Facebook is acting like a 16-year-old teenager right now. After months of trouble (it must hurt the kid right now) the social network has acknowledged, publicly at least, that it is somehow responsible for the spread of fake news. I mean, Facebook has never been a great place for independent news gathering, but seriously, did they ever think they were somehow “in the news business”?
You see, a lot of truth-telling on the site is “unverified” by Facebook’s opaque algorithm, which has created some of the problems. For instance, a majority of “trashy” news stories are deemed as belonging to the more trustworthy “trash” “journalists”, meaning a “The press is a bunch of disgusting, hypocritical cowards” might not “get” Facebook’s algorithm. And doesn’t that constitute journalism?
I mean, because Facebook didn’t used to be a gatekeeper of news (er … I mean a digital monopoly?). Well, it is. And it doesn’t necessarily believe that reporters need to be professional. And it doesn’t care about verifying their news. But is that fair? Well, technically, yes. They just don’t care about verifying it, so it’s just garbage.
As a teenager, I spend hours reading websites like CNET, Gizmodo, Snopes and CNN in middle school English class on the bus. Or with a dictionary in my hands. But I don’t think you should shame your 16-year-old self for sticking with their convictions. I’m sure it hurts. But it’s the social network’s job to sell ads, right? And let me tell you, you don’t need to buy every single click in the world, either.
In our view, Facebook must live in the school yard. That’s the environment they live in.
It seems like they are back to the decades of grade-school “Striking a blow for the party!” battles. God, do they look like they need more “fantasy football” competitions, sometimes. Facebook needs to use their influence and keep everyone honest. And they must stop spreading Trump-hate; the algorithm knows too much.
We can’t believe the brazen lies from the Clinton camp, from Team Obama, from Charlie Schumer (despite his mixed-up logic). Right now it looks like a bunch of biased servers are leading and driving our democracy toward this disaster of a Trump election.
This is an urgent problem. And people must take a stand, whether you’re Facebook or you’re a local elected official, one with public records or not. All of us must turn away from this, this dangerous social place. Together, we can do it. Now.
I love Facebook and I love its 1.2 billion users, but I’m sick of being used as an elevator pitch. This is our future. It’s really, really dangerous, and it’s totally beyond us to fix. Let’s all help the kids out by helping keep everyone honest. Just remember it’s a free election. And some people are going to put forward arguments that we don’t believe, even if our evidence is legitimate. And hey, that’s our choice, isn’t it?
