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Comment by viro | Hacker News Reader

Its people that are the problem, they are just using Facebook as a scapegoat. No matter what they do, they(FB) will get attacked by 50% of the country ... Remove GOP voices spreading crazy shit .. They are suddenly suppressing political voices(censorship). Leave the content up and suddenly Facebook is responsible for domestic terrorist attacks. Honestly Facebook has literally been begging congress to regulate them. The problem isn't Facebook its that congress refuses to do it job and now Americans expect a private company to regulate speech for nearly every country FB operates in.

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I disagree to a certain extent. The business model of adtech + social media creates an especially toxic product that brings out the worst in people, and puts vitriolic content in front of more eyeballs because that's what drives engagement.

If FB's business model were significantly different and didn't depend on maximizing eyeballs-on-screens time, and didn't depend on selling the ability to manipulate people's emotions at scale, the product might be less toxic.

In summary, I think it's a cop-out to just say "humans bad." Yes, but the systems we create and participate in can and do influence human behavior in different ways. Facebook wouldn't be quite so toxic if there wasn't money to be made from the toxicity.

I agree. The modern internet is just a reflection of how people want to use the internet, with all the good and bad that comes with that. I guess it's too bad the utopian dreams of the 90s didn't pan out, but what did people really expect once society moved online?

As a European, I look at FB in a global context, i.e. less U.S.-centric, and am shocked and disgusted for their "profits yes, responsibility no thanks" approach in, say, non-English speaking countries around the World.

Why isn't that the governments in those countries responsibility? Why should Facebook even be allowed to enforce Western culture(values) onto non-western countries.

Here in Russia our local social networks are more popular than FB but I'd say they're way more toxic than FB. Some years ago it was very easy to find child porn with a few clicks. At least there's some conversation in the US going on the harmful effects of social networks; here no one cares. People in countries where FB is the only option simply don't have anything to compare it to; they can't know it's a pretty decent social network, compared to some.

While we are at it can we remove Antifa and BLM from facebook?

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