
Facebook Betrayed America - colinhb
https://newrepublic.com/article/152253/facebook-betrayed-america
======
esotericn
This all seems to have gotten utterly out of hand and gone a bit crazy.

I stopped using Facebook when my friends started to express political views
more than social content. I wanted a place to hang out with friends, not rage.
People don't do that in real life. Not that much, anyway.

Somehow it seems like over the next five years or so it all descended into
madness and everyone became a politician.

What went wrong?

How can Facebook even be used to 'spread a narrative' if it's just my friends?
Why are my friends posting this nonsense rather than stuff about their lives?

Something just doesn't add up to me. I don't understand what other people want
from a social platform.

The same seems to apply to Twitter. Everyday, normal people, seem to be
spending their lives raging at each other. What gives?

I want a pint now. Damn. The real world is stranger than fiction.

~~~
venantius
I think the relatively simple answer is that it turns out most people are far
more subject to simple tribalism than we previously wanted to admit. Memes are
incredibly powerful mind viruses and we (collectively) have done a really
great job of weaponizing them over the past 30 years.

I don't think this is Facebook's "fault" in isolation since we see the same
trend across most social networks, but I do think it suggests that social
networks ought to be regulated, if for no other reason than that it's pretty
clear that the default behaviors we're already seeing emerge en masse are not
good for society or for us on an individual basis.

~~~
wowzap
Books are incredibly powerful mind viruses and we have done a really great job
of weaponizing them over the past thousand years.

~~~
venantius
I know you mean this in jest, but for a good part of the last century this was
absolutely true.

~~~
PavlovsCat
What would be examples of such books?

~~~
venantius
The bible? Uncle Tom's Cabin? Das Kapital? It's not that hard to find books
that - by themselves - caused revolutions or major social change.

~~~
PavlovsCat
They referred to books weaponized in the last century. As far as that goes,
The Bible and Uncle Tom's Cabin, sure. But "Das Kapital"? Was that even widely
read? How was it weaponized, e.g. did people refer to it, even though nobody
had read the book?

As for a book causing change "by itself":

One thing about the Bible is that the content itself is nothing compared to
the claim that it's the word of God. It could have completely different
content, as long as there were people seriously devoted to it being the word
of God, it would have an effect. That's why it usually it involves
missionaries or being raised into it. Is it even possible to encounter that
book "by itself"? And it didn't exist for a few centuries when the things it
supposedly causes already were done.

A book breaking a taboo for example, and that in turn faciliting social change
that was a long way coming, is not the same as a "book causing social change
by itself". I don't know enough about it and the context, but it says on the
Wikipedia page about Uncle Tom's Cabin:

> _Uncle Tom 's Cabin first appeared as a 40-week serial in The National Era,
> an abolitionist periodical, starting with the June 5, 1851, issue. It was
> originally intended as a shorter narrative that would run for only a few
> weeks. Stowe expanded the story significantly, however, and it was instantly
> popular, such that several protests were sent to the Era office when she
> missed an issue. Because of the story's popularity, the publisher John P.
> Jewett contacted Stowe about turning the serial into a book._

So at the very least, there was something there already. I'm sure it was
weaponized, but how did it _cause_ social change? Did it cause people who
loved slavery to now dislike slavery? Did it make formerly happy slaves
unhappy? I honestly don't know, and since my asking for examples is taken as
the claim "there are no examples", I would ask you to treat my questions as
actual questions.

Das Kapital was written to prove an scientific underpinning for a labour
movement that already existed, long after the Communist Manifesto. So here too
I'd ask, what social change did it cause by itself?

------
nemo44x
I'm not going to defend Facebook but one of the problems with media criticism
of Facebook (and Google) is that Facebook (and Google) has crushed a lot of
media. They have become vassals of Facebook (and Google) in order to harvest
the clicks they desperately need. They have very little control of their
advertising and distribution model now.

This has also driven Madison Ave. nuts. Anecdotal but friends I have working
in that space have no lost love for Facebook (and Google).

My point is there is incentive for media to criticize Facebook and we just
don't seem to see this disclosure.

~~~
PavlovsCat
That may be true, but what does this add to or remove from the criticism
itself?

~~~
nemo44x
I agree but full disclosure on how they rely on Facebook may be in order. This
gives the reader a fair chance to assess if the article or authors may have a
bias in how they report the story.

