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Comment by mitigating | Hacker News Reader

How is that a good comparison? Not everyone uses Facebook out of habit, some businesses need it, and it can be used for good things as well as bad because it's just a medium in which people post content

Yes how that content is presented, ranked, etc is controlled by Facebook but that contribution is less than the content itself.

It would be better to say it's the spoon in which someone could eat a sugary cereal or something healthy.

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Are you a Facebook employee? Your justification sounds a lot like the internal propaganda that is being fed to employees. “Facebook is net positive”, “it’s just a tool”, etc

The argument was that Facebook is neutral as a platform. Similar to the internet, it serves all kinds of content. Some of the content is good, and some is bad. That doesn't necessarily mean the platform is good or bad.

Facebook is not a neutral platform. It has a lot of moderation and algorithmic ranking of posts.

Having worked in growth before (not at Facebook), I can tell that you vastly underestimate the impact FB teams have on how/when/what/for how long/how many times/etc content is displayed to end users. This is absolutely not a neutral impact.

What makes you say that? I think it's a good argument, doesn't mean it's right but it has substance. You also have some quotes that I never said. Nowhere did I imply it's a net positive. It is like a tool however but it has much more input.

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