Comment by 1970-01-01 4 days ago
Much like a shot of heroin, yes, this is the take. Facebook got a taste of Web 2.0 and couldn't use it recreationally. It became their entire life. They immediately integrated it into every part of business until it was the only thing that mattered.
Yes, this is why I disagreed with the mechanism, and not the phenomenon.
What I’m taking issue with is you disagreeing with the GP assertion that Facebook made purposeful business decisions.
I agree that a Facebook had a powerful incentive to act this way. But they didn’t have to. The fact that they chose to reflects on their moral character.
Internal leaks let us know that Facebook has pretty advanced sentiment analysis internally. They knew that they were (are) making people miserable. They know that outrage causes engagement.
Other internal leaks let us know that Facebook was aware of how much disinformation was (is) being used on their platform to influence elections. To attack democracy.
They didn’t just look the other way, which would be reason enough to condemn them. They helped. When they saw how much money the propagandists were willing to pay, they built improved tools to better help them propagandize.
After the UK was shattered by the Brexit lies, when Facebook were called in front of parliament and congress to explain themselves over the Cambridge Analytica and related misinformation campaigns, they stalled, they lied, they played semantic word games to avoid admitting what is clearly stated in the leaked memos.
These were all choices. People should be held accountable for making awful choices.
Even if those choices result in them making a lot of money.
It sounds kind of crazy to even have to say that, doesn’t it? But that is where we are, partly because of arguments like yours from otherwise well-meaning people.
Don’t absolve them. Hold them accountable.
Zuckerberg wants to own the whole world and thinks you’re an idiot for trusting him. An egocentic sociopath who can’t imagine trusting anyone else because he knows what he will do when you give him your trust.
Letting unchecked greed guide decision-making is not a new phenomenon that came out of Web 2.0 though. To use your metaphor, the heroin was human attention. Web 2.0 was, at best, the syringe.