[vladd]

The following has been used for sure in order to commit crimes and fiddle with democracy: Verizon phone conversations, Gmail discussions, Twitter, Snapchat or Tiktok messages etc.

Nobody wakes up and says "let's be unethical today", but rather, it's the reality of life with user generated content platforms, that either you get both outcomes, or you get none.

The discussion is about making people realize that the "technology" to keep only the good parts (without the downsides) wasn't invented yet.

Hence we're in a position to argue whether it would be more ethical to shutdown / censor everything, or have fruitful discussions on how to emphasize the good outcomes over the bad ones with the current tech (by first understanding it, something that politicians seem to be very bad at, or show little interest in it compared to the negative FB sentiment engagement they're generating in their voters -- ironic :) ).

[m4x]

You're presenting a false dichotomy. We don't have to choose between unethical corporate actions or no social media at all. Facebook could exist quite happily without applying any content selection algorithms to your feed. If your feed was literally just a chronological list of posts by your friends, with some interspersed advertising, then they (and you) could claim with some legitimacy that they aren't responsible for any fundamental negative effects of social media.

That's not the situation we're in. In addition to social media presenting some issues around public discourse and misinformation, Facebook is actively encouraging more and more extreme engagement with their platform by explicitly selecting for polarising content. It's this second part that people are taking issue with.

By the way, the solution does not require any censorship (as you mention in your comment) but simply that Facebook stops actively selecting content for your feed (which is itself a form of censorship!)

[cmorgan31]

Nobody? Give it a rest. We're not dumb enough to think everyone in technology, specifically ad tech is ethical by default. Facebook made their own bed and made the mistake of allowing the internal research out of the closed corporate box. They can mitigate the impact of their most engaged content but it would be to their own fiscal detriment which is why they fundamentally decide not to mitigate it.