The prevalence of fake news and hate speech on Facebook is caused by problems in society itself, not by Facebook.
You seem to have an almost hysterical reaction to this story. Why are you so sensitive? Did Nazis and violence and Red Brigade terrorists and Communists and racists and Islamic extremists not spread their messages effectively before Facebook? Has the rate of violence from these groups increased since Facebook?
I don’t have stats in front of me, but I would argue that violence, terrorism and hate has decreased since Facebook. Sure we hear more about it now, but that’s a result of media penetration and not an actual increase in incidents. I would invite data that suggests otherwise.
One might argue that awareness of hate groups has increased because of Facebook thus leading to increased marginalization of their ideas.
Blaming the medium for the message is fascinating. The disease of hate and totalitarianism spread quite effectively before Facebook. We might argue that Facebook has actually reduced such things because it provides a marketplace where ideas can be evaluated and either accepted or shunned much more efficiently.
Banning the communication of ideas doesn’t stop the communication of ideas. We learned that from Solzhenitsyn. We should encourage more openness, less censorship. Sunlight disinfects.
No, but publishers should be, and they are. FB is a publisher, a distributor of content. They are not the creator of electrons or LED displays via which your content is distributed, which would be the closest analogy to your paper and ink manufacturer.
Your comment was downvoted a lot though. Must've hit a nerve :-)
Fake news on social media is subject to none of these controls. Facebook is a multiplier of some of the worst tendencies of human beings, and it lacks the institutions that the rest of society has evolved over centuries to contain those tendencies.
Facebook is, in part, a tool for distributing misleading information on a massive scale. We control tools that cause harm even if those tools are inert or even beneficial if they're not used by malicious people. Facebook has no institutional or economic reason to reduce the harm it causes, and it's the role of government to reduce harm when the market has failed to do so.
> The crazies finding each other and organizing is entire FB's fault.
If it is entirely Facebook's fault, how come this phenomenon predates Facebook and exists outside of it?
Do you see the problem with this argument? FB was rapidly accelerated the organization of these types of extreme positions. My original comment follows from my last comment. What do you think the crazies do when they've gotten all outraged at some false proposition or other?
That's not the right analogy. This is closer to what you said:
Human epidemics are entirely the fault of the great flu pandemic of 1912.
An even closer analogy to what you said is:
Human epidemics are entirely the fault of widespread transportation networks. Ergo we ought to abolish such networks.
Do you have any empirical evidence to back this "pandemic" claim of yours? Or is that just a feeling you have?
I'd go one step further - that's just consequence of better communication. You can't have one without the other. If you make life easier for everyone, you're also making life easier for the crazies, and for the bad guys. Personally, I'd still say it's worth it.