Facebook does more good than harm

Ave! I think I should perform a final review of the major points that I gave in this debate. If I can show that my points were well-defended during the debate, then a Con vote is the most justified. So, let's check it out!Axiom: The Drug AnalogyThe purpose of this analogy was to demonstrate a rebuttal to Pro's point. Pro argued that the harm Facebook causes to its users doesn't matter because it only happens to an (alleged) minority of people. I pointed out that something can be considered harmful even if it only causes harm to a minority of people who use it. My example of this was the drug Baycol. It was pulled from the market because it lead to death and ill health in some people who used it. Did most people who use it get harmed? No. But doesn't it feel absurd to argue that the drug wasn't harmful! Yes! Why wouldn't we apply the same logic to Facebook?Pro's response to this was to argue that the drug Baycol has effects that Facebook does not have, so the analogy is invalid. But, this seems to miss the point. It's not about the type of harm. The point was that it caused harm in a minority of people, yet was thought of as being harmful. This criticism wasn't engaged by Pro in the next round, and instead he tried a different way of disproving the analogy.This time, Pro argued that the analogy doesn't work because the drug causes serious harm to people, while Facebook doesn't. You'll notice that this just begs the question: why doesn't Facebook cause serious harm? I, for one, think of binge-eating, depression, stress, anxiety, and cyber bullying as serious issues. Maybe Pro doesn't think the same way.In conclusion, I believe that I upheld this axiom to be true for the debate. Therefore, Pro's points about how the effects of using Facebook only occur in an (alleged) minority of people are not valid. If that's the case, then my points about anxiety, depression, self-consciousness, and stress all count towards my side when it's time to vote.Facebook's Age PolicyIn my opening round, I pointed out that millions of underage children are creating Facebook accounts. The sources I provided indicated that this is dangerous to the well-being of underage children. So, Facebook is causing harm to millions of children because it's not doing enough to keep them off their site. Why isn't it doing enough? Because it's registration form is trivially easy for underage child to bypass. All they have to do is select a DOB different from their real one in order to sign up.Pro's response was to say there is no way good way to enforce the age restriction. I think this is clearly false. At one point in Facebook's history, nobody but college students were allowed to sign up for their website. Clearly, they understand how to keep undesireables off their site. Yet, they can't even fix the fatal flaws with their registration that I pointed out above. It almost seems like they're not even trying to keep underage kids off the site. Considering Mark Zuckerberg's public statements about removing the underage rule, this doesn't seem too implausible.Pro also argued that there's no reason to think it's a bad thing for underage kids to be on Facebook. This is wrong, as I provided quotes from a cyber security expert on why it's dangerous for underage kids to be on Facebook. I'll repost the quotes."There's a lot of dangers -- there's adults, there's bullies, there's malware," said Fox. "A 10-year-old is ill-equipped to deal with any of those things."Pro also said there was not one solution to fixing the underage children problem. My question is: who said there was?I think my arguments on this point outweighed Pro's.Facebook and Organ DonationAfter four rounds, Pro finally gave us a source for his claim about Facebook and organ donation. Sadly, his own source shows that this isn't as beneficial as he's making it sound.'But, in an op-ed recently published by the Hastings Center, Sadler argued that much more needs to be done to realize the power of social media networks like Facebook. He cited data from Donate Life California, the official organ donor registry in the state. On a normal day around 70 people in California register with Donate Life. In the 24 hours following Facebook's announcement on May 1, almost 4,000 registered. However, those numbers came back down just as fast as they shot up. By May 6, the number of Californians registering with Donate Life was back to its usual level. For social media campaigns like Facebook's to work, people need to be continuously prompted, Sadler said. "This is not a top of the mind thing that people think about," he told Shots. 'I'm not surprised that it didn't have the staying power only because the prompts and the cueing weren't repeated. There weren't reminders.' ' I think that's enough said. Facebook and Movements I agreed with Pro that Facebok can start movements. The problem is that Pro never demonstrated the frequency of these movements, how much good they did, etc. It's pointless to argue that this is a benefit from using Facebook when he never shows why it's actually good. One billion people use Facebook Pro argues that if Facebook was harmful, so many people wouldn't use it. I think that this logic is overtly invalid. Just think about the number of things that people know are harmful but use anyways. People know fast food is bad for the body, yet they eat it. People know heart attack burgers are bad, yet they eat. It seems clear that people can know something is bad for you and do it too. It's also possible that somebody can know Facebook is harmful, but can't bring themselves to stop using it. Pro's response to this is to argue that Facebook isn't psychologically addictive. This is just silly, because in theory, anything can be psychologically addictive. Why arbitrarily exclude Facebook? Facebook and Physical Health Pro more or less concedes that Facebook has a bad effect on physical health. He just argues that you could experience that in other places too. Like I showed with my analogy, this is a poor way of reasoning. Should I let a lion bite my hand because I could have the same experience in North Africa as well? No! The fact that the harm caused by X can be experienced in situations Y, Z, and A, does not mean that there is no harm caused by X. Pro's response is a non-sequitur. Conclusion I didn't give a point-by-point answer to Pro. Why? Because many of the things he said in response to some of my arguments were also said to others. So, I've just attacked the general idea behind them rather than waste time on all of them. An example of this? The 'only a minority were harmed' argument. My opinion is that my case outweighed Pro, and that he didn't really meet his BOP. Vale!