WAPO OP ED: It's time to stand up to Facebook Jenn. Rubin

[lindysalsagal]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/10/04/its-time-stand-up-facebook/

Opinion by
Jennifer Rubin
Columnist
Today at 11:43 a.m. EDT

Tech experts, including former Facebook employees, have for years been warning about the deleterious consequences of social media generally and Facebook’s business model specifically. Now, it’s becoming clear that Facebook itself had mounds of evidence confirming these consequences — as Frances Haugen revealed in a “60 Minutes” interview on Sunday.

Haugen, the previously anonymous former Facebook employee who filed complaints against the company last month, makes a good a case as any that now is the time to hold social media accountable. “When we live in an information environment that is full of angry, hateful, polarizing content it erodes our civic trust, it erodes our faith in each other,” she said in the interview. “It erodes our ability to want to care for each other. The version of Facebook that exists today is tearing our societies apart and causing ethnic violence around the world.”

Haugen’s claims follow similar warnings from others. In a viral TED talk last year, Yaël Eisenstat, who worked on elections integrity at Facebook and is currently a fellow at Berggruen Institute, said “social media companies like Facebook profit off of segmenting us and feeding us personalized content that both validates and exploits our biases.” She explained, “Their bottom line depends on provoking a strong emotion to keep us engaged, often incentivizing the most inflammatory and polarizing voices, to the point where finding common ground no longer feels possible. And despite a growing chorus of people crying out for the platforms to change, it’s clear they will not do enough on their own.”

[empedocles]

1. Saw several news segments today. None commented at all on Facebooks lack of

response to what is happening?

[PortTack]

3. Suckerberg is no better than the orange mass..a total crook