This last few week we've been combing through the many brilliant articles pulling apart what exactly is going on at Facebook, and why it matters... For a crystal clear explanation 💎 of what exactly took place when Facebook blacked out Alex Hern jumped on Twitter to explain.
The blackout has skyrocketed 🚀 interest in what is going on at Facebook, but they had already been creating alarming headlines 🚨 when Wall Street Journal reported a Facebook presentation showed they were aware, for more than two years, that Instagram is negatively affecting teenage girls’ mental health. 🚨 We’re not talking about the occasional teenage girl, but one in three being affected.
Facebook is so large there is not going to be a ’simple’ solution to ensure the company works better for a global society. The problem is ingrained and cultural - quick fixes are never going to work.
Then there was whistleblower Frances Haugen who said “The thing I saw at Facebook over and over again was there were conflicts of interest between what was good for the public and what was good for Facebook. And Facebook, over and over again, chose to optimise for its own interests, like making more money”, as reported in The Guardian.
At Hattusia, we believe this is a systems problem. Facebook is so large there is not going to be a 'simple' solution to ensure the company works better for a global society. The problem is ingrained and cultural - quick fixes are never going to work.
We do think the shutdown has shown just how important social and information networks are to society at large. In some countries, the internet *is* Facebook - because Facebook has created a lot of the infrastructure and ensured that their digital products are free to use, whereas others are very expensive because of mobile data and network costs. We should start to treat the internet as a public utility, as opposed to a closed and private system.
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