Companies for the most part aren't evil or good, they're a tool. And they behave like a gas that fills the container they are in.
If not facebook, some other company would make money in some way you would find similarly objectionable.
> a true net-negative to life on earth,
Facebook has really facilitated family, friend, community and volunteer groups I'm involved with to connect and communicate easily. Social media in general has been great at elevating the voice (at least the collective voice) of the common people to something vaguely competitive with the ruling class and their dinosaur media / propaganda corporations too. For a couple of examples.
There are also downsides of facebook and social media in general, but I don't know that it's so clearly been a net negative.
> a destroyer of personal privacy,
Law enforcement and intelligence agencies already destroyed personal privacy before facebook.
> responsible for facilitating genocides,
Language and writing is also responsible for facilitating every atrocity committed in history but they have been overwhelming net positives to humanity. The same is and will be true of computers and mobile phones from now on.
It's a great go-to for the emotional argument and outrage, but anything can be misused.
> constantly lying to its users,
Like virtually all politicians, and every corporation does (or would if they thought it might help them in any way).
I'm not giving facebook a pass on its behavior, I just don't think it's useful to be fixated on them as though they are the source of evil and problems with society, as opposed to an unsurprising product of the environment created by society.
Facebook's lies and actions did not result in the invasion of Iraq that destroyed a sovereign country, resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, and took trillions of dollars, for example. That was the doing of the corrupt corporate-political system in the country. The vaunted New York Times was one of the mouthpieces beating the drums for war, no less. Just as they did in the lead up to American involvement in Vietnam. Just as the media corporations did in the calls for the wars and interventions in Syria and Libya. And on and on. So much for disinformation, eh? Yes, internet and social media corporations have or will be pulled into that system (as traditional media companies were) and made to facilitate this kind of thing but again I see it as a symptom rather than a cause. And not really facebook specific.
> the most egregious example of how corruptive a monopolistic corporation can be on a society at a global level.
I don't really think it is at all. The entire military industry are basically arms dealers and war profiteers. Banking industry was complicit in housing collapse that destroyed many people's assets. Pharmaceutical companies literally create epidemics of drug addiction. Tobacco companies similarly. Fossil fuel companies tried to bury climate science and lobby against externalities created by their product, not to mention the way war follows them around like they're a horseman of the apocalypse. Clothing companies (and many others) infamously use child labor, slave labor. Mining and extraction companies have pretty commonly taken full advantage of high levels of corruption present in developing countries. The list just goes on and on. I'm willing to hear you out, but it's a pretty damn high bar that your evidence for facebook being the worst-of-the-worst is going to have to overcome here.
I'm not going to defend facebook the company or social media in general here, because I don't know enough in depth about either subject to really offer a worthwhile opinion on it (and I don't work for them, hold their shares, or have any association with them). I just want to give a bit of balance and perspective to the fashionable "facebook is the devil" opinion.
Companies for the most part aren't evil or good, they're a tool. And they behave like a gas that fills the container they are in.
If not facebook, some other company would make money in some way you would find similarly objectionable.
> a true net-negative to life on earth,
Facebook has really facilitated family, friend, community and volunteer groups I'm involved with to connect and communicate easily. Social media in general has been great at elevating the voice (at least the collective voice) of the common people to something vaguely competitive with the ruling class and their dinosaur media / propaganda corporations too. For a couple of examples.
There are also downsides of facebook and social media in general, but I don't know that it's so clearly been a net negative.
> a destroyer of personal privacy,
Law enforcement and intelligence agencies already destroyed personal privacy before facebook.
> responsible for facilitating genocides,
Language and writing is also responsible for facilitating every atrocity committed in history but they have been overwhelming net positives to humanity. The same is and will be true of computers and mobile phones from now on.
It's a great go-to for the emotional argument and outrage, but anything can be misused.
> constantly lying to its users,
Like virtually all politicians, and every corporation does (or would if they thought it might help them in any way).
I'm not giving facebook a pass on its behavior, I just don't think it's useful to be fixated on them as though they are the source of evil and problems with society, as opposed to an unsurprising product of the environment created by society.
Facebook's lies and actions did not result in the invasion of Iraq that destroyed a sovereign country, resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, and took trillions of dollars, for example. That was the doing of the corrupt corporate-political system in the country. The vaunted New York Times was one of the mouthpieces beating the drums for war, no less. Just as they did in the lead up to American involvement in Vietnam. Just as the media corporations did in the calls for the wars and interventions in Syria and Libya. And on and on. So much for disinformation, eh? Yes, internet and social media corporations have or will be pulled into that system (as traditional media companies were) and made to facilitate this kind of thing but again I see it as a symptom rather than a cause. And not really facebook specific.
> the most egregious example of how corruptive a monopolistic corporation can be on a society at a global level.
I don't really think it is at all. The entire military industry are basically arms dealers and war profiteers. Banking industry was complicit in housing collapse that destroyed many people's assets. Pharmaceutical companies literally create epidemics of drug addiction. Tobacco companies similarly. Fossil fuel companies tried to bury climate science and lobby against externalities created by their product, not to mention the way war follows them around like they're a horseman of the apocalypse. Clothing companies (and many others) infamously use child labor, slave labor. Mining and extraction companies have pretty commonly taken full advantage of high levels of corruption present in developing countries. The list just goes on and on. I'm willing to hear you out, but it's a pretty damn high bar that your evidence for facebook being the worst-of-the-worst is going to have to overcome here.
I'm not going to defend facebook the company or social media in general here, because I don't know enough in depth about either subject to really offer a worthwhile opinion on it (and I don't work for them, hold their shares, or have any association with them). I just want to give a bit of balance and perspective to the fashionable "facebook is the devil" opinion.