After all of these years observing Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and even meeting him after we accidentally stepped over each other at the TechCrunch The Crunchies Awards After-Party at San Francisco City Hall in 2009, the last thing I would think Zuck would forget is that America’s the has the largest and most diverse set of social media users in the entire world.
Rather than keep that in mind during his obvious fit of pique after Facebook Whistleblower Frances Haugen blew the doors off the vault shielding us from how Facebook really works, Mark made a major error. He wrote:
if social media were as responsible for polarizing society as some people claim, then why are we seeing polarization increase in the US while it stays flat or declines in many countries with just as heavy use of social media around the world?
https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10113961365418581
The fact is that among all nations, only China and India have larger populations of social media users. And America is far more diverse than India from the perspective that the U.S. is the World’s melting pot – people from more nations call America home than is the case for India, by percentage. That leads to an incredible cultural diversity that has been exploited via a type of use of Facebook that should be outlawed.
Facebook has been the epicenter of the creation of content specifically designed to sow division. How Russia used Facebook to divide America is well-documented. But the former Soviet Union is not the only country using Facebook to influence the electorates of nations, The Philippines has as well. And while accounts over there focus on its own population, why should we assume that America wasn’t a target as well? Moreover, it was reported that the Philippines Government spent part of its budget on the creation of fake Facebook groups that have been taken down (they say).
America is the target by a number of nations and organizations which have no problem working to divide us, and have used Facebook to do so. That Mark Zuckerberg would attempt to gaslight that fact is horrible, to say the least. It means that, after all of the Congressional testimony and hand-wringing, Mark is still willing to look the other way while his platform is used to ferment racial division. It also means that Muslim Advocates was totally correct in asserting that Facebook does not take the issue seriously.
The question, for me, is who’s paying Facebook to do this and why? It would seem that it’s fair to point an accusatory finger at Russia. Now, all we have to do is find evidence of a quid-pro-quo in some form. Mark’s not allowing this for nothing. And even if the end result is more revenue for Facebook via negative engagement, what’s he getting from Russia in the form of additional payment or favors to help keep the party going? That’s the null hypothesis. The next step is to test to determine if it sticks.
But as I think about this, I am reminded of the Lockbox Access Privacy Scandal of 2010, where it was revealed that the CIA had greater levels of access to Facebook data than you and I. The question of why was not answered then, and it is still not addressed, today.
Stay tuned.