Facebook is a Doomsday Machine-got that right

[Dread Pirate Roberts]

But hey, at least you can post pictures of what you had for lunch and stalk your high school sweetheart. That makes it all worthwhile. And think about this, Facebook wasn't messed up enough for the MAGAT's, they need Parler. We need to come back from the brink of disinformation and echo chamber news or we're done for.

Facebook Is a Doomsday Machine
The social web is doing exactly what it was built for. Facebook does not exist to seek truth and report it, or to improve civic health, or to hold the powerful to account, or to represent the interests of its users, though these phenomena may be occasional by-products of its existence. The company’s early mission was to “give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected.” Instead, it took the concept of “community” and sapped it of all moral meaning. The rise of QAnon, for example, is one of the social web’s logical conclusions. That’s because Facebook—along with Google and YouTube—is perfect for amplifying and spreading disinformation at lightning speed to global audiences. Facebook is an agent of government propaganda, targeted harassment, terrorist recruitment, emotional manipulation, and genocide—a world-historic weapon that lives not underground, but in a Disneyland-inspired campus in Menlo Park, California.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/12/facebook-doomsday-machine/617384/

[mtnsnake]

1. I wonder how many millions of lives, especially of young people, have been ruined

with many of them ending up in suicide because of Facebook bullies.

[Dread Pirate Roberts]

2. As bad as that is, it's just the tip of the iceberg

That's because it's not just a cesspool of disinformation, it's empowerment and legitimization for every moron's view, an amplifier for every base human trait, and a means for the worst of our nature to be displayed. Bullies, hatefulness, racism, mixed with the spice of fake news and propaganda. What a delicious stew. But like I said, looking at the cute kittie and finding out what the people I haven't spoken with since high school look like make it all so intoxicating.

If the age of reason was, in part, a reaction to the existence of the printing press, and 1960s futurism was a reaction to the atomic bomb, we need a new philosophical and moral framework for living with the social web—a new Enlightenment for the information age, and one that will carry us back to shared reality and empiricism.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

3. This article was so over the top I couldn't finish it.

[obamanut2012]

11. Seriously n/t

[UpInArms]

4. Fakebook is evil

I have known that ... seems like .... forever

[Johnny2X2X]

5. Facebook cannot fix Facebook

Only regulators can fix that industry. Facebook, YouTube, Google, Twitter, TikTok etc etc exist and compete in a flawed business model, a model that only values screen time. The AIs that they have directing their marketing/content campaigns have 1 goal, to maximize screen time, that must be changed industry wide. If one company changed it they would not be as competitive, therefore, government regulators are the only solution. Other countries are already doing this, we can too.

A reward system (business model) that rewards these apps for providing useful and accurate information is the goal, it's not difficult to come up with and to code, it's incredibly difficult to implement and regulate.

[doc03]

6. I haven't had any experience like that on Facebook. I just use it to communicate with my circle

of friends. I haven't got anything about Q anon or Proud Boys. One of my friends is real political he posted a lot of
pro Biden stuff during the election. When a local TV station puts some Republican supporting BS on there so I put them on ignore
for 30 days. If any of my friends start posting stuff like that I will do the same. I do know Trump supporters that are into
all the crazy conspiracy stuff. If you are a Trump supporter and post on Facebook about it. I suppose you go on the sucker list for
Trump, Q anon and Proud boys.

[Dread Pirate Roberts]

7. You've got to get some new "friends" on Facebook

Otherwise how are you going to find out that Trump won in a landslide, that the Chinese own Joe Biden, that Covid restrictions are a government conspiracy to take away our liberties, that we need to have a re-vote with mandatory voter ID, that the communists are taking over through voter fraud and so much more. I mean, you're just going to sit there blithely until one day you wake up in an Antifa re-education camp. Facebook can save you from that terrible fate.

[doc03]

9. I guess so I have been missing out on that nt

[moose65]

12. But a lot of people aren't like you (or me)

Some people literally LIVE for Facebook, and are on there posting shit literally 24 hours a day.

There is a friend-of-a-friend of mine, who always commented on everything my friend posted, and made everything political. This guy is a master of deflection and what-aboutism. One day, out of curiosity I clicked on his profile and looked at his page. This was like at 11 am, and on that day he had already posted about 20 things on his page - sharing dubious web sites and silly memes that either glorified Republicans or disparaged Democrats. I wondered then, "WHO in their right mind has time to sit around and do that all day"??

I have never let Facebook send me notifications - I absolutely despise those things, and only have one or two communication apps that send me notifications. I have also used the "Hide All From" option to get rid of rightwing websites and stupid shit that people post.

One of the points of Facebook, though, is that everyone's feed is different. It is the ultimate Confirmation Bias, showing you what it thinks you want to see.

Have y'all watched the documentary "The Social Dilemma"? One of the lines from that that stuck with me is "If you're not paying for a product, then you ARE the product." Facebook exists to steal our personal data and habits and sell those things to third parties.

[pansypoo53219]

8. i am too lazy to kill my facebook. i just ignore it.

[JT45242]

10. FB was created to make Zuckerberg money... period. It is a success

Like all commercial enterprises, FB was created to make money. It took a while for them to figure out how to make money (just like google lost money for nearly a decade before becoming profitable).

It was NEVER about connecting. It was NEVER about politics. it was NEVER about echo chambers.

It existed to maximize the wealth of the people who own the company -- Zuckerberg is now worth around $100 billion. And he does not care... When ads for Trump were paid in rubles -- he didn't care. If the DNC would buy $10 million worth of ads, he would not care. Corporate greed is everywhere. He believes in the mantra of Gordon Gecko -- "GREED IS GOOD" -- FB allows him to live that dream.

FB is doing what it was designed to do -- make a ton of money for Zuckerberg and his investors regardless of any consequences to scoiety.