An Epic Takedown Appears to Be in the Works
An epic takedown of Facebook is afoot:
But going back to the WSJ series on Facebook, the quote in today’s paper is priceless:
“A now-former executive questioned the idea of overhauling Instagram to avoid social comparison. ‘People use Instagram because it’s a competition,’ the former executive said. ‘That’s the fun part.’”
I’d provide a link but either you subscribe to the WSJ or you don’t, you’re either in the loop or you’re not. You can gather misinformation on social media, most especially Facebook, or you can go to the source, but the source costs money and Americans are cheap, even worse, they oftentimes can’t even understand what is proffered. I posit a significant segment of the population won’t even follow and grasp what McNamee says, even though it’s far from boring, they just don’t have the education to be able to analyze, to comprehend, many just believe a man in the sky will save them.
So the above quote is from the second WSJ installment on Facebook. Turns out the Facebook owned company Instagram is wreaking havoc on the self-image of today’s young women. They just can’t live up to the images online. Almost nobody can, unless it’s your full time job and you’re willing to starve yourself and get plastic surgery. Instagram is for bragging, and too many end up feeling like a loser.
But that’s not as bad as tomorrow’s segment, which went live on the WSJ site this morning:
“Facebook Tried to Make Its Platform a Healthier Place. It Got Angrier Instead. - Internal memos show how a big 2018 change rewarded outrage and that CEO Mark Zuckerberg resisted proposed fixes.”
Turns out the execs are not in the control of the platform, they keep saying they’re putting on band-aids when they’re not, or they do so with unintended negative results. The goal is just to keep people on the platform, that can’t be sacrificed, that metric is king. So despite having studies detailing the deleterious results of Facebook’s platforms the company ignores them. Even worse, it says they’re taking action when they’re not. It’s obfuscation all the time. Zuck testifies in Congress, he keeps saying he’ll provide backup and then does not. And then he just goes on wrecking the world. You see Zuck is the most powerful person in the world, but this doesn’t sit right with elected officials and titans of old school industry. Rupert Murdoch has taught us the power is in the ink, the press. And in truth, Zuckerberg has got a stranglehold on the press, his sites are where people go for information, and his goal is to raise your emotions so you’ll stay connected and participate. Like, respond, forward, it’s gold to Facebook but lead for our society.
In the first WSJ installment on Facebook it is revealed that the company has a whitelist. That if you’re famous, in the public eye, have enough followers, they give you a pass, no matter what you post. Because they’re scared you’ll fight back and the company might not look good. And the truth is they don’t have enough people to police behavior and the algorithm is far from perfect, which is why the hoi polloi are constantly complaining that they post innocuous stuff on Facebook and Instagram and it gets taken down and they might even get blocked while a whole tier of society gets a free pass. Once again, Zuck was confronted with this, what did he do? HE LIED!
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