Zuckerberg’s response to Facebook criticism is insufficient

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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg defends the group against claims he chose profits over child safety and the spread of disinformation.

Getty Images Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

Former employee-turned-whistleblower Frances Haugen says Facebook has knowingly harmed its users. Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg denies doing this. go to www.BusinessInsider.co.za.

At any other time, facing a major outage would have been Mark Zuckerberg’s biggest problem.

In addition to getting his 2.9 billion users back online after a six-hour outage, the co-founder and CEO of the world’s largest social media group has also had to deal with revelations from former employee-turned-whistleblower Frances Haugen, who, in a series of interviews and an appearance before the U.S. Congress, said Facebook knowingly harmed its users.

Haugen not only testified, but she also brought internal documents to prove that, when given a choice, Facebook chose profits over child safety and the spread of disinformation.

“The choices that are made inside Facebook are disastrous for our children or our public safety for privacy and for our democracy. And that’s why we need to demand changes on Facebook, ”she told a US Senate subcommittee.

As witnesses say, Haugen is not what Facebook would have wanted. She could explain the inner workings of Facebook and expose its shortcomings in an easy to follow way.

It was the kind of testimonial that could turn the idea of ​​breaking Facebook into action.

Haugen’s appearance should not be viewed in isolation. The left and the right in American politics are losing patience with the group’s ability to influence speech. It also follows the release of Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma which shed light on the negative impact of social media on society.

If Facebook were to be dismantled, the events of the past week would have been key to why this happened. While Haugen’s testimony played a role, I guess the way Facebook and Zuckerberg responded to the revelations would have played such a big role as well.

A force for good

Zuckerberg sensed the vulnerability the group found itself in. In response, he released a memo he sent to staff, claiming that his research had been “poorly characterized”, and that he cared about the well-being of children and was a force for good. in the world.

To prove that Facebook was acting in good faith, he said he was not only committed to doing more research, but also going to make more of his research available to the public.

He also pointed out that the ad group was not only willing to work with the authorities, it also urged the US Congress to update the legislation that governs the internet.

“I don’t think private companies should make all of the decisions on their own. “

There was also a bit of soul-searching on Zuckerberg’s part. “I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the types of experiences I want my kids and others to have online, and it’s very important to me that everything we build is safe and good for kids.”

Group thinking

While he emphasizes that he also wants his children to be safe, it should be noted that this is not the same as asking if his critics are right.

In essence, Zuckerberg’s response to his critiques was just a general explanation of how he and Facebook see each other.

Looking at what he had to say, I wonder if Facebook’s decision makers have fallen prey to the thing they have often been accused of doing, which creates communities where their opinions are reflected to them. This is where instead of encouraging dialogue with opponents, they are turned into “others” and their arguments are ignored or derided.

“Group thinking” in any organization is dangerous but also quite natural. In newsrooms, for example, when a stranger wonders why something was covered in a certain way, it’s not uncommon to hear a reporter respond to that criticism by saying, “People don’t get it all.” just not how the media works ”.

The right questions

By showing Facebook’s research, Zuckerberg hopes he can get his detractors to understand how it works. But maybe that’s the problem. Has Facebook become blind to understanding how it actually works?

For me, the real question is not the good faith of its research, but rather how ethics are integrated into Facebook’s decision-making. Are there, for example, ethical guides that keep it away from harming society? Are dissenting voices encouraged? Is there an ethics committee that has the power to overrule management decisions?

In other words, what’s the danger that it acts like the NASA space agency, where its growing risk tolerance has led to the in-flight destruction of two of its space shuttles?

NASA’s mission is to send people into space and bring them back to safety. At its peak, 8,000 people were employed in the shuttle program, all of whom pledged to do so.

Despite the amount of resources and people invested in the program, it was growing blindness to security concerns that led to the destruction of the shuttles.

Zuckerberg says he’s employed people only to fight the spread of harmful content, but like NASA before it, it’s not enough to just engage people in dealing with security concerns. Social media security is not only about the resources deployed to limit the dissemination of dangerous content, it also requires an examination of possible ethical blind spots.

For Facebook to demonstrate that it takes the troubling concerns that have been raised over the past few years seriously, it needs to do more than say its critics are wrong. He must make a real effort to answer the difficult questions put to him.

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