in a big way. What started as a media for connecting with friends turned into a political free-for-all. They are not apolitical but found the sudden predominance of political posts tedious. At the same time FB exploded from a quaint trendy new shop into a giant corporate behemoth. One that may now need some kind of appropriate regulation. Now, where are the daughters? Oh right, Instagram. How long will it continue to be a pleasant refuge?
5
@Bailey
Boomers have ruined everything they inherited from their parents and are now ruining their kids’ world as well.
3
Facebook is a monopoly and the mystery to me is why so many have so little concern about having their information out in the public.I am from the quaint old generation who objected to having our names in the phone books which made it easy for advertisers to call us pitching products, usually at our dinner time.Now everyone is happy to share their information with anyone who can use it for good or evil.Nothing is ever “free”and Facebook is exhibit A.Society has paid a high price for the misinformation and the misdeeds emanating from the Facebook business model-sucking folks into info sharing and then letting advertisers glean all the information they want.
11
@Janet Michael...
They may monopolize the "social media" space, but, since they aren't selling the consumer anything, they aren't violating any anti-trust laws.
And therein lies the problem.
I rarely agree with Ms. Golberg, but this is one of the few times I am in concurrence.
Congress should be looking into the issue with the view of giving the Executive Branch the tools and the laws to assure that such social forces as Facebook never gain the power to control the political conversation.
If you want to rail against the rise of fascism, it would be far better, and far more appropriate, to focus on Facebook than it is to focus on the duly elected Trump administration.
The threat there is both clear and present.
2
I closed my Facebook account 5 years ago, when my daughter got old enough that I no longer felt I needed to ride herd on hers. Facebook is just a massive time-suck for the precious and the self-important.
8
You suckers signed up, now you live with it!
3
Un-friend is too kind. Boycott. Pull plug. Say good-bye. And hope you can wipe your account. That's the hard part about breaking up with FB.
5
Near their beginning, I joined Facebook. Within a few months, I decided that it just wasn't for me. The site almost begs you to sit in front of your computer, all day, so you won't miss a thing. I decided that that was no way to spend my life. I contacted Facebook to opt out. Opting out of Facebook, in their words, was for life. I could never go back and that was fine with me.
I was banned from Facebook for life or was I? I kept getting emails from Facebook, begging me to go back. I ignored them. If they couldn't keep their word that I was banned for life, why would I go back? Finally, after a few years of their begging and pleading, I was allowed back into their world. Then I remembered why I originally opted out and contacted them to opt out for a second time. This time it was easier. However, opting out does not remove my name, nor my page, of some original information that was on their site. It is as if I swallowed a tape worm, which goes from head to toe and cannot be totally extracted and killed.
14
"Without Facebook, Donald Trump probably wouldn’t be president, which is reason enough to curse its existence."
Actually, without Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump probably wouldn't be president.
Are you parroting Hillary's Excuse #17, or is it #42?
7
@Erik...
Ms Goldberg needs rationales to come to grips with Hillary's loss...
Like most liberals in the nation today...It's either that or hang their hat on fraud, which, of course, they have been telling us rarely, if ever, happens.
They need continually to relitigate the 2016 race in hopes that it turns out differently.
And the left wonders why the nation is divided?
1
Deleting my Facebook account in November of 2017 was a helpful decision for me. They had sent a congratulatory note saying something about my being on the platform for 7 years.....wow, how much time had I wasted?
It's a side benefit that the election non sense was not pumped to me from Facebook. I signed up for a NYT account and have felt better ever since. There are very few national publications that are not the National Enquirer in their attempts to reach/keep an audience. (sorry CNN, my old friend, you fail). I hope the NYT does not fall victim. I would suggest any Kardashian expose to not be anywhere near that first page. At least make people search for that nonsense. You want to tread a bout Kim? you have to click through Yemen first.....
2
This Democrat never friended Facebook. It was easy to see from the get-go that what an evil force it is.
5
Hi NYT Folks - I didn't know how else to reach out quickly about this other than to write a comment in M. Goldberg's typically great columns. Sorry I am reaching out in this fashion.
Can you please add a comments section to the Alex MacGillis piece "Why The Perfect Red-State Democrat Lost"?
Talk about an article that needs to be weighed in on!
Now I'll give Michelle's piece a good read. Thanks!
2
One of the very few columns Michelle has written I totally agree with. Facebook devoid of liberal Democrats would be a far better place! Please delete your profiles!
2
Kill the messenger's horse! That should take care of all of the unwanted and unpopular messages right?
The printing press was arguably the vector that led to the Protestant Reformation. Hitler used the radio, a new and disruptive medium, to advance his agenda to great effect. TV was blamed for Nixon losing his first presidential election as well as for the dumbing down of America.
All of these horses, the printing press, radio, or television didn't create the messages that changed to world. Every one of them, however, were blamed for the evils of the world at one time or another.
Now the messenger rides a new horse. Maybe we should learn to judge the message instead of trying to bridle the horse.
8
Well, how things change. There was a time when the Democrats loved Facebook https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2008/11/19/barack-obama-and-the-facebook-election.
But now that Mr Trump is in, Facebook is evil.
As Mr Obama said, we should be careful what we ask for and we should be doubly careful about precedents. If the Democrats cripple Facebook now, what will the Republicans do to Progressive media when they get a chance.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/01/19/obamas-constitutional-legacy/?utm_term=.4b40322ec94f
@Jim Olivi We did not recognize the extent of Russian active measures back in 2008, Jim; that was eons ago in social media time, and Russia's social media influence campaign in 2016 woke us up to the extent of the problem and the danger it poses to democracy. That's something ALL Americans should be concerned about. No one can deny the corrosive effect social media is having on civil society. No one can deny the way tyrants and the unscrupulous have seized upon social media and weaponized it to serve their wicked ends. Your comment just seems to be more of the same "unfair!" sniveling we get from Trump and his supporters.
1
In addition to being unable to control it's user content and being incapable of securing user data, Facebook has been a
threat to national security. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/05/technology/facebook-device-partnerships-china.html
1
Facebook is nothing more than a tool to stalk people. I think the Russians proved that in spades.
1
Facebook is a pox on humanity.
4
You're just too partisan to be a reporter.
@David She is an OPINION COLUMNIST. She's entitled to be partisan.
3
@David While i completely disagree with Ms. Goldberg's current column, it is in the Opinion section and, as such, is expected to be partisan. She is not a reporter but an Opinion Columnist, something that a reading of the piece would make clear.
1
Democrat Capitalists should take some responsibility in helping Donald Trump win: mainstream media gave him $2 billion in free advertising (meanwhile Hillary Clinton spent $1 billion and lost). If you think Facebook and Russia propaganda is the main source of misinformation, you should probably also delete NYT.
Yes!
1
Get off FB and subscribe to the New York Times.
6
Here's the NYT celebrating Obama's use of social media date. Of course, it's very different when Republicans do this.
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/23/magazine/the-obama-campaigns-digital-masterminds-cash-in.html
How nauseating that Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, both Jewish people, decided to smear George Soros with anti Semitic tropes. George Soros is a hero, who fights for democracy all over the world. Zuckerberg and Sandberg should (but probably won’t ) feel great shame in what they have done to promote anti Semitism . I recently reported an anti Semitic Facebook post, and I got a note back from Facebook saying it did not violate their community standards. One day later, the Pittsburgh shooting occurred .
10
Chuck Schumer is not suited for the Senate, let alone Minority Leader
4
If the Times the WSJ or any network news organization would have ran the story about Hillary being involved in a child pornography ring they would have been sued by Mrs Clinton into bankruptcy. All that is needed is to declare Facebook and it's peers to be the news organizations that are and be subject to libel laws. End of story.
2
Facebook executives have shown themselves (over and over at this point) to be cynical, disingenuous, manipulative and completely dishonest, basically just breathtakingly amoral.
The ‘crown jewel’ in their astonishing tower of shame has got to be the almost diabolical simultaneous use (by two Jewish executives, no less!?!!) of
a) an outside firm to promote the poisonous lie (espoused by the most malignant factions of the near-Nazi far right!) that a prominent liberal philanthropist, who also happens to be Jewish, is somehow ‘behind’ the waves of condemnation they’re getting from a justifiably outraged public even as
b) they heavily financially support a very powerful and prominent Jewish politician... who they’ve got going around telling other Senators and Congressmen to take it easy on them and give them the benefit of any doubts!!!
That is more, much more, than (just) awkward, ironic or hypocritical, it is blazingly plain evidence of a deliberate, and ongoing, corporate strategy & operation to actively deceive and manipulate not just the US government, but the entire population that these venal social media vampires supposedly ‘serve’. Serve on a plate to anyone with a checkbook is more like it. F(orget?) FB.
3
Why just Democrats, Ms. Golberg? Why not all Americans? As far as I am concerned Facebook has more appeal to superficial Liberals, especially millennials, and whatever generations follow them.
As I commented yesterday, I do not use Facebook, never have, never will. I do not live my life on the Internet. Those who do lead lives without real meaning; they find the purpose for their existence through Facebook. As a result, their ability to develop face-to-face relationships is greatly retarded.
Have you un-friended Facebook? Or is this another do I say, not as I do ploy? Thank you.
2
@Southern Boy
Confederate States of America? And you call others "superficial Liberals"? When you are still using "CSA" in your name, no one needs to know anything else about you.
Got off Facebook after Cambridge Analytica. Now if only I and many friends could get back our chosen careers as journalists.
Signed, PAYING subscriber to NYT and WaPo.
Facebook is a media company -- not merely a tech platform as its leaders claim -- and every bit as toxic as Rupert Murdoch's offerings. Turns out the Winklevoss twins were right about its wide-eyed founder in the cute hoodie.
And while it's apparent to everyone on the planet that Facebook needs strict regulation -- or at least some -- our lawmakers might as well be sitting in rocking chairs sucking their thumbs with one hand and twirling a lock of hair with the other.
May our lawmakers make a New Year's resolution proclaiming 2019 the year they start doing their jobs.
1
OMG! This is a brilliant idea. I’m deleting today!
1
Perhaps it's time for civil society to embrace the Facebook mantra... Move Fast and Break It!
3
I was much happier before there was a Facebook.
4
@Tim Moerman. So was democracy.
1
I think everyone should give up Facebook. It has lost its mission, which was to connect people, mostly College kids, for social reasons.
But we have to remember why it turned into what it is now. MONEY. Zuckerberg stole the idea from two other guys and then forced out his first partner and tried to cheat him as well. So he is not above what Facebook has become. The buck stops at his desk
It now is just a troll. It does not have anymore redeeming qualities, if it ever did.
5
Rights without responsibility is a recipe for disaster. Betty White exclaimed about Facebook:“I really have to thank Facebook…I didn’t know what Facebook was, and now that I do know what it is, I have to say, it sounds like a huge waste of time.”
"Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth"- Desiderata
2
How quickly the perceived virtues of social media has flipped. Remember the “Arab Spring” not so long ago? I remember reading commentary back then that social media would be a change agent to spread democracy and human rights. Like so many other human developments (nuclear power, drones), there is potential for both good and evil. It’s a never ending task to try to control which direction will dominate any new technology or social movement.
2
For people like me who never click on advertising, are not prone to hyper-consumerism or celebrity worship, or who don't have friends that post too many political things, FB isn't much of a time-sucker. I generally say "happy birthday" and occasionally post pictures of the latest adventure.
As I was living in Italy for a number of years, my friends really liked pictures from Europe and it was an easy way to say hi to my family.
Here's the bottom line: If FB went away tomorrow, would the world carry on? The answer is obviously yes.
6
I'm one step ahead of this op-ed: I don't own a smart phone, either. I detest the little, lit rectangles of alienation and self-centeredness.
2
I don't even like Facebook and barely use it, but it's getting really old how its competitors, including the Times, are bashing it when the problem is not the platform, but the users. People are totally free to use Facebook the way they want to use it. A person can use it to talk to friends, follow wholesome kitten picture groups and organize parties, or they can use it to insult rival gangs, bully classmates or spread or read fake news.
If Russian propaganda works on American voters, the problem is the voters, not Facebook. This stuff never worked on me, in fact I never even saw it, because I'm not dumb enough to read it or follow fake news groups.
This is like blaming General Motors for vehicular terror attacks, or syringe manufacturers for drug overdoses.
3
Two words: public option
1
I've never had a Facebook account, but was planning to in about a decade when I retire. I can see the appeal of seeing pictures of people you know, family that is in other countries or friends you haven't seen for awhile. Why don't they offer a pay model without news feeds, advertising, and propaganda?
1
Had The Facebook emerged in the #MeToo era, it might well have been been shamed off-line for its objectification of women. It is now a mega-company which makes its money by data-rape. It is also an excellent morality tale about the dangers of autonomous, artificially stupid, algorithm-driven, social media. FB is a prime example of why self-driving cars are a dumb idea. A self-driving social media site doesn't work because computers are so easy to fool... so easy to manipulate... so easy to control. Newspapers have editors. FB has if-then statements.
.
My biggest question is not whether or not FB is horrible. That has been clearly answered with a resounding YES. But why is there not a competitor to FB that is not a data-rape machine? Why doesn't the Times or Wikipedia (or some other entity) step into the game with either pay-access or voluntary-pay platforms. ...platforms that would allow users to share pictures of cats with their friends and be guaranteed a transparent level of privacy? Such platforms are out there, but nobody is on them. The Times needs to look into this. Instead of constantly telling us how bad FB is, inform us of alternatives. Diaspora is one, but there must be others. Social media doesn't have to be evil. But help us out here.
1
how about a title "independent thinkers should drop Facebook". why the need to assign party in the title?
2
Facebook: Throwing World Under the Bus Since 2016...Probably Before that.
