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by ptest1 2440 days ago
Comment deleted because this doesn’t appear to be the right place to discuss nuanced issues about Facebook.
6 comments

Someone a few days ago linked to this snippet of an interview with Naval Ravikant on Joe Rogan's podcast. Their lack of differentiating themselves from publishers has put them on a slippery slope

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=3661&v=3qHkcs3kG44

What this snippet misses is the fact that FB, YT, G+, and Twitter determine what is presented and offered to users. Algorithm or no, their fingers, hands, feet and bodies are all over the scale.
Isn’t this just a natural consequence of Facebook being huge and having a huge amount of influence in the world? So naturally people are going to blame Facebook for things they don’t like that Facebook has a lot of influence on, and that will probably include people from different political backgrounds. You seem to mock that or find it ridiculous, but it seems perfectly reasonable to me. Both of those examples you give could very easily be true.

As for it being impossible for Facebook to win, well yeah, maybe you’re right. Maybe we shouldn’t have any individual media companies with so much power.

When a company touches more than a billion kinds of the world, I think criticism—actionable or not—is perfectly warranted.

If people suspect Facebook isn’t simply an equal propagator of information, but rather has a (potentially uncontrollable) AI that is optimizing for hate and outrage, it seems both reasonable and meaningful to have a discussion around it.

“Well what are they supposed to do with all the opposing criticism?” It’s not about making people happy, it’s about responsible use of their power, and part of that is at least informed by what critics say.

I’d prefer if their profit model was made more clear.

They’re clearly acting in an abetting manner for the unethical and sometimes criminal activity that happens on their site.

If this means they are forced to change drastically as a result of this then so be it.

At this point it’s them or our democracy.

You believe Facebook to be the victim, or otherwise unfairly maligned, despite it being one of the world’s most powerful and influential companies in existence?
I have deleted all friends and everything from Facebook and I still get almost non-stop recommendations from Facebook with clickbait videos and friend suggestions for social media personalities that I have no interests in. They should not be trying to push crap on me like this and I find it disgusting.