For instance, could Facebook begin to offer these publishers and/or authors
incentive to not publish these things in the future? Either with stick or
carrot. Could that influence how and what they publish?

~~~
PavlovsCat
Speaking of full disclosure, are "old media" _just_ jealous, or do "new media"
not want to be scrutinized, in ways they cannot easily lead people away from,
drown out with spam, or even outright delete?

> I agree but full disclosure on how they rely on Facebook may be in order.

They dislike Facebook because it cuts into our margins. That in and of itself
doesn't have to make reporting inaccurate.

If anyone writes an article about cancer, should they also make known they
have friends that died of cancer? Maybe cancer is getting a really bad rap
because _everybody_ who writes about it doesn't like it? Wouldn't research
best be done by people who don't find it particularly horrible? And if you
wanted to factual information about human traffickers, would you rather ask a
detective on a task force dealing with them, a human trafficker, a victim, or
a random person who has "no bias"?

It's not like the media always said/wrote mean things about Facebook and
Google, is it? When I compare to techy people on the internet, it seems they
came way late to all of the parties, and wrote a lot of gloating things, too.

Why the bias about when bias matters, when "old media" criticize "new media"?
Wouldn't it make more sense to point out distortions or falsehoods if see any,
and then say "that shows this publication/author/article is biased"?

So you want them to admit bias you assume they have. Okay, and then what? You
already assume it anyway, so for you nothing would even change. What's the
functionality here?

> For instance, could Facebook begin to offer these publishers and/or authors
> incentive to not publish these things in the future? Either with stick or
> carrot. Could that influence how and what they publish?

So what is any particular publication supposed to write? Can you give me a
concrete example of what to add to this article so that "the reader has a fair
chance to assess if the article or authors may have a bias in how they report
the story"?

I mean, yes, Facebook could begin to offer things to them or others for that
or other things. And yes, that could influence things. That depends on who
they are, and what is offered, to do what. and _anything_ "might" have a bias.
That's just a given, I don't understand what could be added to every single
article that would help here. "when we wrote X, it's actually Y in fact, but
we don't like Facebook so we're not saying that"?

------
travisoneill1
Options:

1\. I will decide for myself what is reliable and what is not

2\. FB will decide for me

Why would anybody want option 2?

~~~
JacobJans
Option 3:

Strangers you never interact with will decide, based on extremely competent
propaganda, and their decisions will determine:

\-- The outcome of elections

\-- Whether to commit genocide

\-- ???

~~~
beaconstudios
I don't think anyone "decides" as such. It's just the incentives within the
system promote whatever content people engage with most. As it turns out,
negativity bias wins out.

~~~
beauzero
I don't understand why people don't get this. "Hey we do X with the news feed
algorithm and revenue is up 2.17%." That is how it works. It is up to humans
to logically decide if this is moral or not. Algorithms just know numbers and
morality is difficult to quantify.

~~~
beaconstudios
these algorithms hold a mirror up to us, and we don't like what we see.
Outrage bait is so prevalent because we are easily drawn to outrage so it
generates more clicks/engagement/revenue. I think cognitive dissonance is a
powerful factor in this - we don't believe we are capable of irrationality,
immorality and naivety so when we see these things happening we say "some evil
faction that isn't like me must be at play here!"

Said evil faction is taking the guise of Facebook and Google right now but
it's the oldest rationalisation in the book.

------
titzer
Betrayal implies loyalty to something. Companies have zero loyalty to anything
except their stock price.

------
mkirklions
Question about PR, when an event like this happens, why not be transparent?

Unless facebook is actively working to help one side, this could be resolved
by telling everyone what they know, and any new information...

What I'm most concerned about is that they knew it was happening and were okay
with it.

------
jakegarelick
This seems super click-baity. I'm going to draw my own conclusions from the
original NYT report.

------
bitrrrate
But where can I post pictures of my baby so granny can see them? Sure I’ll
have to wade through the Russian misinformation to do it and have my entire
data file stolen by a shady right wing political entity but I refuse to send
baby pics via email.

~~~
CaptainZapp
How about creating a Flickr account?

You can store up to 1000 pictures of your baby and even granny should be
capable to click on an URL you supply by email.

~~~
bitrrrate
It was sarcastic. It’s one of the excuses my family gives for not deleting
their FB.

~~~
CaptainZapp
Sorry then,

Sarcasm is sometimes hard to decipher on-line.

Add to that one of my pet peeves: Folks claiming that they can't quit Facebook
because how should they stay in touch with their 600 friends and family
members without relying on this truely evil company.

