The tech giant remains under scrutiny for the harm it has caused.
After Buzzfeed broke the news in March that Facebook's Instagram app was planning a version for children younger than 13, concerned members of Congress asked Mark Zuckerberg about social media's effect on young people's emotional well-being. |
"The research that we've seen is that using social apps to connect with other people can have positive mental-health benefits," Zuckerberg told them. |
He didn't tell them that in 2019, his company's research into Instagram found that "we make body image issues worse for one in three teen girls" and that "teens blame Instagram for increases in the rate of anxiety and depression," according to a recent Wall Street Journal investigation. |
When Facebook data scientists told company officials that an overhaul of its newsfeed algorithm in 2018 had increased "misinformation, toxicity, and violent content," Zuckerberg resisted changes because they would have reduced user interaction, The Journal reported. |
"Facebook has realized that if they change the algorithm to be safer, people will spend less time on the site, they'll click on less ads, they'll make less money," Frances Haugen, the Facebook official who leaked the documents to The Journal, told CBS's "60 Minutes" on Sunday. |
There may once have been a time when Zuckerberg believed that his social platforms would teach the world to sing. To everyone else, it's long been clear that the engine of his moneymaking machine was fueled by an algorithm that promoted content — no matter how toxic, divisive or dishonest — that kept people looking at Facebook's platforms for as long as possible. |
Spencer wove together a range of views on the topic. Some say Facebook is beyond redemption. "The architecture of the social network," wrote Charlie Warzel, "will always produce more objectionable content at a dizzying scale." |
Others have more hope. "Cars create way more value in the world than they destroyed," said the head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, "and I think social media is similar." |
It's a subject that many other writers in Opinion have grappled with. "Children's social media apps are simply not ready for prime time," the editorial board member Greg Bensinger wrote. |
Changing Facebook will "require laws demanding transparency from platforms, a new agency to specialize in online issues and more science," wrote Kate Klonick. |
Kara Swisher said that comparing Facebook to cigarette companies may be apt. But the dangers of data harvesting by social media and others have been a concern for years. |
As far back as 2012, when the Obama campaign reveled in its successful use of data to reach voters, Zeynep Tufekci warned that "these new methods are more effective in manipulating people. Social scientists increasingly understand that much of our decision making is irrational and emotional." |
Almost six months before the 2016 election, in which the Trump campaign's even more sophisticated and manipulative use of Facebook was later shown to have had a role in his victory, she cautioned, "Facebook's own research shows that the choices its algorithm makes can influence people's mood and even affect elections by shaping turnout." Months later she would write, "the company's business model, algorithms and policies entrench echo chambers and fuel the spread of misinformation." |
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