Zuckerberg: We Hate/Love/Pay You
Mark Zuckerberg changed our world. His prodigy-like brilliance; developing the basic structure of social media while still in college, has altered our lives. Before Facebook, there were other internet interactions like My Space, but Zuckerberg’s algorithms changed everything. Today, 2.1 billion, almost a third of the world, use Facebook or one of their “apps,” every, single, day. Facebook has absorbed seventy-five different companies, including Instagram and Whats App.
Lots of folks claim they have changed the world – from the inventor of “my pillow” to Walt Disney. But no one has a stronger claim than Zuckerberg: his is an American invention that the entire world uses. Facebook has helped organize revolutions, found lost family members (and dogs, millions of dogs) and raised money for great causes.
Emerson said, “build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.” I’m sure that Emerson meant that people would “beat a path;” he probably didn’t mean the mice.
This is the dilemma of Facebook. It is a primary means of communication for many, and, it is how many of you read my essays. But it is a mousetrap as well. We are the mice, toying with Facebook, trying to get our cheese without getting caught. But we all get caught, Facebook takes us: our profiles, our choices, our information; and turns it into money, money for Zuckerberg.
I am a capitalist. I believe that Zuckerberg has earned the right to his wealth; his “mousetrap” was the best. But like any trapper, he bears some responsibility for those caught in his snare. A mousetrap snaps: a mouse gets caught by the leg. The “setter” of the trap has three choices: free the mouse, kill the mouse, or allow the mouse to suffer. Zuckerberg has let us suffer so far.
His “Facebook” has lured almost a third of the world into the trap. Like the mice, we wanted the cheese, but didn’t know about the “snap.” Now, we are all ensnared, giving up more than we get. And Zuckerberg has learned how to sell what we give, and manipulate what we see.
Others have too, some as inventive as the prodigy himself, and Facebook has been “turned.” It is now a mousetrap beating it’s own path. Russian intelligence manipulation of Facebook wasn’t the first, and probably isn’t the most effective. Ideological forces from all sides have found a voice and an audience on the platform.
If they were just stating their views, posting manifestos and statements, then we “mice” could discriminate and determine truth from falsity, and love from hate. But if that were true, then Facebook would look like my “blog.” Instead, using the same powers that sold us toothpaste, high-powered automobiles and the Chia Plant, good and bad actors on Facebook are manipulating our “universe of knowledge.” We no longer have a “truth.” Each side gets to create its own “truth,” and puts it on Facebook as fact.
We can no longer dialogue with those opposed to us, because we don’t begin with a common basis in fact. Mr. Zuckerberg, that is your fault. You built the trap, just because you lost control of it, doesn’t mean you dodge responsibility for it.
It is time to use that remarkable mind to re-think “the platform,” even if in re-thinking you might acquire less profit. Facebook tells us lies; about history, about people, about our acquaintances, and about our leaders. While Mark Zuckerberg takes no responsibility for those falsehoods, claiming that he is only “providing a microphone in the public square;” the fact that he is that he has given anyone a chance to use that “microphone,” and it is his, one that communicates to the entire world. It all creates a “duty of care.”
He has a “duty of care” to the world, just as the “setter” of the mousetrap owes some duty of care to the mouse. He must accept that his “platform” is now a “news” medium, and must take a greater responsibility for its content. I am confident that there are technical ways of doing so; he built one mousetrap, he can improve on it.
He already is trying; but right now he is depending on the “mice” to police the trap for him. Last week a “Facebook acquaintance” broke up with his girlfriend, and posted the most hateful and libelous statements, about her life, and her profession, and her morality. I “reported” it to Facebook, and within the hour it was gone. Score one for the mice!
But that doesn’t resolve the problem of ascertaining the “truth.” The powers at Facebook are still determined to avoid those decisions, as it would require them to “offend” someone, and maybe lose their information, the saleable portion of their contact with the platform. But that’s the literal price they may need to pay.
Mr. Zuckerberg will cry out, “If we allow that in the US, then the must allow it in China, and Russia, and the other authoritarian nations of the world. By restricting ‘information’ we will be giving license to censorship everywhere.” It’s a good argument, but it’s too late. The authoritarians of the world have already figured out how to restrict, control, and shutdown social media, Facebook included. Last week was the thirtieth anniversary of the Chinese government’s massacre of protestors on TiananmenSquare. But there was no mention of it on social media in China, in fact, the term was banned from Chinese internet. So, if Zuckerberg won’t do it here; if he won’t be “police” as well as “trapper,” then it will be up to the Government to step in and show him the way.
It isn’t what government’s best at, but it’s definitely better than no controls at all. The European Union has already started. Mr. Zuckerberg, your chance is now, or Congress, clueless octogenarians and all, will do it for you. It’s your trap, fix it.