1
First, readers should not be naive. Those that fell for all the negative stories about Clinton need to be smarter. They are the same people that believe Rush Limbaugh and other rightwing pundits on the radio and TV. Facebook simply took the fascist message and expanded it. Facebook should take that into account, though, and improve its service to society by making sure that it is not being used for death and destruction. I consider death and destruction to include information that destroys the lives of immigrants from Central America who are simply escaping violence in their own countries, as well as information that damages the ability of Americans to get access to healthcare and safe vaccines.
1
Facebook is not putting forth a Be Best anti-cyber bullying image. Neither is POTUS or FLOTUS. Ain't no leadership, nowhere.
What we need is effective regulation of any source of potentially fake or harmful information designed to incite bad behavior or hurt the innocent, but Facebook is as much a symptom as it is a cause. I signed up some years ago to reach out to old friends, a purpose that has served me well. I don’t look at nor do I trust so-called news or unsolicited information on the platform, nor do I click through the ads...I also don’t spend my days looking at the countless puppy pictures or other pablum, I simply scroll past and assume that such is the price for a free venue. As long as the vast majority would never be willing to pay for the service I knew that Facebook would have to make their money somehow. I also don’t believe other sources without some further diligence, including the NYT, and I pay for this paper. The problem is the lack of external supervision, and the fact that the worst penalty is loss of posting privileges. It will be virtually impossible for any organization to police the postings of over 2 billion subscribers. No amount of ‘eyes on’ oversight or even the best of algorithms can beat the ingenuity of those determined to distribute hate or disinformation. Even if the NYT and their ilk succeed in doing away with Facebook, and they seem bent on doing so, there’s still Twitter, Infowars and something else waiting to take its place, and nothing beats education and skepticism. All of this fakery preaches to a choir; I doubt that it created a single singer.
1
@VKG So, I have received fliers in the mail with fake information, therefore we must get rid of the USPS. I have gotten phone calls that might have hurt innocent people; we need to ban AT&T. FedEx has delivered harmful packages; lets get rid of them too.
Facebook is a delivery service, just like all of the above. It does not create content, is takes it from one person and gives it to another. If you want to solve the problem of " potentially fake or harmful information designed to incite bad behavior or hurt the innocent", go after those who create it and do not kill the messenger.
1
"Without Facebook, Donald Trump probably wouldn’t be president..." Well, at least we can say you're honest...and that this is your real problem with Facebook/social media. And I am sure this wouldn't be an issue if Hillary Clinton were president.
Facebook is a problem but Sinclair Broadcasting and Fox News are an exponentially bigger problem. Facebook provides, in addition to everything Michelle states, a great deal of solace to
millions. Sinclair and Fox, controlled by two vile oligarchs, provide nothing but rancid lies and fear mongering hatred of a progressive
future.
2
Facebook is the tailor-made tool of fascists and tyrants. It has evil at its core. There is no fixing it. Its business model must be legislated out of existence. If politicians are too ignorant or corrupt to do so they must be thrown out of office. Any organization that tries to link via FB must be shunned.
1
This.
Other than $$$ or power not sure what the benefit would be.
it appears the previously untouchable ms. sanberg "leaned in" way too far. her and zuckerberg should be forced to resign.
1
'Epistemological derangement' - a good way to describe it.
1
.
Sounds like you are scapegoating Facebook because you (the left) lost a Presidential election and Supreme Court seats and ...
Your opposition is genuine, organized and firmly rooted. And we have common sense, history and decency on our side.
#longlivethepatriarchy
1
@avoice4US
Oh, please. History on your side? Perhaps. But the "common sense and decency on our side" thing is utterly laughable given this president and his minions in the administration and Congress.
1
Facebook, like Amazon, is a ruthless monopoly. Both need to be broken up. They cavalierly subvert democracy as well as the rule of law to increase profitability.
For Amazon, it means the richest man in history just extracted 2 billion dollars of New Yorker's money and the right to destroy a vibrant New York community without any input from that community by totally subverting the democratic process. Facebook's Sandberg, who manufactured an image of a humane feminist, suppressed findings by Facebook's internal investigations proving Russia was using Facebook to destroy our already compromised democracy because she didn’t want to hurt Facebook's profitability or alienate Republican politicians. It shows that Facebook's progressiveness is pure spin.
These people would devour their own children for a better quarterly profit statement. Facebook hiring Definers Public Affairs is insidious. The Republican opposition-research firm did for Facebook what it was already doing; discrediting any who disagreed with Trump and Republicans by finding any way to link their critics to George Soros. Let's absorb that Facebook was so ruthless that it had no problem exploiting the same classic anti-Semitic tropes which Trump and the Alt-Right were exploiting. These all-pervasive anti-Semitic lies worked an already viciously anti-Semitic far-right into a frenzy. They ultimately led to a Nazi massacring Jews at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. To save America, break these monopolies up.
4
Keep your hands off Facebook! How else will I be able to know what the second cousin, once removed, of a one-time acquaintance had for dinner last night? Or, God forbid, I might miss out on that 47th "just had my bangs trimmed" post.
2
Wow. The NYT is really going to war with Facebook in an all out coordinated attack from all of its writers, who are complaining about everything and anything FB does.
The agenda seems to be to get it regulated so Trump can't use it to get reelected.
A lot of the criticism is pure nonsense, like blaming Facebook because gang members use it to insult each other. But it will be interesting to see if FB fights back or goes into cringy, corporate apology mode.
They are a mortal enemy of democracy, the epitome of rapacious greed and must be deconstructed and disappear. They are toxic to our society.
3
@Yuri Pelham The mortal enemy of Democracy is the ignorance of the people who believe that whatever they read on their computer screen is correct and must be acted upon. A modicum of critical thinking is quite sufficient to deal with any problems someone posts on FB.
1
Hey, I got an idea- don't tell me what to do!
1
The movie about Zuckerberg, depicts him as a despicable , arrogant nerd that would step over anyone who gets in his way.
Once in a while people like Zuckerberg get harpooned by their own arrogance,Facebook has been used by the Russians & other unsavory individuals, and Zuckerberg is getting
punished where it hurts the most, in his pockets.
3
Did it a year ago.
Yeah, I remember all the times Facebook told Hillary Clinton not to campaign in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania in 2016.
3
I've found from personal experience the darker sides of Facebook. It took two incidents to finally get me to swear off FB for good. Both involved ending relationships that were toxic to say the least. So even though in both cases the split was amicable I thought that was the end of it. Not at all. Both parties went on FB and castigated me , admittedly they possessed enough good grace not to mention my name although most people knew who I was, but hundreds of their FB 'friends' aimed barbs at me. It was a virtual public court of opinion condemning me.
That was it for me. I have been off FB for well over a year and will never, ever return to it. Aside form my own personal humiliation, I have better things to do than look at someone else's lunch or dinner concoction, endless snapshots of 'the cutest baby in the world' and gag-me-with-a spoon 'lovebird' selfies, and those are just the mildly irritating aspects of a social media empire that often caters to the worst in human behavior.
1
Yes, I’m proud to say this : Never used it, never will. And, told you so. Seriously.
2
I quit FB this past spring. You should too. It's not good for democracy.
2
So interesting that these comments are all " I have no problem" or "I never used it." That is not what Michelle is saying-- she is saying this unregulated entity facilitates violence in our country and in other countries. It has participated in stifiling the local press.
She perceptively quotes Barry Lynn's observation that ATT in 1914 and in 1937 argued to the congress that it deserved special freedoms because it was so integral to modern society-- and congress didn't buy that argument. And those resulting regulations did not keep ATT from continuing to make the arguments at every turn. Facebook will make those arguments also. But our nation gets the final say-- if people have the backbone and the eyes to see. Shame on Chuck Schumer. Double shame -- even good guys can have giant flaws.
it is completely astonishing to contemplate that Facebook could be the gasoline on the tinder of world wide right wing movements-- Facebook vs the spirit of the UN. Who could have thought that?
2
Interesting to me that let’s regulate facebook for what is said on it - no 1st amendment concerns.
However if we suggested the same for say the Times we would have all kind of screams on 1st amendment issues - rightfully so too.
Why the difference?
Because you could sue The Times for knowingly reporting false information about you.
1
The first paragraph in this article are spine-chilling.
80% of fights in Chicago start from Facebook. Many of these fights end in homicide.
Is this what technology has done for humans?
2
Using Facebook is like inviting a fast talking overly eager nerdy assistant, a shady door-to-door salesman, a nosy stranger without a background check, into your home and giving them permission to range freely through your family's personal information.
Sure Mr. Facebook sends out photos to your distant mother with the touch of a key and he keeps you informed of her daily activities, but he also reads the news and chooses which sources and which stories to feed to you. He sends you ads for products you may or may not want and he rummages through your PC, Tablet, even your cellphone to monitor what you do online, who your family and friends are, what your politics, beliefs and interests are. And he shares that information with anyone who offers him $$.
Is Mr. Facebook trustworthy? I think not. Is Mr. Facebook helping you or using you?
2
Maybe someone should lecture us again about the paranoid style of US politics - and how it is an exclusive right wing phenomenon.
Would it make sense for the after-login welcome screen of every social media outlet to feature a disclaimer, more or less along the following lines?
"Nothing you read on this site is guaranteed, or even likely, to be true. There is overwhelming evidence that individuals, organizations, and nations--many with sinister objectives--continue to exploit this medium shamelessly, in an effort to manipulate your opinions, votes, and actions. We urge you to BE SUSPICIOUS OF ALL CONTENT. Please click the following box to indicate that you understand and accept this warning, before proceeding."
1
Facebook is the single greatest technological innovation for the creation of trivia ever devised by man. It’s sinister genius was to provide the intimacy-starved population of the global technocracy with a virtual substitute for human contact while harvesting their personal information for sale on the global market. Regulation is a bandaid on heart failure, the symptom of a liberalism unable to free itself from its corporate slavery but unwilling to accept the immorality of its complicity.The simplest way to win the battle for our humanity is to delete our accounts.
2
"Epistemological derangement" - thank you for this perfect distillation of our current state of affairs.
1
“Still, it was staggering to learn that Facebook had hired a Republican opposition-research firm that sought to discredit some of the company’s detractors by linking them to George Soros — exploiting a classic anti-Semitic trope — while at the same time lobbying a Jewish group to paint the critics as anti-Semitic.”
I read this news in the Wednesday Times article and still don’t understand it. It’s beyond Machiavellian. The fact that Zuckerberg and Sandberg are both Jewish, yet were toying with rumors about George Soros, is shocking. Facebook should be regulated. For years and years, Zuckerberg has pontificated, promising that Facebook is a force for good, a network that builds “community” internationally. In the meantime, behind the curtain, he was selling off the personal data of subscribers to the highest bidder. Corporate hypocrite.
But ...
I enjoy Facebook and don’t intend to give it up to establish my political bona fides. If it weren’t for FB, I’d have no idea what my old high school friends were doing, wouldn’t see photos of their grandkids, hear news of cancer and recovery, look at photos of the eco-lodge in Costa Rica (sloths!) ... also wouldn’t hear news from scholars, who used to be grad students, traveling and studying in Southeast Asia, and couldn’t laugh at smart cracks from my husband’s countless nieces and nephews.
I enjoy the stories that come to me through Facebook.
That said ... the company should be reined in hard.
3
What a tough nut. Social media, i.e. FB, serves to bring us together with like-minded others. We share the mundane: gardening tips, menu ideas, cute kittens and local event invitations. Then, there's the dark side: Russian bots, public slander, hate group recruitment etc.
The curse and blessings of social media is the new norm and unless we somehow can create an educated society of kinder, smarter and happier people, this will not change.
Great column, and while we are talking about breaking up Big Tech, let's break up Big Media too! Reinstate the ownership laws in single markets to remove Fox and Sinclair from their monopoly pedestals for instance. Reinstate the Fairness Doctrine, and apply it to online outlets.
1
PBS aired a 2 hour expose on FaceBook last week in which the Trump campaign's digital advertising director claimed to have spent $100 M to purchase ads on FB during the 2016 campaign, and that he was personally coached on how to exploit the capabilities of the platform by FB employees.
It would be interesting to know how much they spent on Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, YouTube, etc. I'd also like to know how this all ties in with Kellyanne Conway's database marketing business with its ability to microtarget individuals in specific localities such as Congressional districts and key Electoral College states, her connections to Cambridge Analytica with their stolen FB data on American voters, the fact that Steve Bannon was the CEO of Cambridge Analytica while serving as Trump's key political strategy advisor, and the fact that Zuckerberg admitted to Congress last spring that he has no idea what has happened to the data that was stolen from FaceBook, or how or to whom it has been disseminated. Now that the Dems have control of Congress, it is up to Rep. Adam Schiff to lead the House Intelligence Cmte. in order to shed light on these matters.
Once the Mueller investigation concludes, and once the findings are in from the Congressional hearings/investigations, where to we go from there?
Is America strong enough to fend off the effects of corporate political campaign contributions, Wall St. ownership of social media company investments and tech company impunity re democracy
1
So, let me see if I have this right: Facebook employed the same fake-news tactics that the Russians used. And they did this to discredit their competitors and their critics in congress. They did this using their own platform. Facebook, turducken of evil.
2
I never “friended” Facebook in the first place. Any kind of collective conformity in which you give up your individuality to a group to belong is not and never will be my thing. Unfortunately, too many people jump onto the bandwagon without considering the personal information they give out can and will be used against them for profit and control. That this company has been used in so many illicit and damaging ways to democracy makes Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandburg complicit in promoting thuggery and thievery. Clean up your act.
1
spot-on! we need choices!
1
Facebook and social media in general, but also Sinclair Broadcasting Group, which, via old-school broadcast TV, reaches rural "news deserts" that have limited access to internet and cable. Sinclair owns some 200 local stations (including NBC, ABC, CBS affiliates) and forces its announcers to promote pro-Trump, pro-Republican narratives. These areas, representing ~30 million voters, also voted overwhelmingly for Trump. It's not just Russians who engage in active measures, conservatives are doing it too.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/22/the-growth-of-sinclairs-conservative-media-empire
2
Chuck Schumer must resign as Senate Minority Leader. Moreover, he must be investigated for his role in this.
