I guess I’m well old enough to know better, but there it is. Let me start by saying that I’m pretty much a homebody by choice. My wife and I live by ourselves; we don’t have a huge social circle when it comes to face-to-face contact, either individually or together, .and the pandemic hasn’t helped.
Having had a carbon footprint on the planet for more than a few years, however, I have accumulated a larger circle of contacts from living and working in various places, and without Facebook, I would not be able to keep up with them. Some are very good friends of different generations. I have friends on the “other side of the aisle” politically, with whom I am still friends because I knew them before there was what I would call an aisle between us. I have lost one or two friends on FB through my own selfish behavior, which gives me pain, but I have learned from it. These can’t all be bad things, can they?
But remember how Facebook started. If I have the history right, it was launched at the college level to provide a platform for rating the attractiveness of young women. Now, Facebook’s Instagram product is being slammed for the self-body-shaming of teenage girls. Sounds a little bit like full circle to me.
Former Facebook employee Frances Haugen has blown open the window on the company’s practices, charging that it favors profit over public safety, knowingly prioritizing eyeball engagement through algorithms that make us depressed, envious, or angry.
Thanks to Ms. Haugen, those days may be numbered. Legislators in Washington may now be moved to modify Section 230, which has allowed the Wild West growth of such companies today. She’s not calling for Section 230’s repeal, but for some degree of regulation, especially over the algorithms Facebook uses.
Regulation always lags behind technology, as it did with radio, TV, and movies. and it’s too bad that it’s required at all. But Facebook’s practices are only part of the problem. It’s needed because we humans are not all that great at regulating ourselves -- or, at parenting, for that matter.
Regulating Facebook will be like trying to change the course of the Mississippi River or drain an ocean -- almost impossible. But Frances Haugen is telling us that we have to start somewhere, and I hope the end product is a company that focuses on the good things that keep me connected to it.
