The encouragement of hate
Around 2005 I had heard a bit about Facebook but hadn’t joined. I was a MySpace guy back in the day and felt no need to sign up for it. I only decided to join when a friend who was on it and wasn’t on MySpace encouraged me open up an account. I can’t remember the exact date of when I signed up but I think it must have been between 2005 to 2008.
Back then it was completely different to what it is now. It was a place to connect to friends and family. We would share photos, post jokes, and talk about the music we were listening to. If you liked something you replied with a comment. If you read an article that you thought your friends and/or family would benefit from you copied and pasted it to your Facebook wall. There was no discussion of politics. There was no need to block anyone because we were all friends and family just having a bit of fun on the internet. People didn’t think of harassing or shaming anyone because that’s not what friends and family do to one another. Oh, how things have changed!
Since I opened up a Facebook account the company has grown and grown. The like and reaction button has been introduced as well as the share button. In 2012 it bought Instagram and in 2014 it bought WhatsApp, in June of this year it hit $1 trillion in market capitalization and the in October the company changed its name to Meta. So for the rest of this article, I will refer to Facebook the company as Meta and when I’m talking about the platform I will simply call it Facebook.
I haven’t really taken US law markers inquiries into Meta and social media all that seriously. Mark Zuckerberg appearance before US Congress was a joke. Back then many of those asking the questions of the Meta CEO seemed pretty clueless about how social network and the internet operated. But watching Meta whistleblower Frances Haugen appear before the US Senate Commerce Committee’s Sub-Committee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security shows the lawmakers now seem to understand social media and the internet a lot better. When I first heard about a Meta whistleblower and that this person would testify to US Senators I didn’t think much of it. It wasn’t like I had heard of anything significant coming out of past testimonies from those in the tech industry. Maybe I should have had higher expectations since she was a whistleblower but I didn’t. I didn’t plan to watch the testimony but changed my mind after listening to Francis Haugen being interviewed on the Your Undivided Attention podcast. In the interview the thing that grabbed my attention, the thing that made me want to hear more from Miss Haugen was that she was offering doable solutions to the ongoing problems on Facebook. Sure she talked about the problems the social media company has but I think most of us know this company has problems. The three solutions she suggested was that to share an article you have to have been on the webpage you are sharing, that Facebook’s feed should be in chronicle order, and that there should limitations on the amount of times something can be shared (once the limit on sharing has passed people have the option of copying and pasting).
Frances Haugen has talked about the amplification of hatred on Meta’s products. And I must say I think she’s right, I’ve felt it when I’m Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. When I’ve been scrolling through my feed I feel a great irritation and find myself wanting to start a fight with anyone who says anything I don’t like. More often and not I don’t succumb to my urges but occasionally I give in to the temptation. I don’t know why this happens. In real life, I’m not an argumentative person but on social media I am. Sure in real life I disagree with people about certain things but I don’t go out looking for a fight like I do while on Facebook. I think it has something to do with what Facebook has become. I think it is something to do with the Facebook algorithm. Miss Haugen pointed out content that gets an extreme reaction out of a user will cause a user to spend more time on Facebook due to the engagement based ranking. Could this be why I have been getting so irritated? Is this what has driven me to get into fights? From my experience this irritation on Facebook is dangerous. It is dangerous because it can lead to resentment and ultimately hatred of an individual. We all have our own political and religious beliefs but generally, people don’t talk about such beliefs all the time, but on Facebook they do. There is no slowing down on Facebook. The platform encourages people to share their views without any thought. It enables people to say things they wouldn’t say face to face. What you get from this is a growing resentment towards individuals which can lead to surprisingly real-life consequences. These real-life consequences can shock some individuals because they had no idea that what they were posting on Facebook was helping hatred to grow.
For over a year Facebook has pushed groups but are groups all that helpful? I’m a part of some groups and it’s one of the things that keeps me coming back to Facebook, but I sometimes wonder if they’re even worth it. Quite honestly some groups I’ve been in that are pretty much an echo chamber where disagreement is not welcomed. You have these posts where people complain about how much they dislike certain people or groups of people. Such posts can lead to 100+ comments where members of the group agree with the original poster and talk about how much they dislike the individual or group as well. Dislike in these posts can manifest into hatred pretty quickly. Once in a while, someone might mention they disagree with the original poster and for disagreeing the person is more often than not are mocked or personally attacked by certain members of the group. Of course, not every group is an echo chamber. In some groups, disagreement is welcomed but I wonder if such groups are in the minority.
Many people support Frances Haugen. She has been called brave and an American hero, but she has had her critiques. You have people questioning her motives and being tremendously cynical about everything she is doing. I have to admit that did surprise me at first. I assume everyone except those in leadership positions at Meta would support her since you had conservative and liberal politicians generally supporting but that just isn’t the case. Do these critics have a point? I will focus on three critical points from two critics.
