(note: this coming from the perspective of someone who is only 10 days from my 41st birthday. Yes, born in 1980, old enough to know the media landscape that existed before Facebook existed, but still savvy enough to know how social media works in this day & age)
Here's what I posted on Facebook today
Facebook accused of emphasizing conflict and controversies to keep an audience?
Reminds me of the old traditional media!
That's why I really am not in a panic mode over allegations that Facebook manipulates its algorithms to get more user engagement by emphasizing controversial content.
Traditional media always picks the most juiciest stories that make like things are getting worse! How else do you get viewers hooked?
Sure, you can share the good news, but people LOVE stories about conflict.
You think the media stop sharing stories about crime during the years crime was going down? HELL NO!
Media shares stories of "kids gone bad" making it look like "kids are getting worse these days". But the truth is, a lot of kids I went to school with were really bad! And some of the kids I worked with as a school employee give me bright hope for the future.
TV news in my adolescent years focused so much on the Tonya Harding vs Nancy Kerrigan controversy as if it was the most important thing in the world. It wasn't! The same was true about the OJ Simpson case. All this happened before Facebook existed!
You think Urban Meyer is getting heat over a young woman bumping & grinding on him a few days ago? That's nothing compared to the heavy news coverage of Bill Clinton's sex scandals in the late 90s. This was before Facebook existed!
As for giving crazy people a voice to speak their nonsense to the world? This was going on with TV shows hosted by Morton Downey, Jerry Springer & Maury Pauvich in the 80s & 90s.
Add to that, the underground magazines & newspapers spreading conspiracy theories in the 20th century.
Facebook isn't really doing much that the traditional media wasn't doing before.
Facebook just happens to connect a larger group of people together.
But the thing is, Facebook also allows access to great sources of information. I learned a lot from articles people shared with me, and I'm sure people learned a lot from what I shared with them.
If you follow the right people on Facebook, you'll get the right information. If you follow idiots on Facebook, you'll be exposed to nonsense.
This isn't much different compared to interacting in person. If you hang out with the correct group of friends, your life will be enriched. If you hang out with the wrong people, you'll be in a world of hurt!
And if you exposed yourself to various sources (whether it's conservative, liberal, libertarian, socialist, etc), your exposure to various viewpoints will eventually make your mind stronger in comparing different sides of the story. You'll become a better judge of information. This was true in the days of print magazines, and it's still true in the social media age.
Yes, the traditional media is jealous of the reach of Facebook.
But Facebook is nowhere near a monopoly. Yes, I know Facebook also owns Instagram and What's App. Yesterday's glitch caused major headaches for users of all those platforms.
But there's also Twitter (lord knows that too can be toxic, especially being that it favors those who can spew cliches that can fit 280 characters, try fitting a nuanced explanation in 280 characters), as well as TikTok and Snapchat.
Today's young generation sees Facebook as something for "old futs" like me! The young are now gravitating towards TikTok as their premier destination. Even the mighty like Facebook can see their power decline due to changing preferences of the masses. That's how capitalism works.
However, don't be surprised if TikTok will soon go the same way of MySpace.
Learn more about the issue from this interesting article at
Robby Soave, “As Facebook Crumbles, the Case for Breaking It up Is Weaker Than Ever,” Reason, October 05, 2021, https://reason.com/2021/10/05/facebook-whistleblower-outage-mark-zuckerberg