Second, Facebook needs to be regulated into a highly moderated, transparent playground. It has the blood of tens of thousands on its hand.
Third, its board of directors needs to clean hous, neuter Zuckerberg, can Sandberg, and put a very short leash on senior administrators. Executives have no plausible deniability. They are negligent or criminally culpable.
Fourth, there is no reason for anyone to remain on Facebook. Wipe your account, and then delete this time and thought killer form your life. Interact as little as possible with the other tech monopolies. Your quality of life will improve.
Fifth, we needn't tolerate this toxic tech culture and regulation free-for-the-bros situation. Legislators must work to defang monopolies once again. Senator Warren is the likely leader here.
Sixth, the GOP is also culpable and needs to be held to account. They are acting against the interest of America and Americans. Keep the pressure on them, and vote them out as they come up for re-election. The party of the oligarchy needs to be suffocated until it expires.
1
I saw the damage that Fcebook could do to a user years ago when I deleted my account. I warned friends and family that they were sharing too much personal informarion, not only about themselves but other people.
And Zuckerberg, et al realized the potential of such a goldmine early on and used all that personal information to the detriment of many naive and innocent people. Facebook can be and has been used for good purposes. But those good purposes come at a big cost.
And we all know about the many people whose lives have been ruined not just by their innocent postings, but also by their own stupidity. Marriages have ended, friendships and jobs lost, crimes being perpetrated and also solved. You cannot blame Facebook for all that no more than you can blame the gun because someone pulled the trigger.
Many people who have big egos, or those who feel like nobodies can suddenly be really popular via their Facebook posts. For me, I will always remember Betty White’s words when she quickly left Facebook after trying it out: “I saw it as a big waste of time.”
1
What's the difference between Facebook and Gab?
Facebook has about 1.5 billion more users.
That's it.
There's an interesting corollary in the Times today. It has a couple of excellent articles about Juul and how addictive it is. Yes, it can get a smoker to give up cigarettes, but only because Jule has a whopping nicotine hit. And Facebook has been written about extensively in the Times and elsewhere. It doesn't have nicotine, but it is incredibly addictive, too.
No addiction is good, but which one is worse?
Neither Facebook nor Juul are the real problem. Human nature is. We are subject to a wide variety of addictions - nicotine, alcohol, opiates, oreos (my particular problem). In a free society, how can these be controlled? We know that addictions can be monstrously damaging to a person's life, family, employment, and social standing. So, somehow, they must be controlled. But like Juul, is society better off by just substituting one addiction with another?
I think not. We may not be able to solve the problem of human addiction, but we CAN solve the problem of companies which exploit it. Facebook is a prime example of a company which needs to be controlled. Clearly, it is more interested in growing its user base than in protecting it from the wealth of nefarious actors we have in our world today. That, at least, must be stopped. Perhaps Facebook is too pervasive, and needs to be broken up. I can live with that. Especially since I don't use it. And never will.
2
The evolution of our human race regarding Emotional Intelligence is years away from the intended use of digital social interaction.
51
However anti-trust laws and regulations are like a corporate game of whack a mole. For every law or regulation passed, the corporations find a new way around them. Here's the simplest solution. Pass a law forbidding any company or corporation from using or selling any personal information they gather about their clients, customers, and employees to any other entity under any circumstance.
4
I'm conflicted. I only have 10 facebook friends, and they're all relatives. When your family lives a thousand miles away, and your daughters post your grandchildren's first steps, their first words, a song they are spontaneously making up, and you can see the first tottering wobble as it's happening, it is so hard to give that up. It's such a difficult choice.
3
@Ellen : Of course you want to see pictures of grandkids, but pictures and video clips are easily sent by text or email.
How is seeing them on Fb superior??
2
As usual I'm out of step with the people here and continue as a politically incorrect Democrat living in a red state (in the process of turning purple). I enjoy Facebook because I don't travel much at my age and I see pictures of my children and grandchildren and share in their activities almost every day on Facebook. I also keep up with cousins, former students, sorority sisters and old friends from high school through Facebook, among others.
And my family recently experienced a wonderful reconciliation with an estranged member through Facebook. I have learned to mostly ignore political posts and don't do arguments.
So, I think I'll just ignore the recommendations of this article.
14
Just say no to Facebook. I've led a normal life without ever joining.
Unfortunately it's hard for organizations and small businesses to get off. That's where oversight comes in.
3
Ever since we started hearing negative rumbles about Facebook, I began losing interest in the site. I do check it on occasion and look at posts from friends, but other than posting a picture of my dog or a sunset I do not use it anymore. Facebook did unveil hidden political/moral secrets of since unfriended friends for which I am grateful, but I am only back to my original purpose of using Facebook and that is to connect with friends that I share common beliefs with. My blood pressure has gone back to normal since I weened myself off of this social media madness.
9
Yesterday I got an email from a friend who asked for a good time for him to call so we could talk with each other. I was immediately worried. Talk? On the telephone? I assumed something must be wrong. Indeed, I was so worried I took a walk and pondered a presumption that I was about to experience a difficult conversation. Was he ill? Dying? What was going on that would cause him to need to talk with me? I took a deep breath and called him. Well, he wondered if I could postpone my visit to his house. I said it wasn't any big deal and that was that. Then we both laughed at the fact that this was probably the first telephone conversation we'd had in four years. Has it all come to this? Social media, and Facebook in particular, have eroded common conversation to the point of needless worry. Facebook is an illusion of communication. People don't talk on Facebook - they broadcast. They have a list of "friends" and rather than communicate directly with individuals, they just toss photos,ideas, and politics to the world and assume they've communicated with people. They haven't. On Facebook we talk AT people rather than have dialogues WITH people. We make statements and boasts. We do this while Facebook goes through our virtual wallets and sells our information. I'm glad I quit. Facebook is a deadly mirage. It's a two way mirror - you see yourself, but you don't see who is watching you, and it turns out a lot of hidden people are watching. Walk away.
50
There is indeed a solution to the Facebook/Google problem, simpler and more effective than any amount of tinkering around the edges: prohibit companies from selling information they collect about their users with third parties, directly or otherwise.
This doesn't hurt companies like Amazon at all, since they make use of what they collect within their own system, but it would be the end of Facebook and Google as vectors for targeted marketing.
In the social media industry we are faced with a virtual reactor that is frequently prone to going critical without any means of turning it off. No sane nuclear engineer would design such a thing, but that is exactly what the software engineers behind Facebook and Google have created.
It is a matter of public safety to correct this. The reactor is fueled by the market in targeted advertising. It is time to shut it off.
19
Amazon sells your information, too. Don’t be naive. Look at how many millions of other businesses sell through Amazon. Your activities on their platform are a huge source of revenue for them. If you don’t understand that, you’ve missed the point of Amazon’s business model.
69
@Naturalist
I don't know if you have ever purchased anything through a third party on Amazon. I certainly have, and the difference in how the information is used could not be greater.
Third parties on Amazon do not target me; I find them while looking for things I am already interested in. Amazon profits from taking a cut of the sales.
I don't think Amazon does anything for third parties but let them list products, which is beneficial to Amazon, the third parties, and me as a customer.
Red herring.
If you think mass hypnosis happens only in science fiction movies, think again! Facebook has been doing that to the masses under the guise of bringing family and friends together. In reality, it was taking advantage of the users under hypnosis in many unscrupulous ways. I have never trusted Facebook and even when I tried it for a short period my security and privacy settings were such that nobody saw any information beyond my name. Even then, I sensed that they knew and used my information in shady ways. I cut free of its hypnosis about two years ago after a short period of using it.
I also believe, but you may take exception to this, that social media is inherently anti-social as it substitutes screen names for friends, a "like" for a handshake, and adds a layer of distortion to real life. It will be best for all of us if we woke up from this mass hypnosis and look at the beast in the eyes. Time to tame Facebook and other similar beasts that rub masses of their true identity.
19
I was alarmed during the campaign by the misinformation about the candidates and by how people I knew were believing things that I thought were so obviously false. When I told one friend to research a claim about Clinton, she went straight to partisan sites such as Judicial Watch. I quit Facebook about 6 months after the election.
8
I am certainly no fan of Facebook (nor am I a user). But, as has been said before, this is a slippery slope. We need to be careful, especially in light of our experience with a current administration with clear authoritarian tendencies, in our approach to limiting free expression. The problem with Facebook and other social media is defining and proving specific danger and damage - it's like pornography in that respect, as we feel its negative impact without being able to specifically define it. I believe that the only truly effective and proper way to control social media is through our judicial system, as those who are damaged bring suits to prove the damage. No doubt our society is suffering damage, and no doubt we need to contain that damage, but we need to be very careful in how we go about it. The weapons we use now could be used against us in the future. And no doubt would be.
3
@Michael,
I agree with your post and have posted the same thing myself, but it falls on deaf ears around here. I find it ironic that politicians who seem to believe in the 1st Amendment are all demanding that Facebook stifle free speech. It makes no sense, you cannot have it both ways.
I’m unclear why Facebook and the like get to do whatever they want, without oversight or regulation. It’s dangerous and deadly. Free internet isn’t free when millions of people are being killed or displaced.
9
@AT When you take freedom of the press and freedom of speech to the extreme, you get something like "The Daily Stormer", a hate filled web site.
I am sure I am probably not the first person to say this, but I dropped off FB about 5 years ago. I don't need any additional convincing that there are a bunch of terrible people out there. FB was rubbing it in my face everyday. I don't miss it at all. In fact, I think my life is much better for it.
9
@Drew
I agree but I live alone and it can be a comforting source of social interaction...to avoid the crazies, my page is only open to friends and their friends and I stopped reading or replying to people whom I don’t know...I also “hide” content that offends...my son said I should try Twitter because it’s more intellectual...not so much vacuous fru-fru.
1
You focus only on the political damage. Facebook also promotes, or at least allows, teenage bullying on a massive scale. Individuals spend hours on the site preventing them from engaging in otherwise productive activity. It has created a climate where users base their worth on the number of friends (people who are the farthest thing from real friends) they have. It discourages the development of essential conversational talents. Even at its best, it is a colossal waste of time.
20
The owners of Facebook will tell you, they are a like knife meant for cutting bananas. Not their fault someone uses it as a murder weapon.
They aren't interested in responsibility, reality, or consequences.
They really like money, even though they seem to have enough already.
I would so end twitter too, in the blink of an eye.
I like writing letters that I send in the mail. They are a form of composition, which make you think and extend yourself.
So much is delightful about tech. So much is awful.
Nobody is in charge, or will ever be.
7
It took a candidate that was willing to immorally and unethically exploit Facebook’s weaknesses to reveal the holes in the Facebook model.
I think it’s best for people to delete their facebook accounts. It’s a massive time waster and there is no way to know if the information in Facebook is by Russian bots or some other questionable source.
8
After reading the latest about Facebook's malfeasance, I was moved to delete my mostly moribund account. But I had recently accepted almost one hundred friend requests from people I have worked with and have known for decades. All of a sudden I wasn't so sure anymore. Am I not capable of knowing my own mind? Since when have I been dictated to? Can I not have what I want and ditch the rest? Of course can! Facebook is what we make it of it. We can design our own experience.
This one of them, that really hits home for me.
"Every day, I walk down the street and tell passers-by what I have eaten, how I feel, what I have done the night before and what I will do for the rest of the day. I give them pictures of my wife, my daughter, my dog and me gardening and on holiday, spending time by the pool. I also listen to their conversations, tell them I ‘like’ them and give them my opinion on every subject that interests me, whether it interests them or not.
"And it works! I already have four people following me; two police officers, a social worker and a psychiatrist."
Wanna be that person? Fine. But then don't complain about a daily barrage of inanities and snake oil submissions you feel honor bound to agree with or reject vehemently with a caustic reply. Go to place and talk to someone who thinks differently than you do. Have a conversation. Yell at each other in the real world if you have to. Don't hide behind a platform and pretend it's to blame.
170
@Memi von Gaza Before I deleted my Facebook account I announced I was going to do so. I also asked that anyone who wanted to continue to communicate with me could send a private message and get my email address or telephone number. I got a few requests and sent the information. I made this offer twice before I left Facebook. So, when I left Facebook, I figured anyone who was really interested in talking with me hadn't been cut off. I think if we really want a dialogue, there are other ways to do so beyond little Facebook message boxes.
27
@Michael Kennedy. So this is how you designed your Facebook experience. You have every right to do so. I have adopted a different approach. As a consumer, I have decided I have the final say about what I do and don't consume.
2
@Memi von Gaza But Memi, you are not the consumer; you are the product being consumed. Respectfully, you are fooling yourself if you think you are designing your experience. Yes, you are essentially free to use it however you please (in accordance with their terms of service), but you are nonetheless still being manipulated and exploited for profit.
22
So now Facebook is equivalent of face to face? Gangs get agitated in Chicago because of something someone is afraid to say to their face. The only response to something insulting posted on line should be "Do you have enough nerve to say that to my face?" The answer most likely would be no, they don't. That in itself should be enough of a satisfaction. (Unless, of course, they want to resort to gunfire.)
2
I agree. It was always about the money. Anyone who believes Zuckerberg created Facebook soley to bring people together are in serious delusion. I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell them.
His scripted and carefully prepared answers in front of Congress was laughable. The man who wanted to bring people together was a wooden as a totem pole.
I completely deleted my FB account right after the Cambridge Analytica fiasco and things have only gotten worse on Hacker Way. It was hard at first, I did go through some withdrawal for a week or so, but I found other ways to communicate with my real friends, like e-mail, like calling them on the phone, like actually meeting them for lunch. Face-to-face.
Imagine that.
