There is an entire cottage industry dedicated to complaining about Facebook, but vanishingly little of the ink spilled about Mark Zuckerberg’s social network concerns actual suggestions about how to remedy it. Facebook has real problems, but too many of its critics are content to just accuse them of being evil Bond villains and move on their merry way. So it’s nice that Farhad Manjoo has published
A solution I would like to hear people explore more is: get rid of the newsfeed. Newsfeed is the problem. If zuckerberg really wanted to make Facebook about connecting with people you love, then he should be ok getting rid of newsfeed and sending FB back to a friend network.
That or “ban all external links.” Just make Facebook a place where, like Instagram, you can’t post links.
Whenever I hear "ban health information" I think of how much of a fucking disaster that could have been for a place like Flint. Most people know where was a water crisis in Flint, very few know that it was a crisis caused almost exclusively by health authorities. The basic story is that Flint was placed under emergency management, which placed all the municipal government's powers in the hands of Darnell Earley. Darnell, in an attempt to save money (which is his job) switched Flint over from a water service agreement with the Detroit Water and Sewage Authority to the not-yet-completed Karegnondi Water Authority. After the contract was cancelled Flint started to treat its own water from the Flint River for the first time in a LONG time. This would have been fine, but in an attempt to save money Earley petitioned the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) to allow Flint to forgo corrosion control. The DEQ accepted it and in turn began testing for lead regularly. The thing is they were testing for lead incorrectly. The DEQ, the entity solely in charge of saying if water is safe for human consumption, REPEATEDLY told residents of Flint that their water was safe, they were being alarmist, and so on. It was only by citizens actively ignoring the prevailing health body that the problem was ever discovered. So ya maybe we shouldn't just let prevailing health bodies decide what the truth is without any room for further discussion.
Maybe the current of the river will take us down stream. Steering could be categories: fiction based on (fill in the blank); or Factual with references to peer reviewed articles; Political Fiction based on what the base wants to hear. I don't think public media / readable by anybody should be false, lies, or deceptive, and the misleading quality measures harm and conflict, so it should be banned. All banned material needs to be reviewed and explained why with references showing the harm and conflict generated from the post(s). That's enough. If people want to lie and mislead, don't make it easy.
Ban logarithms that exploit users like spyware for retailers and viruses-that are actually logarithms that pit people against each other for profit or increase polarizing politics. Take the profit out of social media that sells data from users, adds only in the margins, no trackers.
Their underlying algorithm has to go. As in reduced to its component electrons. Engagement by enragement has to be OVER.
Right now, their "marketing plan" is to keep serving triples to the ranting drunk at the end of the bar so long as he's still standing and ranting, and then to disclaim all responsibility for what happens after he manages to make it out to the parking lot, find his car, get the key in the ignition and drive off. My local "watering hole" hasn't been able to do that for the past 25 years - so why do they get away with it?
If not that, then I agree with Cato the Elder: FACEBOOK DELENDA EST!
A solution I would like to hear people explore more is: get rid of the newsfeed. Newsfeed is the problem. If zuckerberg really wanted to make Facebook about connecting with people you love, then he should be ok getting rid of newsfeed and sending FB back to a friend network.
That or “ban all external links.” Just make Facebook a place where, like Instagram, you can’t post links.
Whenever I hear "ban health information" I think of how much of a fucking disaster that could have been for a place like Flint. Most people know where was a water crisis in Flint, very few know that it was a crisis caused almost exclusively by health authorities. The basic story is that Flint was placed under emergency management, which placed all the municipal government's powers in the hands of Darnell Earley. Darnell, in an attempt to save money (which is his job) switched Flint over from a water service agreement with the Detroit Water and Sewage Authority to the not-yet-completed Karegnondi Water Authority. After the contract was cancelled Flint started to treat its own water from the Flint River for the first time in a LONG time. This would have been fine, but in an attempt to save money Earley petitioned the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) to allow Flint to forgo corrosion control. The DEQ accepted it and in turn began testing for lead regularly. The thing is they were testing for lead incorrectly. The DEQ, the entity solely in charge of saying if water is safe for human consumption, REPEATEDLY told residents of Flint that their water was safe, they were being alarmist, and so on. It was only by citizens actively ignoring the prevailing health body that the problem was ever discovered. So ya maybe we shouldn't just let prevailing health bodies decide what the truth is without any room for further discussion.
Maybe the current of the river will take us down stream. Steering could be categories: fiction based on (fill in the blank); or Factual with references to peer reviewed articles; Political Fiction based on what the base wants to hear. I don't think public media / readable by anybody should be false, lies, or deceptive, and the misleading quality measures harm and conflict, so it should be banned. All banned material needs to be reviewed and explained why with references showing the harm and conflict generated from the post(s). That's enough. If people want to lie and mislead, don't make it easy.
Ban logarithms that exploit users like spyware for retailers and viruses-that are actually logarithms that pit people against each other for profit or increase polarizing politics. Take the profit out of social media that sells data from users, adds only in the margins, no trackers.
Their underlying algorithm has to go. As in reduced to its component electrons. Engagement by enragement has to be OVER.
Right now, their "marketing plan" is to keep serving triples to the ranting drunk at the end of the bar so long as he's still standing and ranting, and then to disclaim all responsibility for what happens after he manages to make it out to the parking lot, find his car, get the key in the ignition and drive off. My local "watering hole" hasn't been able to do that for the past 25 years - so why do they get away with it?
If not that, then I agree with Cato the Elder: FACEBOOK DELENDA EST!