Facebook, the world’s largest social media network, is celebrating its 20th anniversary. Over 3 billion people use his Facebook page at least once a month. This is more than one out of every three people on the planet. It’s a true success story.
But just a few days before the 20th anniversary, the mood for celebrations was suddenly dampened when Facebook founder and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg faced harsh criticism in a US Senate hearing. cold. Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham yelled at Zuckerberg: “You’ve got blood on your hands.” “The product you have developed will kill or injure people.”
The subject of the January 31 hearing was the failure of major internet platforms to protect children and young people. Dick Durbin, a Democrat and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, expressed this criticism simply.
“Their design choices, failure to properly invest in trust and safety, and constant pursuit of involvement and profit over basic safety are all putting our children and grandchildren at risk.” He said this in his opening remarks.
The dangers of social media are currently being widely discussed. In the United States, the disease is believed to be partially responsible for the youth mental health crisis.
In an interview with DW, German psychologist and risk researcher Gerd Gigerenzer listed some of the harmful effects of social media. And it’s not just that more people are finding it increasingly difficult to concentrate. “Several studies have shown an increase in anxiety, low self-esteem, depression and even suicidal ideation,” he said.
For example, in the United States, another indicator could be the increase in suicide rates among people between the ages of 10 and 25, which jumped 60% in the decade from 2011 to 2021.
A hopeful start
Nevertheless, Facebook started out all too innocuous. It was the early days of the digital revolution, when the internet promised transparency and participation. Traditional media once operated on a model of one-to-many communication, but this new format, all-to-all communication, seems to bring more freedom, participation, and democracy. It looked like.
Facebook has always been an exciting social network where you can quickly find like-minded people, share vacation photos, and see what your friends are up to. “Initially, Facebook was seen as having a fairly altruistic mission,” said Martin Emmer, a Berlin-based media scientist. I was looking forward to it,” he says.
But it became a network with far-reaching influence. Consider, for example, the great hope initially brought by the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings. It was sometimes called the “Facebook revolution” because of the network’s role in organizing demonstrations and resistance movements.
Facebook addressed one of humanity’s oldest needs with cutting-edge technology, especially in tandem with the rapid advancement of smartphones. “Humans are social creatures,” Emmer said. “And these platforms have accomplished something different than any other medium before them. They allow us to interact with other people on different levels, and we have different kinds of friends. These platforms allow us to participate in the lives of others.”
Caught between granting privileges and disempowering them
However, using network infrastructure comes at a price. The user will pay twice for his data and attention span.
Attention is a rare commodity, and advertisers are willing to pay for it. Especially when an accurate personality profile allows you to accurately deliver your message to potential customers.
This is why platform providers collect as much data as possible from users and provide separate data points for each similar data. And by knowing more about your users’ interests, likes and dislikes, you can flood their timelines with all kinds of content that will keep them on your platform for as long as possible.
For a long time, the impact this had on individuals and society was of no concern to those running the platforms. The increasing polarization of society, the increasing viciousness of political debate, and the prevalence of the most outlandish conspiracy theories are all tied to Facebook and other platforms.
Thanks to their communicative power, social networks can also be exploited for political purposes. In 2016, allegations were raised that Russia used Facebook to influence the outcome of the presidential election. Two years later, Facebook was embroiled in the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The company analyzed data from about 50 million Facebook profiles with the aim of influencing voter behavior with highly personalized messages, almost without users’ knowledge. Facebook groups such as “Stop the Steal” also played a role in the 2020 US presidential election, helping former President Donald Trump spread the myth that votes were stolen.
AI, social media could influence huge election year
2024 will be a big election year. More than half of the world’s population will vote in countries including India and Indonesia, Pakistan and Russia, the European Union and the United States. Jaron Lanier, an American computer scientist and technology critic, is concerned.
“The rise of AI-powered deepfakes and other new applications of technology to manipulate humans is coming, and I think many people are not ready for it,” Lanier told DW. . Back in 2018, Lanier warned about the dangers of social media in his book, 10 Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Now.
But on the positive side, Lanier also believes that many people are slowly becoming aware of how they are being manipulated. “I don’t know if there are enough people like that to make a difference,” he said.
Berlin-based network scientist Philipp Lorenz Spreen agrees that society has allowed data companies to dictate terms for too long. “For 20 years now, he’s allowed Web 2.0, the Internet where we can all share content, to develop into something almost entirely commercial,” he said. Ta. “We have allowed this attention economy to proliferate.”
Politicians who follow suit
Meanwhile, politicians are waking up and trying to catch up in the competition with big tech. In 2022, the European Union passed the Digital Services Act. The purpose is to speed up the removal of illegal content such as hate speech. It also aims to strengthen the protection of users’ fundamental rights, including freedom of speech.
Additionally, researchers will finally have access to the internet giant’s data. “There’s more transparency going on and we can now open this black box a little bit and see how this machine works,” Lorenz-Spreen said happily. .
No matter how well it works, it will be very profitable. Facebook’s parent company Meta, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, made so much money from advertising in the last quarter of 2023 that Meta decided to use its 20th anniversary to pay its first dividend to shareholders. Maybe there’s something to celebrate after all, at least for them.
This article was originally written in German.