9
It's a little late! Anyone who thought about it has known Facebook is a threat to society at least from the time of its monetization and public offering. All the bad acts that this article mentions are the result of its executive leadership acting in their fiduciary capacity to maximize profits for themselves and shareholders. Facebook is the moral, ethical, social equivalent of the opioid crisis with users deriving equivalent dopamine rushes from their interactions on the platform. The only rational choice is to delete your account and not allow your children to get started. Much the same thing is true for Google and Twitter and all the ancillary social media platforms.
8
Facebook is not only run by amoral people, but also by amoral algorithms. We have seen over and over again that algorithms are easy prey once humans are taken out of the loop. If you want to make Facebook more resistant to the spread of hate and fake news, then you also need to make Facebook more human.
1
A couple of things:
I never believed that Sandberg & Zuckerberg did not know of the Russian influence into the 2016 election.
I knew something was up during the primaries and I deleted my account right before the conventions.
The tenor of the interactions had turned odd and acrimonious and the language used sounded weird - not quite American-English.
So when it was revealed that there was foreign influence in Social Media, I was in no way surprised.
Facebook knew about everything. If capitalism was actually capitalism in this country, Facebook would have already failed in the marketplace.
I don’t need social media to keep in touch with people I care about, or to get my news or to feel connected.
Social media is not a community of any kind.
It is just a mindless, anonymous method of communication that allows people to say and do things without consequences.
Dangerous indeed and really completely worthless.
10
I, too, have eschewed Facebook. A tentative user when it first came into existence, it quickly became apparent to me that there was a lot about this system that was beyond my control, what with the reams of messages I received from folks totally unknown to me. Moreover, it continues to impress me how porous any electronic communication is. While I do use email and posting programs such as the one I'm using right now, I take great care never to write anything I would be ashamed of seeing on the front page of the New York Times. I am continually amazed at how my colleagues as well as government officials use electronic communication tools for so-called confidential information. I do not believe that a confidential electronic communication tool exists.
12
All social media like Facebook and Trump's platform of choice, Twitter, have succumbed to the non-P.C. toxin of hate speech. Psychologists have long ago demonstrated that people will be much more willing to say and do hateful things from a distance, and that's exactly what all these internet media have allowed. While Facebook may be an especially noxious example of the damage it has allowed and covered up from bullying and harassing people leading to many suicides, to political hate speech. Russian political subversion, and and other truly "fake news" conspiracy theories, it is not alone. This is a massive social and public health problem that demands government regulation. Hate speech is not free speech. and just as it is not allowed, except in covering Donald Trump, it should also be banned from public social media platforms that use the internet.
3
If they got rid of posting ads, their main source of profits in the trillions for our social media, the problems would, for the most part, go away all on their own.
Cute pictures of puppies, new babies, and family occasions are harmless activities.
FB is now an enabler, and a dangerous one and Congress has to do something about it this time ar,ound.
5
Facebook is just a platform for people to lie about their miserable lives so that other people think they are happier, more successful, have brilliant kids or grandkids, or have better vacations than anyone else. Facebook is a source of misinformation about everything. Use email to connect with those you care about or better yet give them a call.
11
Like most people on Facebook, I have accumulated several hundred "friends" over the years, most of whom I have no interest in what they are doing in their lives.
The solution is simple. Rather than "defriending" them which is insulting, there is a tool that blocks all their posts. So I am left with posts from a couple of dozen people I do care about, along with information regarding area events (such as the MOMA page). So I actually really like Facebook.
Not sure why there is so much angst. And sorry Ms. Goldberg, but Hillary Clinton did not lose the election because there were enough of her voters who switched to Trump because Russian fake news on Facebook fooled them.
1
@Erik, it looks to me like many knives went into HRC to create her loss. FB (disinformation and active measures) was one of those knives.
2
After purging Facebook, it will be time to investigate and exert some control over Amazon, a cursed, leviathan monolith of ever there were one.
4
I have been assiduously limiting my social media time to five minutes a day. I can not believe the vitriol I hear from people I thought I know. Now I just wish people happy birthday and move on. We have otherwise opened Pandora’s Box.
3
In the last two years, Facebook has become a morass of posters let loose in many cases to vent their worst ideas and conspiracy theories. There are no community standards that are enforced. It is a joke. I enjoy FB because it allows me to keep in touch with friends and family, but that may not be enough to keep me a member. The public pages and the corporate pages are the real problem. The things that are posted in the name of ideology and opinion are off the chain. And too many Facebook members are gullible and uninformed enough to believe whatever they see before them--thus Trump.
4
"Without Facebook, Donald Trump probably wouldn’t be president," Another statement without proof. Maybe if Hilary had campaigned in Minnesota and Michigan she would have won. Great idea lets get a moderate Democratic candidate, lets correct voting registration flaws lets get out the vote and then we can stop with unproven allegations.
@sailman9, how about agreeing that we should turn this rock over and see what's crawling underneath?
"Now we’re nearing something close to a progressive consensus: Facebook is bad. The question, as always, is what is to be done."
It's not just bad for progressives. Facebook always has been about getting people to give away their private information, to thus allow facebook to leverage it in various ways.
And this has been the case from the beginning. The real question is, why have people continued to allow themselves to be exploited by Zuk & Co.?
It's not like you can't text or email or call your real "friends." You don't need a third party to intercede on your behalf. Especially when that third party is a secret adversary.
Dead-simple answer: Just delete your account.
5
If the concentration of power in the hands of Facebook and its ilk, and its concomitant unaccountability, is already seen as a major problem for the USA, the country where their bosses reside, imagine what it means for other countries and their citizens!
The treat is double, by the way. On the one hand we find that these social media platforms offer a stage to, and indeed facilitate and foster, unchecked extremist expression. On the other, they hoover up vast amounts of data, probably even more than they themselves realize, which they then fail to safeguard.
It is not hyperbole to consider these developments as an existential menace to society, the drawbacks of which will prove themselves to outweigh the benefits by far. As so often in the field of human endeavor, however, we will only be ready to accept this when reality kicks us in the groin.
3
Newspapers have rules. A civil society has a code of ethics. Facebook and Twitter, hiding behind this idea they are "tools" for freedom of speech is a free for all. The goal is making money off the highest bidder, no matter the consequences. Just look at Zuckerberg. Does this guy look like a leader, and deep thinker, a man? This is a kid who created a rather disgusting tool in order to shame women, and get revenge over being rejected. How will we find a way I hope to reject Facebook? It's here to stay. But it needs a serious parent.
4
I was an early shareholder and frequent user of Facebook. I un-friended Facebook about 18 months ago, and I am frequently surprised by the reaction of friends – some of whom are more liberal than I am – who think my move is silly. It’s not.
3
Congress is no more capable of regulating Big Data than the Tories were capable of negotiating Brexit.
But individual users do understand that these services are a threat to both fundamental individual liberty and to national security.
Only the courts can rein in this cartel.
4
I got rid of my FB account 3 years ago and experienced a huge relief. There's a perception that you need it, but give it a shot. You will likely find you don't miss it at all.
3
Why is there always a boogie man to blame instead of ourselves? We sound like trump; it's always someone else's fault. How do we regulate hate radio, fox "news", and every other disinformation venue out there? There are many other platforms to spread the lies, the hate, the propaganda and manipulation. Do we get rid of the internet? Do we regulate every email, every thought, every gullibility? How do we control it all? Unfortunately the technology exacerbates the spread of conspiracy theories, propaganda and lies but unless we eschew the new-age technologies there is realistically no way to control the problem.
Maybe we should regulate lies on the political level instead? Any politician spreading known lies or not denouncing known lies during a campaign should be forced to resign as a candidate or fined. The spread of lies is obscene and as a "Christian" nation it is beyond understanding how so many are willing to turn a blind eye to the lies and distortions. Pigs will fly first, of course, but this regulation would go a long way towards fixing this problem. Reinstate the Fairness Doctrine. This would go a long way in controlling the damage that fox does with their spread of lies and distortions and fine those who propagate lies and conspiracies. Regulate truth.
I use Facebook only as a craft/artist community tool. As an artisan I follow artists and their works. I rarely use it socially but it does have a social purpose to help connect family throughout the country/world.
6
@sharon: I agree with you. I am a FB user and I like FB. I know how to block, delete, unfollow, when it is called for. Otherwise, I have good conversations with with friends, near & far, in my pjs. I've met people from other countries on FB and have since met some of them in person, while traveling. I am in private political groups, where we can arrange marches, share interesting articles...as well as pictures of our pets or our backpacking trips. I honestly don't pay attention to the ads there (or here on NYTimes.com) & just as I do here, I scroll past comments & articles on FB if the subject doesn't interest me. Reinstate the Fairness Doctrine.
Without out Facebook, Trump would not be President? You need to add "Twitter" to that list, FOX News and all of those Alt-right radio talk shows to name just a few. The Facebook executives got greedy. The old saying, "Money is the root of all evil" replaced common sense.
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Our technology often runs ahead of our socioeconomic educational political moral governing ability to adequately control and weigh costs and benefits.
But Facebook is not the enemy. It was Israel and Russia who hacked and meddled in our campaigns and elections. Aided and abetted by Julian Assange.
3
Facebook is gossip gone wild and dangerous. Before Facebook people could still connect with their friends. I have done that for the past 40 years and I don't have an account.
1
Sandberg could be fired, but Zuckerberg is too much part of Facebook to do anything about. A Travis Kalanick (Über) exit scenario seems too difficult. It’s perhaps a cautionary tale to scale ups, to not remain too dependent on the founder.
I also take note of Sen. Schumer’s actions in this matter. After the inability to capture the Senate and this, should he remain minority leader?
2
I’ve had this growing feeling that Schumer isn’t to be trusted. Now (prohibiting colleagues from even investigating FB, which happens to line his pockets with cash) I know why. The Democrats might have a lot of dissonance in the House, but at least they’ll be honest. Under Schumer, the Dems in the Senate are dirty. And leaderless.
2
While the behavior of FB leaders is soulless, it is made worse in your eyes by the hypothesis that FB facilitated the election of Trump. And it’s also difficult to forget that a short while ago legions of progressives were lauding Ms. Sandberg. That sort of political bias and the shifting tides of public opinion are precisely why speech ought to remain free, as repugnant as the speech might be. And let’s be clear, there are many who consider the writings of certain Times’ columnists equally as repugnant - do we then censor those views as well?
2
Facebook is an existential threat to traditional editor driven writing like newspapers, television, and radio. Overall, I question the ability of those news outlets to cover this story. The definition of the market is the ultimate challenge in antitrust litigation. Is the market all advertising choices for brands? If so it is not like the examples of railroads etc. There are lots of alternatives to influence consumers. I don't doubt Facebook leadership is flawed, self righteous, and naive. But is NYT really able to take a unbiased view?
In my recollection, animals were used quite effectively to serve as metaphors for the egregious traits of our ostensibly sentient species. Lemmings, rats and pigs spring to mind to this oldster. What animal would serve best to stand in for the current crop of the recipients of “wisdom” ? The old ones work well for me, perhaps puppies and kittens which apparently are all the rage on SM, pun intended, could be demonized sufficiently to send the masses in a new, albeit probably just as clueless, direction.
1
Just about everything people are saying about Facebook could be said about print media, television, cinema, and the like. Media is just that: a collection of mediums (if you’ll permit). Do you think established news providers don’t filter the information you receive? Do you think there are no powers out there trying to manipulate you through older technologies? Heck, look at AM radio! The modern conservative movement would not be where it is today with AM radio.
My main concern is with coals to SILENCE people. If that means regulating Facebook and Twitter like public utilities then so be it. The answer must be MORE free speech, not less.
2
@KW How exactly does regulation of speech promote free speech?
It's not just Democrats who should leave FB. It's everyone. I've had a personal boycott against the platform forever because...
... if my mere presence on a social media site helps make billionaires of the people who run it, and my compensation is zero, that's not a business model I'm willing to support.
9
Sing it, sister....from the rooftops !
2
Every rational human being should unfriend FaceBook. After all what useful purpose does it serve other than falsehood, bullying, incivility, and stupidity, while making thief and unprincipled Zuckerberg richer and richer?
Never had a Facebook, Twitter or any so-called unsocial media accounts and life is good.
1
So Zuckerberg is a tyrannical plutocrat? Give me a break. This is over the top which is saying a lot for this columnist. Facebook is a luxury not a necessity. It would close shop next month if people walked away from it. And anyone can. I have. So have many of my friends. It's voluntary. Just because it isn't a "woke" company is no justification for demanding antitrust actions. Why is the only answer progressives have for any problem is more regulation? Facebook had an impact on Trump winning the 2016 election? This is demonstrably false. But for arguments sake lets say it's true. So what. Would these same people complain if Facebook had swung the race in Hillary's favor? Absolutely not. We all know that. So lets stop the hypocrisy. Maybe establishment institutions despise the fact that the internet is going to leave them behind, obliterating their influence. Maybe they can't stand the fact the "people" who's will on Earth they purport to represent will need them less & less. When the Pope saw the first press in 1440 he was horrified. He's said to have shouted “This will destroy That. The Book will destroy the Edifice.” It was ecclesiastic terror before a new force: printing. It signified that one great power was to supplant another great power. The Printing-Press would destroy the Church. Yes it it did in some ways. But humanity in the end was better for it. And now the Internet is destroying a different Church. The power of far left... forever??? One can only hope.
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In a word, yes!
As an IT professional with over 20 years in technology I have advocated to all of my customers to never join facebook and those that have, to drop it.
It’s sad that it has taken recent events for digital immigrants and digital natives to know what the tech sector (practicing IT professionals) already knew.
Facebook is cesspool of bad data and intentions.
Stop using it before it’s too late.
