Facebook Only Cares About Facebook

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
> Date: January 29, 2018 at 3:05:23 AM EST
> To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
> Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Facebook Only Cares About Facebook
> Reply-To: dewayne-net () warpspeed com
>
> Facebook Only Cares About Facebook
> Whatever Mark Zuckerberg says about human community or his legacy, his company is acting in its own interests—and 
> against the public good.
> By ETHAN ZUCKERMAN
> Jan 27 2018
> <https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/01/facebook-doesnt-care/551684/>
>
> Facebook’s crushing blow to independent media arrived last fall in Slovakia, Cambodia, Guatemala, and three other 
> nations.
>
> The social giant removed stories by these publishers from users’ news feeds, hiding them in a new, hard-to-find 
> stream. These independent publishers reported that they lost as much as 80 percent of their audience during this 
> experiment.
>
> Facebook doesn’t care. At least, it usually seems that way.
>
> Despite angry pushback in the six countries affected by Facebook’s algorithmic tinkering, the company is now going 
> ahead with similar changes to its news feed globally. These changes will likely de-prioritize stories from 
> professional publishers, and instead favor dispatches published by a user’s friends and family. Many American news 
> organizations will see the sharp traffic declines their brethren in other nations experienced last year—unless they 
> pay Facebook to include their stories in readers’ feeds.
>
> At the heart of this change is Facebook’s attempt to be seen not as a news publisher, but as a neutral platform for 
> interactions between friends. Facing sharp criticism for its role in spreading misinformation, and possibly in 
> tipping elections in the United States and in the United Kingdom, Facebook is anxious to limit its exposure by 
> limiting its role. It has long been this way.
>
> This rebalancing means different things for the company’s many stakeholders—for publishers, it means they’re almost 
> certainly going to be punished for their reliance on a platform that’s never been a wholly reliable partner. Facebook 
> didn’t talk to publishers in Slovakia because publishers are less important than other stakeholders in this next 
> incarnation of Facebook. But more broadly, Facebook doesn’t talk to you because Facebook already knows what you want.
>
> Facebook collects information on a person’s every interaction with the site—and many other actions online—so Facebook 
> knows a great deal about what we pay attention to. People say they’re interested in a broad range of news from 
> different political preferences, but Facebook knows they really want angry, outraged articles that confirm political 
> prejudices.
>
> Publishers in Slovakia and in the United States may warn of damage to democracy if Facebook readers receive less 
> news, but Facebook knows people will be perfectly happy—perfectly engaged—with more posts from friends and families 
> instead.
>
> For Facebook, our revealed preferences—discovered by analyzing our behavior—speak volumes. The words we say, on the 
> other hand, are often best ignored. (Keep this in mind when taking Facebook's two question survey on what media 
> brands you trust.)
>
> Tristan Harris, a fierce and persuasive critic of the ad-supported internet, recently offered me an analogy to 
> explain a problem with revealed preferences. I pledge to go to the gym more in 2018, but every morning when I wake 
> up, my partner presents me with a plate of donuts and urges me to stay in bed and eat them. My revealed preferences 
> show that I'm more interested in eating donuts than in exercising. But it’s pretty perverse that my partner is 
> working to give me what I really crave, ignoring what I’ve clearly stated I aspire to.
>
> [snip]
>
> Dewayne-Net RSS Feed: http://dewaynenet.wordpress.com/feed/
> Twitter: https://twitter.com/wa8dzp



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