[modriano]

Text, email, zoom, etc. Facebook did not invent online communication. Facebook didn't invent the ability to share photos online.

As far as I can tell, Facebook's innovation is it's great at identifying people susceptible to extremist conspiracies and at connecting them. Per Facebook's own research: """Even before the teams’ 2017 creation, Facebook researchers had found signs of trouble. A 2016 presentation that names as author a Facebook researcher and sociologist, Monica Lee, found extremist content thriving in more than one-third of large German political groups on the platform. Swamped with racist, conspiracy-minded and pro-Russian content, the groups were disproportionately influenced by a subset of hyperactive users, the presentation notes. Most of them were private or secret.

The high number of extremist groups was concerning, the presentation says. Worse was Facebook’s realization that its algorithms were responsible for their growth.The 2016 presentation states that “64% of all extremist group joins are due to our recommendation tools” and that most of the activity came from the platform’s “Groups You Should Join” and “Discover” algorithms: “Our recommendation systems grow the problem.”"" [0].

There were QAnon groups with millions of members. Facebook created these echo chambers and then ushered people in. And the only thing you can think of is they allowed you to communicate with your mother and share images?

[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20201219115127/http://wsj.com/ar...