1
Concentrating on what Facebook does well is the most important thing. For me, Facebook has been invaluable in several ways: 1) Re-connecting with close friends from as long ago as 40 years, people I never would have found again, some who live in foreign countries; 2) As a runner, Facebook has connected me with hundreds of local running friends, people I might have seen regularly but never really gotten to know; 3) As a sponsor of several pages, I have connected with a huge audience of people who are interested in my topics and the events I organize around those topics: my own Longfellow February Frostbite Road Race every year; a page about the Pittsburgh artist Frederick A. Demmler, killed in the First World War, that displays 100 or so of his "lost" paintings; two pages about the African-English composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor; a page about the late African-American concert pianist Francis Walker-Slocum. These are examples of using Facebook well, to the betterment of my own life and many others. I avoid politics as much as possible. I do not get my news from Facebook. I avoid extreme points of view. I do not let Facebook suggest content. I do not click on ads.
5
Unfortunately, its not about Democrats. The entire American public should "unfriend" this company. (Possibly the entire world population)
The manipulation of the public is just out of bounds for any company or country for that matter.
1
“Mr. Zuckerberg publicly dismissed the notion that misinformation on Facebook had influenced the election, calling it “a pretty crazy idea.”” Well do his advertisers agree? Not that they would ever put up misinformation, but everyone knows that advertisers make lots of money and succeed in changing consumer minds and increase the sales of products advertised.
Most Americans continue to imagine or believe that the tsunami of misinformation, propaganda, lies, and deceit that Russia directed at them personally did not change their behavior because they did not know Russia was doing it and did not know that Russia has their FB profile today. Democrats can bring this to light in hearings.
Why did the press has fail to address the probable outcome of targeted propaganda using advertising results as a comparison, The Republican Congress and the press has never discussed the number of voters who changed their voting behavior as a consequence of Russian propaganda on FB using statistical probability that advertisers use daily. There is a predictable outcome. Why doesn’t anyone provide that? Isn’t there a mathematician, statistician, behavioral psychologist out there who could help? If one has access to 100 million profiles, what percent will change their behavior? Will Democrats ask “What percent of consumers change behavior based on advertising? How many votes could have been changed?”
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that Facebook is a tool that can be easily manipulated. It magnifys the negitive aspects of the ego. By posting only the good things in their lives it's a competition to see who is the coolest. Completely unrepresentitive of real life. It should be called FakeBook.
3
I joined FB because a progressive group that I work with uses it as an organizing tool. I liked a circle of other progressive groups and politicians to see what the information would be like and I have avoided liking individual persons. I have found it both annoying and useful. However, because Oklahoma has no popular non-conservative press in either major city it remains the only way to put out information that would otherwise not be exchanged or discussed in public. For example, the state teachers organized their spring rallies on a FB page which were so successful they continued to use the platform to organize for the 2018 elections. A wealth of information about candidate voting records and policy positions that would never have seen the light of day in the local press was provided by volunteers to a large number of educator-activists via FB. As a result of this effort and the solidarity it created most of the anti-education legislators were defeated and a whole class of newly elected educator-legislators was elected. There is definitely a dark side to FB, but that is true for all public media. They all reflect the positions of the owners. Eyes wide open.
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Facebook, like any tool, can be used responsibly or irresponsibly.
A kitchen knife can help prepare a gourmet dinner or be used to kill one's dinner guest.
Blaming Facebook is akin to blaming the knife.
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@Didier
With regard to the dissemination of propaganda, I agree entirely, but Facebook is no inanimate object whose propensity for good or ill is solely dependent on those who use it.
Expanding on your analogy, what if the knife's poor design and a failure to properly secure the blade to its handle led to injury? Do the designers not bear some responsibility?
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@Didier
Your knife analogy falls flat. Facebook can be used to encourage people to spew mindless hate, to spread bigotry, to invade people's privacy. And it does not do that on its own. Their corporate managers have a purpose, a profiteering motive in mind.
Name one other major industry, one that makes billions of dollars, that we do not regulate.
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@Didier, Of course I blame the knife. Knives are dangerous. They have to be used with care and kept out of the hands of maniacs and enraged relatives. Same goes for Facebook.
15
We all have a tremendous opportunity here. While Facebook continues to “delay, deny, and deflect,” and Congress wrestles with the whether it has the courage to challenge corporations with a lot of money, we can all take action: close our Facebook accounts.
There’s no excuse (except for laziness) not to. We’ll all survive.
This is democracy from the bottom up. And gerrymandering, voter suppression, mysteriously lost ballots, and the Electoral College can’t affect the outcome.
So cast your vote against corporate corruption and threats to democracy. Facebook and Congress aren’t going to do anything about it.
2
" America once had the confidence to subdue tyrannical plutocrats. " This is the fond memory that both conservatives and progressives can share. Those were the good old days when America was really (can we all say it together) great. Make America great again like that.
Elsewhere in these pages David Brooks described how what has deranged conservatism as a movement was the lack of a moral purpose. Here it is.
I've love to hear from others if I'm the only one who has had solely (or, 99.9%) positive experiences on Facebook. I actually agree with nearly everything Ms. Goldberg writes (except for leaving FB altogether), but I wonder if there might be some way to harness its potential for good.
I had no interest in joining FB till last December, and even then, only because Jan (my wife) and I needed to use FB to market an e-course we've created. Since then, i've participated in maybe 12 or so very unpleasant political discussions. "Unfollowing' the discussion was enough to end them.
Apart from that:
1. My master's thesis was on lucid dreaming, and I've kept up with the research literature for over 30 years. This past summer, in a FB lucid dream group, I discovered an unusual twist to a lucid dream technique, and it's provided me with a key for a scientific research project I hope to be involved with in the next several years.
2. I have been a member of numerous Asian-oriented meditation groups as well as Christian contemplative prayer groups. I recently joined a FB group which has, in my experience, some of the most insightful members of any online or in person group
3. I've arranged some progressive/centrist republican dialog (involving nearly 4000 people) with real-world results.
***
There are at least a dozen more examples like that, and - I've configured my page that I only see similarly uplifting material.
Am I the only one with mostly positive FB experience?
6
@don salmon
No, you're not the only person with a positive outlook on FB. While I don't disagree with Michelle Goldberg, I've successfully used FB to share articles, podcasts, videos, and other information
- about trainings, rides, actions, bringing people out to participate in nonviolent direct action, a cornerstone of a functioning democracy.
- for understanding complex questions such as, What is the IDC? What is the state of NYS's reproductive rights? How are LGBT rights connected at their core to women's rights?
- to share long form writing about the history of white supremacy in the United States and the rise of fascism around the world.
- to raise questions about issues of concern to all New Yorkers interested in a future that honors the human contract.
So, while I may have started out posting occasionally about "my lovely lunch" and "my cat basking in the sun," FB is now one of the ways that I "do" politics -- when I'm not training people to take part in a demonstration, organizing a demonstration, participating in a demonstration, or recovering from a demonstration.
FB is a forum for sharing public education and ideas. This is meaningful in a democracy. I'll be truly sorry if we can't come up with a better alternative.
3
@don salmon: I use and like FB. Yes, my experiences have been very positive. Just like any "gathering" there are a few rotten apples. But, there are features like, unfriend, unfollow, delete and block for those few. I've met new friends, local and overseas, who I now friends with IRL. Good ideas have been shared back and forth. I'm not leaving.
1
@Cindi T & A
Hi folks - thanks so much for your responses. I'e been somewhat perplexed by the rigidity of so many responses, insisting that FB is simply bad with no redeeming qualities.
For example, Didier wrote a NY Times pick making the excellent, and quite simple, point that FB is a tool like a knife, which can be used to make an excellent meal or to hurt someone. There was a response saying, “But what if the knife is poorly made, in a way that might injure many users?”
Given that FB is not a physical object, and we do have a choice as to how we use it, I’m more inclined to agree with you two, and with Didier, that we can take responsibility as to how we use it.
There are also, to give the knife-analogy some credence, legal actions that can be taken – particularly anti-trust measures, and perhaps something regarding pop-up ads and other forms of avertising – which could help to insure that more people are able to engage with FB in a more positive way – or, at least, in a less toxic way.
1
I was a moderately active user, but closed my account a year ago — I don’t miss it, and I feel just a little cleaner.
6
Since most of the United $tate$ Congre$$ of Corporation$ has thoroughly abandoned decent public policy, let's look to a government that's less corrupt: Europe.
The EU just implemented the General Data Protection Regulation on data protection and privacy for all individuals within the European Union in May 2018.
“It’s changing the balance of power from the giant digital marketing companies to focus on the needs of individuals and democratic society,” said Jeffrey Chester, founder of the Center for Digital Democracy. “That’s an incredible breakthrough.”
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/apr/19/gdpr-facebook-google-amazon-data-privacy-regulation
“What makes this a potential game changer is the amount of power it places into the hands of the public,” said attorney Jason Straight, chief privacy officer at a legal services company.
What was Facebook’s reaction to this humane law ?
Facebook changed its terms of service so that its 1.5 billion non-European users would no longer be covered by the new GDPR privacy law.
Until May 2018, all Facebook users outside of the US and Canada have been governed by terms of service agreed with the company’s international headquarters in Ireland.
Since any user data processed in Ireland will soon fall under GDPR, Facebook changed the agreement so users in Africa, Asia, Australia and Latin America are governed by more lenient US privacy laws.
Facebook corporate greed is evil.
Regulation is the solution.
Demand it from Congress.
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@Socrates Always right on the mark. Some of my dim friends scold me for not reading their Facebook nonsense.
Thank you for your thoughtful comments
18
It's always interesting to see who posts - easy to jump on and say, "who needs FB?" But I do. I have found friends and family members that were lost (and I did try, the old fashioned way to find them) and have been able to keep up with my far flung buddies around the world. I can go back into my history and theirs for memories (in pictures and posts) and I even sometimes buy something from ads that appear pretty well aligned to my needs. When the insanity of the 2016 election went on, and clear lies about my candidates and their platforms came up, I saw them as the garbage they were, and deleted or ignored or gave feedback to FB on them. They did not change my views or my vote. Neither do the opinion pieces and editorials on the news journals I read. FB is a commercial enterprise and serves a purpose. If you don't like it don't join or leave, but please don't impose your views on me. There are far more reprehensible commercial actors in our world than FB. Go after them first.
6
@E Campbell: Thank you! I completely agree with you and I use Facebook the same way you do. My page is "friends only". Some friends are "far-flung buddies" like yours. Some are 10 miles away but we talk on Facebook and arrange to meet for lunch, dinner or a walk in the park with other friends scattered in cities nearby. The one thing I LOVE, is that I've met good people from other countries (mostly in Europe). My husband & I travel and we've since met several of those friends, in person and now they're friends IRL. As to the garbage (which is always going to be everywhere) on FB, there is the delete button and for those who are really awful, the "block" feature. For the crazy relatives or people you have to deal with IRL, there is the "unfollow" feature. I have a brain and I use it.
Yes I'm a Facebook addict, I admit. Usually I am looking at my page several times a day. But when have I ever, in my whole 53 years, been so in touch with the goings on of friends, family and relations throughout my life. I am able to see nieces and nephews I have never met growing up! In fact, now that my memory is sometimes vague, I find it reassuring that I can look back on my timeline to reconfirm certain events.
Regarding what posts I see, I treat my Facebook account no differently than my email, removing content that I do not want to see. Facebook allows you to unfollow, unfriend, block specific content, and that works for me. It's no different than unsubscribing when you get unwanted solicitation emails or replying 'stop' to unwanted texts. I've kept my sanity by eliminating Facebook politics so that it purely is a friendly platform, and only go to reputable news sources directly.
I'm keeping Facebook. This is 2018. We can adapt.
11
I absolutely agree. Facebook should be accountable for it's transgressions. I decided last June to end my relationship and I have not missed it--the news about its practices continues to reflect Facebook's greed and damage to our democracy.
Just a quick note.
I’ve never been a Facebook subscriber nor any other social media platform.
I still:
Do well in my job.
Connect with my kids
Maintain my friendships and associations
Use the internet as resource and entertainment
Receive news
Brag about accomplishments
And all the other things I’m constantly being told I cannot do effectively without being on social media
Facebook is a giant company trying (and succeeding) to make money on YOU. IT IS NOT some crusader for truth and social justice and I promise, you can actually live, breath, and move without it.
74
"In general, people trust local papers more than the national media; when stories are about your immediate community, you can see they’re not fake news." There are a whole lot of hard working people out there who don't pay much attention to newspapers, and a whole lot of local papers who don't cover state or national news. My answer, old fashioned and seemingly resisted by the political parties - billboards. And not just a month or two before the election. Permanent billboards that carry quotes like McConnell's (tax cuts are for their donors), Trump's many many reversals and on and on. Electronic billboards are proliferating, they would be useful for more than just product ads.
Have never been on Facebook. In Facebook's early years, when many of the people I knew were swooning over it and the hundreds of new 'friends' they were making, the thought occurred to me that handing over a great deal of my personal information to a fledgling company run by people barely out of their teenage years was perhaps not the brightest idea to embrace.
Nothing I've since read about this company has led me to regret my decision not to join.
11
For the vast majority of Facebook users, the platform is a place for posting pictures, sending birthday wishes, and keeping up with friends and family. Politics is the small fringe of what Facebook is used for. Essentially, Hillary lost the 2016 election and now someone has to pay and Facebook is on that list. Democrats have done a good job of monopolizing the news industry, aside from Fox News, leaving people who don’t share their views to go to alternative sources that aren’t always accurate. What Democrats miss is that it’s not the governments job to decide what “news” people get to see. The fair market and the people should get to decide what to do with fake news. Government interference in this process is a blatant abuse of the first amendment unless something invites violence. The very purpose of the first amendment is to prevent the government from interfering in the free and open spread of information.
