While I live in Silicon Valley and mostly agree with the prevailing morality, it's alarming to see Facebook (and others like Reddit/Twitter) move so aggressively towards social engineering the entire world.
Arguably, Facebook has been very cautious on how it moves towards social engineering the world, though. Which is what has allowed things like Cambridge Analytica to do so instead. The whole point of this manifesto is not "lets take over the world!", it is "we have a huge influence in the world, that much is a fact, let us take some measure of responsibility about it". Could there be a better alternative to Facebook being the one which has this power? Sure. But that's not for Facebook to change. The best you can hope is them taking their current power seriously and trying to wield it responsibly and that's what the manifesto is about. You want to take that power from them and build something better... well, feel free to give it a go.
I agree that Facebook doesn’t socially engineer users as much as it could, but I think this is more a testament to its immense power than its kind intentions. Facebook is no stranger to unethical behaviors—its actions only seem ethical in comparison to what is possible with that amount of power. Remember a couple years ago when Facebook published a blatantly unethical psychological experiment that manipulated the emotions of unconsenting, unaware users? Zuckerberg didn’t think of it as a shady A/B test to keep private within the company, he allowed it to be published in PNAS.
Let’s not forget, Facebook isn’t exactly being exploited by shady actors like Cambridge Analytica—it's profiting from them.
I don't just mean that as a snarky crack. It's worth pondering the idea a bit. They've been headed in this direction for a while, but it's becoming undeniable.
(Remember, Facebook is more than just America. They and their stock valuation aspire to be global.)
Or cybergovernment. Internet giants are becoming fundamental services for millions of people. They're not just too big to fail -- they are essential, which makes them comparable to governments.
I agree, "essential" is maybe too strong of a word.
But I do like to ponder the thought of all Google services, or all Amazon services shutting down for 2 weeks. Clearly not as essential, but the impact on the daily life of at least most of the US would at least be noticeable.
I believe these are still the early days of "internet giants". They seem giant now, but with MS, Google, Amazon, and other "giants" aiming to provide much of the structure of not only the internet, but also some of our daily lives (delivery, web, phone, internet access, information/news), I can imagine twenty years from now the reach of these "giants" to be far closer to "essential" then we feel they are now.
Who knows, maybe we will forever be in a cycle of "giants" growing, evolving, and failing without ever becoming essential. I don't know how it will work haha, but interesting to consider.
Wouldn't giants just imply monopolies? I suspect to a point we are going to see the pendulum swing away from far-right politics towards far left politics. It'll be sexy to break up these giants for political points. Some talk has already be muttered here and there about Trump possibly targeting Amazon. After the Trump presidency, if we manage to get a far left progressive with the intention on breaking up other giants it works to be seen then that under neither political wing are giants protected from witch hunts.
I've long been in favor of ending the Sherman act for this reason. You can target companies that are politically opposed to you by just a bit of rhetoric and government over reach. One interesting way to think about what good breaking up companies do is think of Standard Oil's breakup leading to a butterfly affect so to speak that encouraged the increase usage of carbon base fuels. There were relatively crappy electric car models in the 1900s, there was actually a point where the electric car worked better than gas (1). If Standard Oil was to remain together and lack of competition meant higher oil prices this could have led Ford and others to research ways to make the electric model more capable for the masses as consumer demand would seek such alternatives. 100 years later, we may be in a much better position environmentally..maybe. Just a butterfly effect thought nonetheless. All that said, the best thing to do in order to combat monopolies in the free market is to legalize insider trading and spoofing. The markets will figure it out. Insiders acting on information they know without having to go through SEC hoops would be able to react more quickly and damage firms in ways that could work to destabilize such giants.
you are using 'worked better' very generously. people choose the combustion engine because overall it was the best engine at the time, and for many many decades later.
the consumption of oil was going to skyrocket from 1911 no matter what due to technology, during a time where people primarily traveled by boat and train.
I agree essential is too strong, but I think the danger is not "what if they go away", but the fact of (nearly) everybody using them is a problem when that's selectively denied.
E.g. a sibling comment mentions Facebook pages for small businesses: if Facebook went away or stopped offering them generally, that would fix itself within less than two weeks. If the vast majority assumes they can find all businesses on Facebook, but yours isn't because Facebook doesn't like your name or some aspect of your business, that's a long-term issue.
There is no company that controls 90% of banks, or 90% of gasoline, or 90% of electricity. Shutting down a single company won't affect availability of neither of the basic utilities. But there is Google that is 90% of internet search, and maybe 50% of email. Shutting it down for couple weeks would be a disaster for millions. Facebook or Twitter are less significant in this regard.
If google was down for 2 weeks, there would be some big problems for some companies and some people. But there are plenty of work arounds: phones still work just fine, amazon would be up, etc. If it was the whole information grid down, yes that'd be a large hit to the economy. But 9/11 essentially shut down business for 2 weeks as well. Google going down, not really a disaster. 9/11... Disaster.
you could swap to any one of a hundred companies in a few hours. 2 of them I can't even stop hearing about on every single podcast. Again, its about risk mitigation.