I thought the movie was well made and did a good job explaining things, especially to people who don't follow the business.
There is one consideration no one seriously thinks about when it comes to social media companies, in particular Facebook and Twitter. They cannot be fixed. They are failed experiments and need to end. The whole premise of the companies is to guide people's emotions for profit whether where they guide is good for society or not.
There is no way they will be ended due to the money they make and the fact they do some good, but there is also no way they can be fixed. Regulations, corporate leadership or a set of ethics won't do the trick. The framework is diseased and is a net negative on society.
> There is one consideration no one seriously thinks about when it comes to social media companies, in particular Facebook and Twitter. They cannot be fixed. They are failed experiments and need to end.
If I'm understanding this correctly you're basically calling for them to be shut down. Wouldn't everyone just migrate to alternatives based in other countries? (Perhaps those less friendly to western values)
Would you prefer to have TikTok to Facebook? If so, why?
I'm not sure how you go about ending Facebook and Twitter. Facebook's market capitalization is $720B. Twitter is a relative minnow at $32B. Neither will go down without a pretty enormous fight; the resources at their disposal outflank the most well funded political campaigns in history.
It's not realistic to think that these large social networks can be put back into the box. Ultimately, consumers like them, even if they aren't good for us. In a democracy, it's very tough to implement measures that destroy something that people actually like.
I think that social networks should be regulated in the same way as other harmful, yet enjoyable vices such as cigarettes and alcohol. A first pass would be to create a tax on social network data harvesting that starts to recognize the value they extract from us. The revenue from this tax could be invested into research that helps to understand the impact the social networks have on our lives and on democracy itself.
As with cigarettes, while we did not at first realize they were harmful, once it became clear through research that they caused harm, additional funding into high quality research allowed governments to eventually create science-guided policies that have largely put a lid on the problem. We are in the 1950s of social networking: i.e. doctors still recommend it. That needs to change.
It has nothing to do with consumers. Congress created Google and Facebook with a stroke of the pen in 1996. They can delete them with another stroke of the pen anytime.
It's a bigger problem than Facebook or Twitter. It's the business model. The advertising industry is 90% poison. Regulate it into the ground and protect user data.
There is one consideration no one seriously thinks about when it comes to social media companies, in particular Facebook and Twitter. They cannot be fixed. They are failed experiments and need to end. The whole premise of the companies is to guide people's emotions for profit whether where they guide is good for society or not.
There is no way they will be ended due to the money they make and the fact they do some good, but there is also no way they can be fixed. Regulations, corporate leadership or a set of ethics won't do the trick. The framework is diseased and is a net negative on society.