8
@John Way to entirely miss the point of the article. It's not just Democrats vs. Republicans and the poor "conservatives" who don't like facts reported by reputable news sources - although every reasonable-sounding "conservative" mouths some version of your self-pitying grievance above. The issue is that 1) Facebook specifically and social-media in general has become the primary means for evil people of all stripes to beam their propaganda directly into gullible people's brains, and 2) they have MONETIZED this activity. This is demonstrably horrible, not because Hillary lost the election due largely to ignorant racist old people sharing fact-free, addictive rage generating lies on Facebook, but because it empowers criminals and dictators worldwide to control people to further their evil agendas. It is not a fact of life that Facebook should be able to profit from this activity. And to anyone who isn't blinded by whiny conservative "free speech" propaganda and zero-sum R v. D political sniping, it's obvious that this is an evil worth confronting.
2
I quit after the Trump/Cambridge Analytical event. I communicate with real friends, in other ways. Not making Zuckerberg richer.
11
This is enough for me to discount and dismiss this piece as opinion, poorly formed opinion at that:"Without Facebook, Donald Trump probably wouldn’t be president, which is reason enough to curse its existence" And in the same paragraph "Facebook helped decimate local newspapers, contributing to America’s widespread epistemological derangement". I prefer to think that Trump was elected because we (Democrats) had a flawed candidate, a split party, the Electoral College, a deeply divided/stratified nation, failed to articulate any reasonable position on immigration, did not recognize our own elitism and condecension ,called people deplorables, etc. Re: Newspapers--The publishing business(including newspapers) were in trouble long before FaceBook. It is a bit like saying the buggy business failed because of the advent of vehicles with automatic transmissions. Finally, "Epistemological derangement"--I still am not sure what it means(I even looked it up). Perhaps that is not talking down to millions but it certainly talks over the two billion plus people regularly using FaceBook. If the Democrats unfiend FaceBook they will be making friend with another Trump like administration.
8
@Frank Ayers When we reach a point where our once mainly reliable sources of knowledge are totally undermined by the increased reliance on social media, lying leaders and polarized cable networks, we get epistemological derangement .
1
@Frank Ayers - I would add that 10 years ago the Obama campaign made liberal (no pun intended) use of Facebook and Social Media:
https://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/10/business/media/10carr.html
https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2008/11/19/barack-obama-and-the-facebook-election
2
@Rob I don't know whether you are epistemologically deranged--but I can assure you that I am only moderately deranged. I do wonder if we are, in fact, anymore epistomologically deranged than when people relied/rely on various (correct) interpretations of the Bible, Koran, Talmud, Veda etc by spokespersons with absolute knowledgge--one could also plug in, at almost any point in history, almost all politicians, rulers, academics, shamans, astrologers etc. Information has always been confusing, contradictory--but we do have a lot of it now. Thanks for the comment. it is appreciated.
It's hard to remember that Facebook started with a college kids wanting to increase communicability. It sounded innocent enough. One rule of humanity is that whatever comes along there's a significant number of people that will ruin it. On the pro side - and this is a huge pro: I found my beloved senior dog to adopt through rescue sites that post on Facebook; I've also found and now communicate in the lazy Facebook way with people I long ago lost touch with---You can't lower the bar much more than to consider clicking a 'Like' icon as communication. But I'll keep it as a pro. On the con side- is the interminable 'sharing' of banal sayings and staged videos, and of course the selfies. I never knew that so many people need to be looked at. On the criminal side- do I believe much of society's violence starts on media sites? Absolutely. Is there a resolution? Not without much more policing. Then a good idea will be completely ruined.
'
4
I've never been on Facebook because it seems like a waste of time (at best), but how about starting a Facebook campaign encouraging Facebook users not to believe anything they see on Facebook?
If that succeeds, Twitter.
4
Why are we talking about FB as though it has monopolized the production or delivery of a necessity? FB's reach and power is instantly removed by getting off of it. As an extra bonus you can then spend that newly freed time doing something satisfying in the real world.
17
I have never joined Facebook, and I have no idea why people hesitate to leave it, given that there are safer alternatives. But its apparent appeal has become so broad that some Internet retailers use it as a preferred "sign in" vehicle, which has always irritated the devil out of me.
Many of my friends, however--the vast majority of whom are politically active in social justice--continue to use Facebook, and they apparently ignore the many stories I forward to them about Facebook's misdeeds. Perhaps someone can explain to me: Is Facebook an addiction? If so, why? We managed without it for quite a long time. Why is Facebook preferable to the safer communicative means and platforms we used before?
Facebook has become a political force, and although this column focuses on Democrats, ALL Americans, whatever their politics, should be concerned with the meddling in U.S. elections by a foreign power.
It seems to me that Internet users need to face questions that the medical profession has grappled with for many decades. Yes, we have this technology. The ethical question is this: Should we use it? Are we making the world better or worse by availing ourselves of every new technology or packaging of technology that comes down the pike? Facebook should be on life support right now, given all the revelations that have come out in the last decade. What's keeping us from pulling the plug?
No addiction should be this strong.
22
@Janice I use Facebook to publish links to interesting articles that appear in publications and on other Facebook pages. It is just a new way to publish information to people I don't know. I also follow various pages that publish interesting articles.
I don't believe in "family and friends" as a category. Some people associated with work and school are in my "friends" list, not a lot. I don't publish pictures or personal information. (They do, mostly.)
Yes, Facebook is easier to use than a web page. Thus many nonprofits and other organizations use it, not very nicely. It is like a polluted river, dirty but still convenient for boating. Live streaming FB pages are VERY useful.
@Sandra
I grasp the convenience angle. But I don't understand the priority of convenience over the medium's damage to our society.
You make a personal case for continuing the use of Facebook, but you not address the ethical issues, and those are what I was ultimately getting at in my comment. I imagine that Facebook would be convenient for me as well, but my comment was directed at what I consider to be more important social and political issues.
Our perspectives kind of pass by each other, in other words--like ships passing by one another in the same sea.
1
@Janice
Janice: Do you use any of the following:
Cars
phones
electricitry
roads
the internet
food
I could list thousands more, but if you use any of these, you are supporting hundreds of the most psychopathic CEOs connected to some of the most rapacious corporations on the planet.
In "The Practice of the Presence of God," Brother Lawrence was once asked how he could remain so calm in the face of such obvious widespread evil.
On the contrary, he said, he is everyday convinced, more and more, of the astonishing continuous action of Divine Grace, because no other explanation could provide for him a way to understand how humanity had not destroyed itself.
Relax, it's called being human. Sandra is right - far from her passing you by, you missed her point. Implicitly, it's obvious she is aware of FB misdeeds. you don't seem to be aware of everyone else's misdeeds. You do your best with what you've been given, like Brother Lawrence (or, if you don't like religion, Kabir, or any of the other male or female sages who have lived on the razor's edge (see Katha Upanishad)
1
We were naive in thinking platforms like these were benign, future forward, democratic and positive. That is how the web felt at the outset. But now as the true nature of big data is revealed it feels as if we have been invaded, and colonized by some invisible army. Believing is connectivity, believing in network, convenience and efficiency we were numb to it. But now we are owned, quantified, echoed and frankly all too often misled. Yes we should see our friend for what it is and find new friends. The spin coming from Facebook and its ilk is toxic.
10
I am not on Facebook, never have been. Yet the list of cookies on my computer contain numerous Facebook cookies with various extensions. I have been advised that Facebook has enormous tentacles. If you go to a website of a company which advertises or uses Facebook, you get pulled into their information network. I wrote to my liberal Congressman about this and never received an answer. I have seen friends spend hours on Facebook. It's now "neighborhood."
10
I haven't seen anything of value in Facebook. It hasn't brought me closer to anybody but has caused the alienation of a couple of longtime acquaintances. It seems to be more a force of alienation than togetherness.
8
I don't see (for now) the collective political will required to regulate anything on the internet, since those same powers that be are setting it up to be a two lane highway (much like life) where those willing to pay more will have more access over others.
Having said that, the company's success is an overall symptom of people's (especially Americans) laziness. There are so many other ways/websites to communicate to one another, collate your news intake and generally explore.
Just as much as people (within a generation or two) will not be able to write out anything in longhand/cursive (let alone write anything at all), they will not be able to motivate themselves to push more than one button. (let alone push any at all)
I suspect it will be a ubiquitous feed on the wall.
9
The ownership of FB must be displaced and hopefully through a judge's court order. The law suit AND INVESTIGATION should be one of the first things Whitaker takes on and completes within 1 year. Saying or thinking that the power of Zuckerberg's creation couldn't be predicted is simply a cop-out. If I'm an endocrinology scientist working on a specific drug that will useful in treating diabetes only to find out that it cures all endocrine problems - who gets credit? Nobody? Me? Of course I get the credit as does Zuckerberg for damaging society as a whole and many other transgressions. This is important and should be done quickly before everyone goes back into numbness on the issue.
5
Facebook has plenty to answer for, but I think we need to be careful about blaming it for all the emerging social ills of the 21st Century. Part of the social disruption we are seeing today stems from technological advancements that would be deranging us with or without Facebook.
That said, it is not only Democrats who should abandon Facebook. Everybody should. The personal data that is available on Facebook for malefactors to mine hardly respects individual political preferences. Facebook's lax ethical standards make anybody's membership a far too risky proposition.
14
The growth of Facebook, Google, Microsoft, et al has to do more with American tax law than anything else. As these barely profitable or money losing companies bought up their competition, they were able to create monopoly like entities. The purchase of the competition was considered a business expense. Disallowing the cost of mergers as business expenses would have stopped all of the consolidation. Just a few years ago, Blackberry had an operating system which could compete with Googles Android but Google could afford to run their operations at a loss while Blackberry needed to turn a profit. For years Amazon didn't need to collect any sales taxes and even today doesn't need to collect sales taxes on every sold on its site. Macy's and Best Buy is required to pay sales taxes on every dollar collected. Lobbying by these mega-corporations has created a unfair playing field which favors the powerful. A few changes in tax law would completely alter the game and redistribute power. I'm not a socialist calling for redistribution. I'm a liberal calling for a dismantling of a mercantilist system which benefits the connected.
50
@Mike Amen. The tax payer should own it.
2
Not that I know a lot about the technicalities of Facebook, but, as a former teacher I know something about setting boundaries. Whenever I was absent from class, I would spend time with my class on how they were expected to treat the substitute teacher---I was very clear about 1) expected behaviors and 2) consequences for those who did not meet these expectations. I always called on a student and asked: "Jeff, what is the first thing I'm going to do when I return..." "You are going to find the substitute teacher and ask for a report." What the Facebook executives did was leave their platform with no rules in place for poor behavior.
11
I too deleted my Facebook account almost a year ago. Minimally the officers of the company should be held accountable. Perhaps serious jail time along with loss of all stock in the company?
8
Why not have a social media site that is publicly funded and run by one or more non-profit (such as Apache Foundation) with Open Source software and inter-operability across platforms?
That way our data is secure & people post without fear of being watched by governments or corporations.
7
I have been using Facebook for years! Making friends around the world. Finding long-lost family members. Making fun of politics, etc. Do I want to get off of Facebook? No! It adds a powerful, global dimension to my life. Can Facebook be improved? Yes! Should it be controlled by governments? No!
13
@JRainne: I'm with you!
1
Facebook is a modern tool, a communications device. Anyone who believed for a minute that it was a benevolent company that only wanted to do good for the world was naive. However, let us not overlook that speedy and easy communication can be useful and enjoyable. I use it to keep up with the goings on of my far flung and growing family. I am an amature photographer who enjoys sharing my photos and discussing them with others who are also passionate about photography. But there are also unwanted and uninvited intrusions into my desired usage of Facebook. When "friends" talk politics or religion I can choose to unfriend them or hide their comments. But many people, groups, businesses have paid Facebook for my eyeballs and they are permitted access to my feed and I must suffer them silently because "Facebook is free". I would much rather pay for the service I choose to use while not becoming a commodity for a mega corporation to monetize.
3
Why rely on the uncertainty of legislation that is unlikely to pass a Republican controlled Senate and would not survive a Trump veto if it did? Progressives should take action now by deactivating their Facebook accounts. I did so months ago and don't miss FB in the least.
13
Back in my old lefty days I remember hearing how the Revolution would flourish if only the people owned their own printing presses and TV studios. Well now they do—it’s called Facebook—and predictably we don’t like the results.
I use Facebook to keep in touch with friends and relatives as my husband and I travel around the country. I also belong to several special interest groups. It’s easy, it’s convenient and a great way to connect with people I might never have met. The downside of course is the hate speech, the mindless memes and the temptation to fight every fight.
Clearly we need stronger privacy protections and libel protections but I’m afraid that the social media genie is out of the bottle and as not going back in there any more than printing presses disappeared despite the best efforts of despots everywhere.
It’s up to us to learn how to live with it. Because Facebook or it’s various clones are for better or worse here to stay.
11
@Brooklyncowgirl The people don't own Facebook, Facebook owns the people. Facebook users aren't the customer, they are the product. Facebook sells our data to companies looking to sell us their products and to groups looking to influence our behavior (e.g., how we vote). There is nothing democratic or revolutionary about Facebook; it is undemocratic and mercenary, cloaked in the flowery language of friendship and connection.
5
Facebook does indeed need some kind of adult supervision, not only because Mark Zuckerberg, for all his billions, still looks like a teenager, but because its power and influence have grown far faster and deeper than could have been predicted. Universal, uncensored and free access to extremely broad based and instant social connectivity is hard to resist. But like every other technological revolution, there are always significant dangers that become apparent after only after the damage has begun, and after there is sufficient dependence on the new technology to make backing out of it difficult. Facebook has become what it is not because of some consistently malevolent intent in the part of its management, but primarily because of how its billions of users have chosen to interface with it. Some are highly sophisticated governments or corporations, and others are their often gullible and easily manipulated potential targets. Then there those who just want to share pictures of their kids playing soccer. But because, in the wrong hands, it can be an uncontrollable weapon, governments must begin to rein it is somehow. Also -- thank you, Michelle, for not spinning this important topic into a shrill screed about abusive men.
