On a Different Facebook Debate
On a Different Facebook Debate: True to American media’s fascination with vision-less pandering to our worst impulses, all we hear, in the Facebook debate, is a choice between leaving the platform as it is, or using censorship to curb its manipulative algorithms. A choice that is tinder to any debate about the limits of incendiary “speech”. Nowhere is there a discussion of the positive potential of Facebook and other social media platforms and reforms that would exploit this technology in ways that could draw us together, inform and provide balanced debate.

Now that we know Facebook purposely guided and siloed people in content that assured certification of grievances and anti-social solutions, we have become alarmed. Likewise, we now know that Facebook increases anxiety and body-shaming among our impressionable young people, reinforcing depression and suicidal tendencies. More cause for alarm and intervention.

On its own, the social media giant and like social media platforms do not manipulate. The outcomes we are now learning about, come from a corporate decision to bend the platform to these results, in the pursuit of profit. Those research-driven negative uses can also be reconfigured to yield positive results. Maybe not as titillating and emotionally addictive, but better for society.

Some examples. Where a user shows an interest in environmental issues, the algorithms provide lead-ins to information and sites that provide climate research, projects that yielded a win-win for jobs and sustainability and emerging technology that allows for cleaner and greener ways to deal with current carbon emitters. If someone shows a concern that government programs are wasteful or ineffective, they are provided examples of the many place’s government intervention has been cost-effective and made a positive difference. Where there is a post that buys into racism and scapegoating, examples of where diversity and inclusion have resulted in inventions and human advances would be provided. In a myriad of ways social media could assist our teens through their most vulnerable years. In other words, open up the silos and balance the negatives. Encourage people to use their critical thinking skills, challenge the emotional negativity and open up a variety of solutions and visions.

This won’t eliminate the need to stop the purposeful stoking of hate and violence. In a civilized society we do have to understand that we need directional signals and stop signs. Exploring the positives will get us thinking about the technology as a potential agent of unification and the development of a broad information base from which we base our decisions. As they say, let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

In the same way that the global economy has been designed to serve a few instead of the many, social media is currently being shaped by the profiteers and opportunists. As we argue and decide how this technology might be reshaped, we don’t have to accept the stark choice between “hands off” or “hand-cuffs”. If we do, our response may be the result of a second manipulation layered upon the current one.

ihg 10-30-2021

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