Jason Wilson: Facebook is part of a toxic ecosystem of hate – it should be regulated or shut down
Facebook will never
effectively regulate itself so we must consider drastic remedies
The retreat of tolerance; the disintegration of liberal democracies into warring, hostile camps; the flood of death threats that high profile Muslim legislators of colour receive — these are mere externalities from the point of view of the entrepreneurs of hate. Even if it’s possible to clean up the mess they made, they likely won’t be responsible for doing it. In all of these respects the con artists exhibited the same kind of moral bankruptcy that has led Facebook itself through a string of scandals.
The retreat of tolerance; the disintegration of liberal democracies into warring, hostile camps; the flood of death threats that high profile Muslim legislators of colour receive — these are mere externalities from the point of view of the entrepreneurs of hate. Even if it’s possible to clean up the mess they made, they likely won’t be responsible for doing it. In all of these respects the con artists exhibited the same kind of moral bankruptcy that has led Facebook itself through a string of scandals.
An investigation
by the Guardian reveals that an online network has found a way to make
money by pushing a steady stream of low-grade rightwing propaganda at
low-information users around the world. We might argue, then,
that what they created was a miniature version of Facebook’s own business. The investigation
suggests that several deceptive operators engaged in a “covert plot to control
some of Facebook’s largest far right pages”.
But it appears they
did so not for ideological reasons, but because they understood it as a way to
make cash by directing ordinary users to amateurish websites dripping with ads. While under their
control, the pages stepped up racist attacks on Muslims - especially female
Muslim politicians like Ilhan
Omar in the US and Mehreen Faruqi in Australia. They pilloried others,
like Jeremy Corbyn and Justin Trudeau, who were depicted as capitulating to
Islamist terror. But evidence uncovered
by the investigation suggests it was less that these were true believers than
that they understood that racism begets rage, which in turn leads to clicks and
cash. The scheme worked in
part because of the segment of users it was targeted at, those whose buttons
are easily pressed....
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/commentisfree/2019/dec/06/facebook-is-part-of-a-toxic-ecosystem-of-hate-it-should-be-regulated-or-shut-downHow do I protect my online privacy from 'surveillance capitalism'?