2
It is gratifying to see op/ed pieces like this one. Although I was "strongly encouraged" to create a Facebook page by my employer, I never used it after I saw what it was like. That was ten years ago. Now, of course, there are even more reasons to avoid Facebook. I just wonder if its addicted users will be able to quit.
23
How about making people pay for Facebook? Changing the business model is the only way to change the incentives of its owners. It would also give us a chance to see how valuable folks believe it to be.
22
One of the ironies of the Facebook mess is that many progressive and Democratic groups organize themselves primarily on ... Facebook. I live in a very rural and conservative part of the country. FB has helped progressives find each other, discuss policy and current events, and organize protests and political campaigns. In some cases the group members are spread out over hundreds of miles; in-person meetings are often impractical or impossible, but we can chat and strategize in real time on the platform (as long as our Internet is working that day, but that's a different story). I think a small-fee, ad-free social media platform could be exactly what we need to kick the FB habit.
67
@Judy
Don’t forget elected officials and their office representatives tell constituents to refer to the official face book page of the Congress member. I tell them that is not acceptable to me. Facebook is one huge for profit spy/ collection agency that local and federal law enforcement use regularly and I no longer have anything to do with.
6
Facebook is not a platform. Its algorithms turn it into publisher, which is why it should be regulated as such. The US and the EU should make Facebook liable for its content, and see whether it will survive the ensuing wave of litigation. A class-action lawsuit on behalf of the Rohingya would be a good place to start.
85
I’ve always found it remarkable that people are so willingly eager to be facebook’s product, because that’s what you are if you’ve got an account, and they’re going to sell every inch of your hide to enrich themselves.
27
I got off Facebook about an hour after I got on and said this is not for me. I found it confusing and by mistake put a private communication on 'the wall'. (It was my mistake completely). But it scared me off of it. Immediately.
I am often frustrated because if I want information or if I want to write a comment, I have to sign up for Facebook.
I truly feel that the micro-targeting that was being done by Trump, Cambridge Analytics and Russian dis-information in the upper Midwest states was a huge factor in giving us Trump. People being influenced by Facebook algorithims, just enough of them, to turn them away from Hillary, to Jill Stein, to Trump and they didn't even realize it.
I've heard that 50% of Americans get their news all off of Facebook. That's downright scary, scary, scary.
Hold them accountable and make them change their ways. Lean way in, Democrats. Way in.
155
@sophia "I've heard that 50% of Americans get their news all off of Facebook. That's downright scary, scary, scary."
Erstwhile newspapers, such as the New York Times and Washington Post, have Facebook pages. As do NPR, Reuters, BBC, etc. I actually do access those pages for news.
4
""Hate speech on Facebook incited murderous mobs in Sri Lanka; as The Times reported, “Facebook’s newsfeed played a central role in nearly every step from rumor to killing.”"
This news caused me to get off Facebook for about 6 months. But then I got lured back by all the family photos I was missing. I check it once a day, if that, because each time I go on, I see Zuckerberg-Sandberg staring back at me and laughing.
All the way to the bank.
That FB got involved with politics and poisoned the well of political discourse around the globe is bad enough without all the psychological bullying and immediacy that turned the platform into a 24/7 school corridor.
Zuckerberg-Sandberg knew how to hook users but in return, gave them a highly manipulated and dangerous social media platform.
That so many got, and still get, news from FB amazes me, but that so many did, and still believe the conspiracies swirling in political circles is chilling.
It's easy to say, "get off FB" but to many, it's addictive. Addictive substances are either banned or highly regulated. Why not Facebook?
54
@ChristineMcM I deleted my facebook account and let all my extended family and friends know via email. Now they send me their family photos and videos via email.
144
Hit the nail on the head!!! Only reason I'm on Facebook at all is to see what's happening with my granddaughter in New England and my Navy son in CA.
2
@ChristineMcM
You are one of my go to people here because of the quality and of your arguments and evident intelligence. Sadly, not this time. I was never tempted by FB when it was foisted on us by a seemingly smarmy young guy who was accused of pushing others to claim sole ownership.
Now we have on our hands a social media monster that is accused of being at the very least careless with subscribers personal information and having been used by a foreign enemy to help saddle us with an abomination in the Oval Office.
Just let it go, you don’t need it with your communication skills.
6
The film, “The Social Network,” portrayed the beginning of FaceBook. I found it disturbing, and it’s founder despicable. It has always been an exploitive and predatory platform. Current revelations should be no surprise to anyone who knows what motivated the start of FB.
30
This is not something that can be fixed with monitoring or adjustments. Social media is based on treating all communication as pure commodity, centralized, gathered, exchanged, sifted & sold, which means that it can, by design, also be "weaponized." Whether it's American companies using the information to manipulate our consumption behavior or Russia using it to manipulate our political behavior, there is no legitimate reason for one company or program or platform to centralize that much power.
11
I've thought about quitting Facebook, but for gardeners, birders, insect afficiandos and others it's a fun and effective way to identify and talk about the natural world. Of course there's lots of misinformation too, but that gets shot down in the better groups. Doesn't replace field guides, just makes the process social. My favorite groups ban politics and religious topics. Works well for artists too; I see and share work with artists around the world. Maybe I'll take a haitus for a few months? We'll see...
17
@Polly Perkins I shut my account down after I found out what had happened with the selling of data to Cambridge Analytical. At first I missed it but instead of checking on what random thoughts my friends (and fellow bird watching partners) had running through their minds. I started calling them or texting them. What a novel concept! One on one interaction uninterrupted but some troll one or the other of us had the misfortune to have friended. Facebook makes you a very low cost product for Mr Zuckerberg to sell at quite a hefty profit. He should take his money and go enjoy life instead of pursuing more profits. How enjoyable is life in a gilded cage for him anyway? 24/7 security, death threats, children and loved ones targets for kidnappers. I am good with anonymity and my meager salary. As for being able to sign into things. Create a fake account. Russia did. If everyone shut down their real account and created a fake one Mr Zuckerbergs product becomes worthless.
@Polly Perkins
I couldn't agree more. I follow several porcelain doll artists as well as furniture "up-cyclers". The international organization of porcelain doll artists 'The Doll Artisan Guild' has Facebook presence as does The UFDC, an antique doll collectors group. Sadly some of us have no self control and lack incredulity. How do we regulate that? How do we rid ourselves of hate, envy, gullibility? Facebook isn't the cause, it's a symptom of a segment of sick society. The platform isn't the problem, per se, the problem lies with those among us who either spread or believe the lies. How do we fix that? Hatred, envy, gullibility are as old as mankind itself. Believing we can somehow legislate against them is akin to believing in fairytales.
1
@Stuart Smith
It's impossible to "call" everyone. I belong to several artist and crafter groups. They share photos of their latest projects where a question/answer dialog is available. How would any or all of this be handled by a text or a phone call? These artists share with hundreds of fellow artists. Who would have time to text with all? I don't "socialize" on FB.I don't post recipes, I don't post inane comments nor do I read them. The artist groups I'm in don't post politics, inane comments or vapid posts. Your comment is ridiculous painting all FB users with the same brush. Maybe we should all just have a bit of self control and just say no to the vapidness of some FB members but it is a valuable tool for those who use it wisely.
3
It's wishful thinking to believe regulations will have impact enough to mitigate the malign influences of Facebook. Long before Facebook there were radio and television and the equal time requirement.
The Reagan administration and the lurch rightward in our courts decided regulation of media was an infringement on speech. In the process, the courts also decided money, in the form of campaign contributions, is also speech.
We were thus far down the rabbit hole of a poisoned discourse long before Facebook came along to provide an even more efficient vector for the kinds of lies, disinformation and rabble-rousing perfected by Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity years ago. Keep in mind also that television is still Donald Trump's favorite medium and radio is still a major force out in flyover country.
As long as the libertarian right can buy politicians, courts and platforms, the real problems with our polluted discourse will persist, especially given the decline in educational achievement throughout the nation.
36
Outstanding column.
That FaceBook could be restrained by amending the Communications Decency Act is heartening.
The importance of judicious regulation is unquestionable. The question is whether the Congress that will be seated in January 2019 will possess the necessary political will.
11
FB should be required to make it easier for a user to delete it. I haven't been on my page for at least five years, but it won't let me delete it because I don't remember my password.
51
I'd like to float an idea. Maybe Facebook should not be held accountable at all for the communications that take place on its platform. The internet opened up a host of channels for communication, beginning with email, then with listservs, chat rooms, messaging, and most recently Facebook, Instagram, etc. They are the equivalent of a new set of public conference rooms, where anyone can come in the door and pull up a chair. The difference is that the communication involves potentially billions of people in real time, essentially instantaneously, with no geographical constraints.
The invention of the telephone was an early version of this, but had the limitation of being a one-to-one system, so it did not raise the problems of crowd contagion that the internet faces us with.
Now, it makes no sense to hold the phone company responsible for what is said over the phone — you don't sue AT&T if a terrorist group planned their next target via phone calls. So why do we think of holding Facebook accountable for what is communicated over their channel? Should we be looking for some other ways to manage the lightning spread of damaging memes?
I think there's something wrong with this analysis, but I'm not sure what it is. It may have to do with the fact that communication on modern platforms is lightning fast and occurs in a huge group. It's OK to tell someone on the phone that their house is on fire, but we all know that it's really, really wrong to yell "fire!" in a crowded theater.
14
@pmbrig
They have admitted enough to challenge your illusion that it's a neutral platform.
Fake news and conspiracies thrive because the company created the site to manipulate users' attention using known psychological science. NOT CHANCE
Cambridge Analytica got caught doing what Facebook makes its billions doing. It's intentionally designed to do that. NOT CHANCE
Real newspaper companies went out of business because of the way that the Facebook company intentionally promotes some posts over others. NOT CHANCE
3
@pmbrig
I think it's wrong to tell someone his house is on fire if it isn't on fire.
@mirucha: You're right. Facebook is not just a neutral conduit. It's as if the phone company didn't charge you if your long distance call was inflammatory and provocative and caused others to make more long distance calls, so the company made more money.
My post was in some ways a devil's advocate position, to try to elucidate what makes Facebook's operation so problematic.
2
Luckily, I never succumbed to the Facebook cult. It just seemed so invasive, more so than any app previous to its release. Now my suspicions have been borne out - and tremendously expanded. Facebook is NOT your friend or the friend of America. Delete now.
97
@Michael Gilbert
The same here. After creating my page about ten years ago and visiting it a couple of times, I deleted it. Dave Egger's novel The Circle offers a pretty good dramatization of the perils of social-media-think.
7
I never had a Facebook or Twitter account.
I am an IT Engineer and I know how to differentiate between value (IBM, Intel, Cisco) and farce: social media.
I have no dog in this fight.
100
@MorGan
Except businesses use this platform as well. As a media artist I subscribe to several artists' communities. The info available is priceless and not available in any other format. I don't use it to socialize but it does have a value for those of us who use it with restraint and intelligence.
5
@sharon
It isn`t priceless if you have to sell your soul to get it.
7
I gave up FB four years ago and have absolutely no regrets. Keeping up with friends and family is possible through text, email, and phone. Anyone who really wants to stay connected will reciprocate. Passive lurking is not meaningful connection.
239
@Josh
I gave up facebook when it became hard to actually keep up with my friends because Facebook manipulated the posts so much that instead fo my friends' personal posts appearing when I logged in, I saw all the promotional stuff first. Anybody who posted a recycled video appeared first; whoever posted a link to a news item appeared first. It got so bad that instead of being able to read my feed, I had to look up my friends' fb pages and read them directly.
I couldn't bear being force-fed all the nonsense during election year, so I quit.
20
Democrats need to move on this issue before Republicans take it from them. It's happened before (antitrust, income tax, etc.). Interesting column.
8
Facebook is like an addictive substance. It's a mind control device. People get hooked on it. It gives people a high to post information, and in exchange for that high, Facebook controls our behavior with sophisticated robotic mind control algorithms. Facebook is our robotic overlord.
It's the most effective overlord because its victims do not realize that they are being manipulated. They believe that they are independent, free thinking agents but they are in fact puppets. They are instruments of profit. They are addicts of machine generated information.
When confronted with this reality, most people will reject it because it is too frightening to consider. But it is true. Facebook is our robotic overlord. And we let the robot in ourselves. We gave the robot the keys to our homes, our minds.
The entire planet is hooked on the Facebook drug. That is no accident. It is the result of highly sophisticated mind control software. Facebook has enslaved us. Stop using it. Just stop. You can always call someone if you want to talk to them. That used to work pretty well a few years ago and no robots controlled your mind in the process.
139
@Bruce Rozenblit
Not just Facebook is addictive. The Republicans have found that fear and hate is very addictive. What's so great about fear and hate is you don't need a message at all.
All you need is fear and hate, and you get what's more important than any message - you get turnout. And that's how a minority party controls the majority.
The result is that the Republican party is a crack house.
9
If facebook didn't exist, something else would take its place (e.g. instagram, snapchat, etc). 62% of Americans use facebook so you have to convince almost two thirds of the public to stop using it. That doesn't even begin to touch the number of businesses, non profits and others that have a facebook presence.
14
Although I personally favor applying the "corporate death penalty" to Facebook (as someone suggested after Experian's third strike you're out data breach), that is probably not politically or economically feasible.
The new Democratic House should instead take a look at two central issues--the absence of any effective consumer privacy protection laws in America and the major cybersecurity threats we face in all aspects of our lives.
If consumers "owned" and could protect information about themselves, with appropriate criminal and civil penalties for companies that violate the rules, many of the abuses would stop. The value of Facebook and other such marketing companies would drop and perhaps more normal leadership teams, accustomed to playing by societal rules, could take over from Zuckerberg and Sandberg.
