Facebook: A real and present danger to democracy

Political advertising is banned from being broadcast on television or radio. Unless Facebook changes, it may be time to extend this prohibition to social media

By
Jim W. Dean and Gordon Duff
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2
2160

Guardian: In every political debate since Facebook began to dominate democracy, the company has placed itself on the wrong side of history. The social media firm cannot be reformed from within because its business model profits from hosting bomb-throwing circuses of hate, humbug and hogwash. The platform harvests users’ personal data to algorithmically recommend content but can’t seem to help steering people towards vilifying one another while keeping their attention. It is not good for society, but it is good for Facebook.

That apparently is fine for the company’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg, who is worth $85bn. Consider the latest ugly episode in the firm’s life. After some of the world’s biggest brands boycotted Facebook over its refusal to ban racist and violent content, the company reached for the usual bromide of reassurance that the matter was being taken seriously. Internally it was a very different story. The boycotters, Mr Zuckerberg said, would be back and his company was “not going to change our policies … because of a threat to a small percent of our revenue”.

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2 COMMENTS

  1. My Facebook account has me living at a ridiculous fake location with a fake employer, and I like various pages at random to feed the algorithm garage input data.

  2. So, after the 2016 election it was found that Cambridge Analytica had access to data from facebook that was used to influence the presidential election and Bannon is tied to it.
    And so many others.
    When the US examines allies, and understands the word, and undergoes some self reflection on that, then perhaps, Facebook will be viewed differently.
    Facebook claimed it had no idea Cambridge Analytica had access. {Trump everything} depends on you believing that simple salient point. Enough is enough.

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