This is my thinking: Facebook, like everything apart from Wikipedia, is supported by advertising. Getting your eyes on as much targeted content as possible. Same as most media. But – as Mark Z keeps insisting – FB is a tech company, not media. Doesn’t produce content per se, just acts as a conduit. So where other media companies bind themselves to some kind of editorial standards (not always high standards), FB sees no need for this.
OK: that’s enough to leave right there. It’s just disingenuous. FB has more reach than just about any other company, allowing it to accrue monumental advertising revenue, and yet it sidesteps the obvious responsibility it wields.
Next thing: I think FB makes you feel angry. And envious. And shit. That struck a chord, right? I think Facebook’s algorithms have worked out that insecure, upset, worried people click more and stay longer. So they serve you up content designed to engender these emotions. It’s making the world feel bad about itself. Another reason.
Third, connected to the above. A consequence of this manipulation is the rise of echo chambers – but I’m not sure most folks really understand the metaphor. I think most people think an echo chamber is somewhere that echoes a lot. But the point is that the echo chamber reflects your voice back at you millions of times. That’s the point. You shout, then the same words come back at you in thousands of waves; they’re warped and distorted but it’s still your voice even if you don’t recognise it anymore. That is posting on FB.
Here’s what I want: Facebook as a social Wikipedia. Open-source, non-profit, transparent. Wikipedia could be a bloated, advertising-driven monster making Jimmy Wales millions a minute. It’s not.
So until that happens: Fuck Facebook.
www.stephen-mortimer.com 