Either Quit Facebook, or Don’t.
Put up or shut up time, people. Me included.
As someone who profoundly enjoys watching Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg just truly and unequivocally eat it, I’m having a very fun week. There have been so many stories resulting from Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen’s testimony and leaks that you need a Google Doc to sift through all of them. It’s impossible not to be appalled by Zuckerberg’s and Facebook’s callous disregard for the anti-democratic and poisonous rhetoric their platform clearly openly encourages, and every document you read further cements how truly amoral and destructive the company and its algorithm is. Here’s a great bit from Ryan Broderick’s Garbage Day newsletter that sums it up well:
The leaks have confirmed a lot of things that many reporters and researchers have been claiming for years. Facebook knowingly promotes right-wing content and conspiracy theories over non-politicized content. They have done little-to-nothing to moderate content in countries like India, Egypt, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, and Myanmar. They have facilitated ethnic cleansing and human trafficking and played a central role in organizing the January 6 insurrection. The only nice thing to come out of this is that apparently there aren’t any young people on the site anymore.