To save anyone reading what is a very poorly argued article, their solution is to take Facebook under public ownership or treat it like a utility company. You don't have to think very hard to understand there are problems with this:<p>- You're giving the government (more specifically the party in power at the time) control over a highly effective form of propaganda, which won't have a good outcome.<p>- The US government would only regulate FB as it relates to US citizens, leaving FB free to operate as now in the rest of the world.<p>- In Japan where a similar addictive product aimed at minors (tobacco) is mostly under public ownership, the Japanese government has dragged its feet at regulation to reduce harm from cigarettes - eg it only banned smoking in bars last year. In the Japanese case they don't want to imperil the profits from JTI (Japan Tobacco).
I find it amusing that Facebook is currently under attack by the media (broadly defined) for manipulating people, influencing elections, increasing polarization, harming its users etc. Yet that is exactly what the media has done for centuries. Where are the congressional sessions for the CEOs of CNN, Fox, and other legacy media brands?<p>It looks to me like an old industry is scared of the new one eating its lunch. <i>The medium is the message</i> and in this case, the medium is the mainstream media.
At a generic level, isn't most advertisement psychologically harmful? The goal is to convince you your life is incomplete unless you buy the thing.
>>> Of course, there are many practical matters that would have to be ironed out. For one, Facebook might be a US company, but its utility-like services are delivered to the entire globe, so there are real questions about what a publicly owned or regulated Facebook would actually look like — questions like “Which public?” or “Regulated by whom?”<p>>>>Avoiding mass censorship efforts doesn’t mean we’re powerless to do anything. There are clear changes that can be made to Facebook’s algorithms, design, central mission, and resourcing that would bring it closer to the true public service it claims to be than the nihilistic, profit-making juggernaut it operates like, and none of them would threaten our right to speak freely or mess with our ability to stay in touch with loved ones, organize events, or such platforms’ other useful features.<p>The author makes a couple of attempts to characterize Facebook as a "utility", and even provides a link [1] to eff.org as proof of that claim as though being a public service is enough to constitute being declared a utility in need of direct regulation.<p>The author also claims that Facebook is "deliberately designed to be addictive", which I concede is true. I'd like to further point out that HN is also addictive, and seems to have been designed with absolutely no interest in making it addictive. And lastly, I'd like to mention that the US government recently relaxed its laws concerning government funded propaganda[2].<p>So I have a couple of questions:<p>1. If government wants a social media utility, then why doesn't it attempt to buy or build one that it can more easily regulate/understand?<p>2. Is social media itself an addictive element in our lives?<p>3. Is the level of addiction similar in harm to that of television, YouTube, or news aggregation sites? How would you rate it?<p>4. How do you justify asking government to offer (potentially) addictive services as public utilities?<p>5. With respect to the deregulation of propaganda, should Facebook be held to a higher standard than our government?<p>[1] <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/utilities-governed-empires" rel="nofollow">https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/utilities-governed-emp...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Defense_Authorization_Act_for_Fiscal_Year_2013#Smith%E2%80%93Mundt_Modernization_Act_of_2012" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Defense_Authorization...</a>
And because the users let it.<p>Most of the people on HN shared the issues about Facebook with relatives, only to get a polite smile at best.<p>People don't care. They are OK with it. They are consenting victims.
The Jacobin is a socialist magazine, so guaranteed to annoy many in this forum but even from my leftist point of view the argument for Facebook being a utility in need of public ownership is flawed.<p>But equally, it is correct that this is not a problem market forces alone will solve and the improvements & policies in-acted or suggested thus far do not seem to solve the problem either and have mostly served to allow Facebook to say they are trying without actually affecting their business model & profits.
"the company is driven to do bad things by its thirst for profit, not by a handful of mistaken ideas."<p>As true for most companies as it is for most people.<p>"If we place healthy and unhealthy desire on a spectrum, at one end we have the motivations that lead to some of the worst and most horrific things people do. But at the other end, desire expresses some of the most beautiful and noble aspects of human life." [<a href="https://www.insightmeditationcenter.org/books-articles/the-spectrum-of-desire/" rel="nofollow">https://www.insightmeditationcenter.org/books-articles/the-s...</a>]
I don't think this is true because depressed users are less willing to click on ads and buy products and services. Depressed person can only harm himself or herself, he or she will probably not click any ads or buy anything at all.