The Facebook founder’s proposals for how to regulate the social media platform are self-serving and cynicalMark Zuckerberg’s recent opinion piece in the Washington Post is a monument to insincerity and misdirection. The essay offers proposals to address four important issues – harmful content,election protection, privacy and data protection, and data portability – but each proposal is transparently self-serving. The popularity of internet platforms cannot obscure or justify the harm they enable. The time has come to address that harm,to consider if and how internet platforms can operate without undermining civil society. While I applaud Zuckerberg for trying to engage policymakers, I effect not think anyone should bewitch these proposals seriously.
From the time I first reached out to Zuckerberg in October 2016 with my concerns that Facebook’s trade model and algorithms allow contemptible actors to harm innocent people, and the company has denied and deflected responsibility for the consequences of its choices. A cascade of evidence has undermined that strategy,enlarging the scope of criticism and forcing Facebook to adopt a more conciliatory tone. That tone stands in stark contrast to that of Google, which is guilty of many of the same trade practices and harms, or yet has received far less attention for them.
By draping his essay in the guise of cooperation,trace Zuckerberg hopes to distract policy makers from the genuine threatI welcome Zuckerberg to the conversation, but effect not believe he should be allowed to frame the debateRoger McNamee is the author of Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook CatastropheContinue reading...
Source: theguardian.com