[chrischen]

Facebook's primary feature is a newsfeed which uses an algorithm to shape and influence who you ultimately interact with. If you consign your interpersonal relationship to Facebook's algorithms then it has become normal for facebook's algorithm to shape and control the opinions and relationships of people en-masse.

Whether you consider facebook's algorithms benevolent or not, the danger actually lies in the fact that people's opinions and friendships are not forming in a more natural and organic way. If relationships and opinions are shaped by an algorithm from a single source, it's more prone to failure, influence, if not by malevolence than by simple incompetence of not knowing the macro effects of a line of code applied to hundreds of millions of people.

[bigiain]

Right. Features are for customers. Facebook's primary feature is ubiquitous surveillance of 2 billion users. The newsfeed is a use of that feature, where advertisers and "Facebook partners" can pay to manipulate targeted portions of those 2 billion users.

To Facebook _users_, the newsfeed is just a gimmick they use to get you to reveal more about you and your friends/connections than you would otherwise.