Let’s start with Mark Zuckerberg. He responded to her accusations and amongst other things he said only in America polarization is bad and since Facebook is all around the world social media can’t be responsible for it. He also said that it’s illogical for his company to make money from peoples anger since advertisers don’t want to run their ads alongside such content. Well to say only in the US is polarized bad makes me think he isn’t aware of what’s going on in the world. I’m in the UK and we are polarized over here. Maybe not as bad as the US but things are bad. In the last 6 years, we’ve had a socialist and a conservative MP politician murdered by members of the public and MP talk of repeatedly receiving death threats. It’s not just politicians who are victims of this. I could mention celebrities and sport stars who’ve been attacked online and have experienced harassment online myself. In one Facebook group that I’m in isn’t even supposed to be political had members talk about how they didn’t want anything to do with people who have a different political view to which led people who had that political view to leave the group. As for them not making money from anger, this isn’t a straightforward issue. Facebook makes money from ads and the advertisements place their ads for users to open so it seems to me that it doesn’t matter where the ads are placed. Does using Facebook make people angry? Well, a study published in 2014 found that Facebook users can have their emotions changed by other users. According to the study, a user can become angry if they see another user angry likewise someone can become joyful if they see another user being joyful. Writing in BBC Science Focus Magazine Prof Andrew Przybylski points out that scientists don’t know if social media is bad for you. He points out due to social media companies holding all the data we can’t know for sure whether online bullying is worse than what goes on offline. He recommends that if you feel that it’s not good for you then it’s better you get off it but will not be drawn into saying there should be regulations. Speaking to the Science Focus psychotherapist Dr Aaron Balick said we are getting angrier nowadays and social media enables that anger to be expressed easier as well be seen. On social media, our boundaries are being crossed frequently and that causes us to react without much self-control. Dr Balick goes on to say that we can get attached to anger even if it’s unpleasant and that seeing users angry will make our anger even worse. He also says that anonymity on social media makes someone more likely to go into fits of rage. Twitter has a real problem with anonymity but so does Facebook. I see many accounts on Facebook where the person doesn’t have a photo of themselves and their name seems made up.
Journalist Glenn Greenwald has been critical of Frances Haugen as well. He wrote that the Democrats and the media are using Miss Haugen to control political discourse under their views and interests. I might be more convinced by Mr Greenwald’s argument if there was just Democrats that were attending the whistleblowers hearing but that wasn’t the case. You had both Democrats and Republicans expressing admiration and gratitude to Miss Haugen for coming forward. Also, I’ve heard nothing from her that makes me think there is a desire to silence people who disagree with the Democrats. The three suggestions I’ve heard her make don’t seem like it’s an attempt to silence any view. Having to look at the webpage you are sharing isn’t silencing someone, having the Facebook feed in chronicle order isn’t silencing someone, and having limitations on the number of times something can be shared isn’t silencing someone. These suggestions are like speed bumps in a road. A speed bump doesn’t mean no one can drive down the road, it means drivers have to slow down while driving down the road. These suggestions will cause Facebook users to slow down while using the platform.
The trouble is Meta seem to have no interest in slowing things down. Now I think it is always good to put limitations upon yourself. Personally, I don’t have the Facebook or Instagram app permanently on my phone and I only install them temporally whenever I feel the need to use them. Nowadays I mainly access Facebook via web browser on my laptop. I also temporally deactivate my Facebook for a week or two regularly. I find this is a good way to slow things down but not everyone can do this. Some people need to be on social media for their business and not everyone has the self-control to place restrictions on their social media usage. Even I find that social media is a great way for me to publicize my blog and sometimes put off my temporary Facebook deactivation. Meta recently introduced the Quiet Mode on the Facebook app which is better than nothing but more is needed. On his podcast Conversations with Coleman Coleman Hughes and Tristan Harris talk about how businesses aren’t good at regulating themselves because the purpose of a business is to make money. They talk about how the food industry tried to regulate itself but it ultimately failed because placing restrictions upon themselves meant losing money. A business is there to make money not restrict themselves so there’s a need for another body to impose regulations. It would be unfair for Meta to place restrictions on their product when their competitors have no restrictions. So there needs to be a separate body that will impose the same restrictions on every social media company.
I don’t think Mark Zuckerberg is an evil monster who wanted get people to hate one another. The trouble is it has turned into a monster and Meta needs help in capturing this monster. People shouldn’t be silenced on Facebook but they need to be slowed down. Facebook is too fast for its own good and there should be measures introduced to slow things down. Reading articles before sharing them and limiting the number of times something can shared before copy and paste needs to be applied are two ways to slow things down. It says in scripture that, ‘Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry’ but the trouble is Facebook right now is encouraging us to be extremally quick to speak, extremally quick to get angry, and extremally slow to listen. In fact, Facebook would probably prefer it if we didn’t listen to each other at all and just get angry. If we aren’t listening to one another we aren’t having a conversation, we’re just shouting at each other. In our echo chambers where we talk about how much we dislike certain people or groups which increases the hate even further. This is not good because it is driving us to hate those who have different views from us. While some of us may have enough self-control to limit our time on social media and avoid parts of it that aren’t good for our mental health not everyone is able to do this and that’s why there needs to be some sort of regulation.