It should also be clear to all by now that many aspects of our modern life--personal and business communications, credit card use, property ownership, elections, and on and on--are vulnerable to cybercrime attacks, whether by profit-seeking criminals, foreign adversaries or thrill-seeking hackers.
We responded to Sputnik with a national effort to boost education in technical fields, supported by financial aid and advanced curricula. We desperately need a similar cyber education program today, preparing an army of cybersecurity experts able to protect our digital way of life and teaching school kids to spot fake news.
We don't have to passively accept this mess.
29
The Facebook heads of state, are major donors to the Democrats. Remember, silicon Valley tech giants fear any form of regulation. Important point is, seems from what we learn in the media, Facebook nor Google, etc. have broken no laws.
2
@Dan Green
Not all Democrats. The neo-liberal, Clintonites are the ones for sale to the highest bidder. Just the same as the Republicans with their backers. Progressives have been relying on individual donors and it works.
2
@Dan Green
Don't vote for any Democrat candidate who takes corporate donations. That's the only litmus test we need.
Facebook is way larger outside the US! All friends and relatives living abroad use FB. Full disclosure, I don’t have a FB account. My college classmates from 40 years ago kept pressuring me but my kids had banned us cuz they thought we would spy on them heehee. My sister forwards me the messages via good ole email. It’s so much peace of mind not knowing where others are vacationing partying eating sharing painful photos of grass growing inch by inch....
26
I decided to give my FB feed a rest during the run-up to the midterms. In the last month I've realized that there really isn't anything new to see. The thing I miss though is keeping up with friends and family. It would have been so nice to keep FB as a way to communicate civilly but the moles and influential bad actors have ruined the platform. One good thing though is I now realize who some of my "friends" truly are.
86
I agree.
I think I was one of the only people I knew who enjoyed the cat and kid photos.
I looked forward to Christmas and other holidays to see people’s decorations and traditions and I loved seeing people’s food and creative endeavors.
I miss it all but unfortunately this baby and this bath water must be thrown out.
10
@Cecilia
what's wrong with email?
4
Some of the brightest people I know have deleted or inactivated their Facebook accounts. However, what happens when a substantial percentage of people (democrats, centrists...) leave the forum? The echo chamber is even greater for those left behind, with a higher percentage of extreme views left in the forum.
The author is right to point out that Facebook is not just a social networking tool with inherent problems, but also a for-profit corporation and a system that has been abused in alarming ways by groups with malicious intent. Yet, I believe our problem is bigger than Facebook. I have serious concerns about our increasing reliance on social media in general, and particularly its destructive impact on our social fabric.
Today is an excellent day to visit a friend, call your family, write a letter... give someone a genuine thumbs up.
252
@MS the genie is now out of the bottle. We will be using some kind of social media forever hence.
The point is that whatever platform(s) we use going forward, need to work in favor of the participants rather than purely for a handful of plutocrats.
The "wild west" was wild because we hadn't figured out how to enforce the rule of law in those places. We didn't run screaming from that wild west, we eventually figured out how to enforce laws there.
The same needs to happen with social media. Yes, it can be done.
20
“Give someone a genuine thumbs up,” yes, but in person. I deactivated my FB account a few months ago. I was so deluged with ads, that I felt a tracker was in my fingertips! And the vitriolic political posts raised my BP! The account hacking? Who needs it?
I’m doing fine without my former constant companion! Good riddance.
16
@MS It is hard to quit. I am trying. I press a lot of likes and emoticom responses during the year. I am genuinely sad or angry about some of the info shared on the posts. Sometimes though , (true confessions!) I react just looking forward to all those Facebook birthday wishes.
I like Facebook for postings of local events but I could pay attention to newspaper or to other sources. I called a friend up for another coffee date yesterday. I am retired and am learning that Facebook is no alternative to being with people,
My goal is to peek on once a week for events. I am not helping the world by my reactions to outrages on Facebook. I went door to door daily for my caring, hardworking Senate candidate, Jon Tester. That was way more satisfying and productive than pressing a bunch of emoticons or likes. It felt good to talk to people, whatever their persuasions.
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It seems to me that many of the issues with Facebook and the internet in general would be greatly reduced if not eliminated altogether if anonymity were banned. We don't allow people to speak on the public square with a mask, or a white sheet, over their face, yet the new digital public square is mostly faceless. We have elevated and legitimized the public bathroom wall.
If people had to take personal, and public, responsibility for what was said on-line, what was said on-line would be vastly different from what we have today.
Tech companies, tech academia, and legislators should be seeking methods of verifying on-line identification. Establish that, and the web becomes almost completely self-regulating.
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Agreed. However FB and other huge social media thrive on large numbers of subscribers. The more the better to sell to advertisers. Take Instagram for example, also owned by FB. They might claim that they have x million numbers of subscribers, never mind that a significant number are ghost or fake accounts. IG knows it and the advertisers know it and yet it is the basis for the business model. As long as America thrives on quantity and growth at the expense of quality and truth there ain’t anything anyone can do. It’s an entrenched paradigm. I personally like very much the other side of social
medía, the connection with distant friends, in space and in time, and I would be willing to pay a fee for it in exchange for no advertising. But that won’t work either, look at PBS. They now spend half their time soliciting pledges AND they have full fledged advertising. Follow the Money.
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@Ralph Averill I totally agree. AirBnB is an example of a site that requires a verified identity, and for the most part this technique has worked to minimize abuses.
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@Ralph Averill: And how would our forefathers have planned the American Revolution without anonymity? The right to be peacefully anonymous is as important to our democracy as the right of peaceful assembly.
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Maybe the same folks who organized in 2016 to address the deficiencies in the Democratic Party by forming all the groups collectively known as "The Resistance". Can apply the same to the mess of mainstream social media.
A platform like Facebook that relied on affordable subscription rates ($5/yr or less) and the generosity of socially conscious billionaires should be possible. An ad free platform with sensible security controls could realize the original dream of FB but without the taint of capitalistic greed.
It's a shame to waste such great potential to do good in the world.
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Facebook was founded by Zuckerberg to belittle women’s looks, especially those that had spurned him. We should not forget that. He has not matured, nor has his company into a greater good beyond its original platform of creating discord and airing grievances.
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@M McMahon says "Facebook was founded by Zuckerberg to belittle women’s looks"
I don't know if this is the movie version or an accurate history, but the interpretation seems spurious, even if based on fact. Zucherberg may have been inspired by a precocious boy genius's desire to bully an ex- but I believe his motive for all the work that went into his creation long after he became a man was primarily for profit.
Your disparagement of the man on the basis of the actions of the boy seems a lot like the kind of bullying that sometimes makes FB destructive. Is there any statute of limitations on this?
The reason FB is a success is because it it a service people love to use, sometimes for good sometimes for bad.
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And junkies love to use heroin. Generating an obscene amount of money from millions of users doesn’t make it a “success,” in my mind. The world (certainly the US) would be a better place had FB never existed.
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@M McMahon Good point.
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Michelle's article is well meaning, but as I see it, we're trying to regulate a problem of our own making. If you don't use Facebook (i.e. boycotts), Zuckerberg and company wiil "listen". Any regulations will only act as a temporary fix until the business world finds a way to loop around them.
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The answer to what is to be done with Facebook is simple, stop using it and it will go away.
I stopped using it a few years ago, I now have more time to use in a productive manner.
It took a while to resist the temptation to log back in, but after time the urges faded.
I guess Facebook is just another drug?
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@mjbarr
Never been on, never used it. The thought of a platform where mass "Likes" is the measure of anything is repellent to me. Very happy not to have to use FB.
Welcome to the tiny club. There are other, better ways to connect.
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@mjbarr
Yes, Facebook IS a drug. For Narcissism, and not for treatment, but to feed the beast. Seriously.
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@mjbarr - Facebook use is (or can become) another compulsive behavior to certain personality types.
Sez this alcoholic.
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I’ve long believed that social media —and its brethren in big tech —will likely prove to be the undoing of democracy: Russia and other autocracies have proven too adept at manipulating the easily manipulated. And since the genie is out of the bottle, likely not to be stuffed back, we, as consumers, need to become more educated and savvy about what we are consuming. We also need to reclaim ownership of our personal information.
That Facebook has proven to be evil is no surprise but it doesn’t stop with them. Or Twitter. Every day I see ads for Google and Amazon’s voice activated, always connected “personal assistants.” But call them what they are: spying devices. How are people are so willing to give up what small shred of privacy they have left for marginal convenience?
And the tech companies now own us virtually from cradle to grave: My kids’ school, like many others, uses Google Classroom — but no one can explain exactly what privacy restrictions are in place to protect students. Do we want to live in a world where colleges or employers assess applicants based on what they did in 7th grade (or earlier?)
If we individually can’t decide what’s in our collective long-term best interest, I’m all for regulating. How about codifying that personal information belongs to individuals —not the company that harvests it? And that your own personal info is yours to monetize, not someone else’s?
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Facebook should be punished. The problem is that a lot of us see FB as a necessity at this point and aren't going to discontinue either our accounts or our habit of logging in multiple times a day.
Maybe the way to publish the company is to NOT tap/click through to any of the corporate ads, and instead to (a) ask for the the ad to be hidden (b) ask that no further ads from the company appear in our feeds.
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@bergfan I say the users be punished for letting this monstrosity thrive. But then there are so many other gossip magazines sharing false or dangerous opinion including cable channels such as FOX. Nobody is at fault other than us humans. The devil in us found a good, quick and efficient resource to spread hate and racism which we have been doing for ever though very inefficiently. And as always there's a mix those who are responsible and not.
I’m not the first to suggest this, but perhaps all social media platforms and any future internet-based spreaders of information need to be regulated by the FCC. And, those regulations should be reviewed for standards and consequences relating to spreading of false information and inciting hate and violence in any way. Either monitor the information on your platform or face consequences.
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@Elizabeth Carroll
The FCC are those governmental people who decided it was okay to give the power of internet connection speed to corporations instead of keeping a level playing field for all. Based on that, the government doesn't appear to be that interested in fairness, rather the status quo of the information flow belonging to the few. One can see it on an international level: Information is segmented into pockets of availability. It happens quite often that an important news video is blocked from view due to international governmental boarders and their regulations. And we’re supposed to be free in the “west”! All the FCC has done and will do in the future is make it worse than it is. The real issue is freedom of thought and personal accountability at the same time. Some people need to write under an alias, some people want to write under an alias and some people are just flat out criminal or cowards! The problem is allowing the people with the need in but getting rid of the criminal and cowardly element. That is a difficult situation to rectify. That requires politicians who don’t care about high-paying jobs after they sell us down the river during their governmental “service” years.
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@Elizabeth Carroll Unfortunately, the FCC wouldn't stop Facebook from monetizing your information, which is what drives them. I hate giving it up, because I have friends all over the world, but I think my initial instinct to stay away was sound, because now I know more about the personal prejudices and opinions of some acquaintances than I care to know.
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The premise of this editorial seems tenuous- the evidence of the harm Facebook does is entirely circumstantial and even without FB there probably would be similar platforms for the kind of communication that leads to violence.
However, anti-trust laws in this country have been gutted, partially because of the argument that scale is necessary for efficiency- keeping down prices for consumers and making American products more competitive abroad.
The problem is that the bigger and richer corporations become the more power they have over the government- especially in the U.S. which spends more money on political campaigns than the rest of the world combined. Donors get access and tilt legislation to the advantage of corporations.
The monopolies also make the corporations less and less responsive to the needs of the people they serve- the lack of competition allows them to name their price and cut back on customer service.
Basic services like health care have become adversarial between the public and the profit takers as consumer protection has also been gutted. Customers often have to fight for what they pay for.
Time to break up the monopolies, but also time to install serious campaign finance reform to break up the corporate monopoly on political influence. The government cannot serve the people fairly when the bosses are corporations.
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@alan haigh
Thank you Supreme Court for Citizens United.
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@alan haigh
Unfortunately, to regulate corporate political spending, we will have to undo over a hundred years of Supreme Court decisions that have made corporations pseudo citizens. It goes back far before "Citizens United.
If I were Trumpian, I would call the Supreme Court Broken, and demand anti-Constitutional solutions.
But I suggest a Constitutional solution, an Amendment that makes clear to the Supreme Court that:
Corporations are Not People and Money is Not Speech.
See, for example, MoveToAmend.org
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@alan haigh
Couldn’t agree more, and corporate influence seems to be the one issue that unites the left and right. Which is probably why the corporate media relentlessly bombards us with partisan messages and divisive wedge issues like abortion and race, lest we all focus and join forces to oppose the real enemy of the people.
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All this may be true, but without FB we would be saying Bernie who? And in turn Bernie took 22 states without the help of media, the Democratic Party or the Senate. And Bernie gave the Democratic Party the best Platform it has had since FDR. He persuaded and inspired people to enter politics, which resulted in a diverse transition in the House. If we can improve social media in the US, that would be great---but we desperately need the forum for new and unconventional ideas.
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@Newell McCarty If I recall, he mostly did so by going door-to-door in primary states and conducting himself well in the debates.
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@Newell McCarty
Newell makes a good point. It isn't the medium itself. It's how we use it. It's in the interest of society to be responsible and truthful in how we communicate with each other. This requires a combination of laws promoting fairness and transparency, and peer pressure among individuals.
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@C Wolfe Recall McLuhan's observation: the medium is the message. It seems to apply to FB too.
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Twitter, rather than Facebook, is Trump's weapon of choice. And, yes, it might benefit humanity to shun social media, but that cat can never be put back in the bag. The only real solution is for the public at large to be more discerning about what they read on these sites. Given the state of schools in the U.S. and other third-world countries where education is a low priority, there's little chance of that happening.
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@Chris Bowling: the public will never be discerning. Never.
What needs to happen instead, are effective ways to control and regulate these platforms through the right combination of laws, technologies, social activism, crowdsourcing and vigorous governmental action.
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@Chris Bowling... Good point.
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