It started in just the right place…on a college campus in the best college town in America – Boston – where 34 colleges and universities in the area bring an endless spark of youth and energy that never ends. It could have happened in a garage…like Gates and Jobs or maybe Bezos…but in this case it was a college…not just any college but Harvard.
The story of its beginning sparked a law suit and a big budget movie. Did that odd, nerdy-looking guy, Mark Zuckerberg, really come up with the idea and how to make it work so guys could check out and rate the prettiest girls on campuses?
Or was it those strange twins who thought of it first and little Mark who stole it from them?
The law suit and the movie gave it to Zuckerberg and the matter and all the money that eventually followed was settled.
Facebook was born. Facebook was Mark Zuckerberg’s..in fact it is Mark Zuckerberg.
It has become part of everyday life; it is a worldwide phenomenon; and it makes billions of dollars.
Businesses, causes, funding sources…everyone can participate…from sharing everyday mundane activities like birthdays and graduation parties and what you are having for dinner picture and all, to selling products, causes, candidates and much much more.
It is now so much a part of American lives that you can think of it as an open door to any home that wants to open that door. And what happens when you open a door? Anything can come in: bugs, stray cats and dogs, any salesman walking by, someone wanting to steal some stuff…anything and anybody.
And so in a way while many nice things can happen on Facebook so can many bad and unwanted things: think of that open door as an open sewer pipe with a smell that can become so familiar that no one smells it anymore.
But not all smells are created equal and sometimes the very worst odors become too much to endure.
SUCCESS BREEDS A BAD SEED
As we have learned from recent Congressional hearings which brought the top tech people into Washington to answer some questions, Facebook succeeded as other billion dollar companies succeed in our financial system.
It undercut its competition in a wide variety of ways and then simply bought them.. Fearing the growing popularity of Instagram and considering it as serious competition for the social media advertising dollar, Facebook ”played with it for awhile” and then bought it.
Facebook lost money for years until it built a following so massive that advertising entities finally had to recognize the inherent power of social media over other forms of media advertising and plunged in.
Now there was no denying the force of social media..it was everywhere and it had money to burn…and unlimited space to sell.
And because he had built an open door to just about any information anyone wanted to offer and then put a decent price on the cost of providing information, Zuckerberg became fabulously wealthy and Facebook became an unparalleled pathway to all kinds of information: disinformation, bad information, for shaming and blaming on personal levels, and spectacularly for trying to influence America’s election process.
It is no secret now that Russia, China, Iran and North Korea used Facebook to advertise information attempting to influence the 2016 Presidential election.
In the years since that election there has been a war with the Intelligence Bureau about this but no matter what side you believe, the fact of interference is no longer a secret or the subject of denial.
Now history is repeating itself and even Mark Zuckerberg has recognized it.
ENOUGH
Before we look at the political aspect, these are facts that cannot be ignored:
Doctors across America report an endless series of questions and behaviors from patients who have received bad information about how to deal with Covid-19…bad information that too many people take as gospel because :”I saw it on Facebook.” The details here can be stunning and sometimes unbelievable but what is believable is the incessant power of Facebook to tell truths and hoaxes without ever providing a difference between the two.
Facebook has seriously threatened the health of too many young people…schoolkids who have been blamed, shamed and bullied into suicide rates that became alarming…and have remained that way. The acceptable anonymity of Facebook messages protect the meanness of intentions in a frightening way.
Forewarned now and facing serious business pressures from sources in Congress who feel Facebook should be broken up, a nervous Zuckerberg recently deleted 709 messages from QAnon..of course they appeared first and then were deleted.
Now we hear from Zuckerberg who is supposed to have set up a division to weed out political disinformation (but not political ads) that the FBI has informed him that Russia has hired Americans to prepare the po9litical material they are sending to Facebook for public consumption.
When asked on TV what he is going to do about the political ads he has suggested that he may stop ALL POLITICAL ADS a week before the election.
While his discomfort at such a decision is obvious, he overrides it by talking of his concerns about what may follow on Election Night when all the ballots have not been counted because many of them will have been sent in the mail. He seems to be concerned that Facebook might be misused in that scenario to public harm and confusion.
So let’s make it easy Mark.
Shut down Facebook now to anything but the simple communication between young and old Americans who have become addicted to its use for the day to day stuff.
You have the technical know-how, the algorithms, to make such a move possible with just a flick of your finger.
And you can afford to take the ad loss for anything that even smells like a political ad.
Because for all intents and purposes Facebook has become a political open sewer everywhere you look and you have no will or desire to pick and choose on a daily basis until Nov 3 or 4 or 5 or 6.
So be a real American patriot. You see and admit the real problems.
Do something real about them.
Stop hiding behind very large gifts you are giving to unnamed organizations to help keep things honest.
The crimes are being committed right from your house…from your open door.
Slam it shut now.
“Slam it shut now.”
I disagree. What is needed is a disclaimer om every page. Anyway this Pandora’s box cannot be shut.