For the record: I "deleted" my account some 5 years ago, when it became
obvious how despicable this company actually is.

~~~
bitrrrate
No worries.

I deleted FB long ago and most recently fully weaned myself off Google.

The reality is Gmail, Facebook, et al are ploys to get people to store their
data on an ad companies servers. No thanks!

------
diogenescynic
Profits over country.

------
claydavisss
Confirming what sane people already knew - that the reflex answer of "Russian
hackers" has always been bogus.

~~~
phyller
How did you get that from the article? Seems like the point was Facebook
wasn't trying to get rid of Russian agents on it's site as much as it was
trying to bolster it's image.

I think most of us have experienced the Russian "trolls" in one way or
another, and there is very strong evidence that they have been, and continue
to be, sponsored by the Russian state.

~~~
beaconstudios
everyone has experienced trolls, but most of the time it's 4chan people trying
to upset you for laughs.

~~~
phyller
[https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/19/politics/russian-troll-
instru...](https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/19/politics/russian-troll-
instructions/index.html)

Also, below is a recent article about professional Iranian trolls, but
mentions that the same cybersecurity company has been tracking Russian
disinformation campaigns for years. There are thousands of people in Russia,
in Iran, in other countries who go into the office every day and earn their
paycheck by trying to move opinion in the USA and elsewhere in a certain
direction, or spread FUD.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/23/technology/fireeye-
facebo...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/23/technology/fireeye-facebook-
disinformation.html)

> FireEye’s information operations analysis team was formed in 2016, when
> hacked emails from several political figures were beginning to appear on the
> site DCLeaks. “All through that period, we were tracking the Russian effort
> to influence U.S. elections,” Mr. Foster said. “Obviously, social media is a
> very important kind of medium by which these campaigns are undertaken.”

~~~
beaconstudios
yeah absolutely those people exist, I'm not denying it. But they're likely not
the ones you've interacted with on twitter. Do you think Russia pays people to
post inflammatory content on twitter, or to advocate for the Russian
perspective like RT do? My money's on the latter.

~~~
BoiledCabbage
> Do you think Russia pays people to post inflammatory content on twitter, or
> to advocate for the Russian perspective like RT do?

People generally are far behind on what's public knowledge about the Russian
internet propaganda efforts. Yes, that's exactly what they've been known to be
doing, including interviews with former participants.

> The agency has employed fake accountsregistered on major social
> networks,[2]discussion boards, online newspaper sites, and video hosting
> services to promote the Kremlin's interests in domestic and foreign policy
> including Ukraine and the Middle Eastas well as attempting to influence the
> 2016 United States presidential election.

As of last known count, they had a $15million/year budget. But they've been
reported to have grown significantly since the success of the US election.

[1] -
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency)

~~~
beaconstudios
my implication is that these agents do the latter rather than the former. I'm
suggesting that you can divide the "twitter trolls" set into two - 4chan users
who post inflammatory content, and Russian agents who aim to help bring
politics that are of interest to the Russian government into the mainstream.

------
jacknews
I'm no fan of facebook, and obviously there's a lot we need to examine
regarding social media impact on society at large, etc, but I wonder to what
extent this recent demonisation is a result of the existing press powers
flexing their muscles. For example, [https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/12/facebook-
rupert-murdoch-thre...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/12/facebook-rupert-
murdoch-threatened-mark-zuckerberg-in-2016-with-a-war.html)

------
xiaolingxiao
Serious question, is someone bombing facebook in the press for some reason. I
have seen no less four discussions bashing facebook on HN in the last day. Not
defending or attacking FB in anyway, but the sheer coincidence warrants
suspision.

~~~
buboard
It's easy to write about and insanely popular. Anti-facebook press is the
equivalent of UK royal gossip.

------
quotemstr
I like how you can tell the specific kind of criticism that a MSM article on
FB will contain by looking at the unflattering stock photo of Zuck appears in
the masthead. Here, the photo says "incompetent bureaucrat".

This sort of attack is nothing new. Did FB have any obligation to do anything
other than follow the law? No. There's no betrayal here.

You have to keep in mind that outlets like The New Republic are dying, paying
writers peanuts, and attracting a contributor group that has the same sort of
uniformly authoritarian and strident political philosophy that's damaged the
freedom of expression on college campuses and in larger tech companies. They
see disagreement with their worldview as morally repugnant and they demand
that institutions use their power to censor this disagreement and punish the
critics. It's a philosophy I reject.

To be smeared by The New Republic as "betray[ing] America" is kind of an
honor.

