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Paul Tims<\/strong>, our regular Culture Punch columnist, sums up the problems with Facebook and calls for an end to private ownership of such an important means of human communication<\/em><\/p>\n I think it\u2019s fair to say that Facebook is now a ubiquitous means of communication. In the western world, it\u2019s used as widely as phone calls or emails. It\u2019s used to contact business associates, friends, family members, sexually alluring strangers, people you met once at a party and completely failed to connect with – and the occasional hitman. Okay, probably not that last one. The point is that Facebook has, since its inception, grown into one of the most widely-accepted communication platforms in the world. Which would be fine, if it was completely neutral, like an email service, a telephone network or a carrier pigeon. Unfortunately, it isn\u2019t. Facebook has an agenda.<\/p>\n The term \u2018agenda\u2019 tends to get thrown around a lot in political discussions, usually in rather vague ways designed to make the accused party sound as sinister as possible. I\u2019m talking about a set of specific biases and preoccupations that have the net effect of turning Facebook into a site that favours a right-wing status quo. The main function of this article will be to examine some of Facebook\u2019s most obvious and pernicious biases, explain them, and propose what to me is the blindingly obvious remedy of ensuring the common good by taking such companies into some form of common ownership.<\/p>\n The most explicit and easily-demonstrated example of Facebook bias dates back to 2011, when the site deleted, on mass, hundreds of anti-monarchist profile pages. The official reason was that the pages didn\u2019t comply with some of the site\u2019s minor rules. For example, because they were pages devoted to a cause rather than to individuals, the profiles didn\u2019t show the owners\u2019 real names. This excuse doesn\u2019t, however, hold a great deal of water. The pages had been ignored by Facebook until 2011. They were deleted just in time for the royal wedding between Prince William and Catherine Middleton. Facebook waited until the exact point when the anti-monarchist, anti-establishment message would have been most relevant, and then abused its position as a communications platform to cripple that message. You can read both sides of the story here<\/a>.\u00a0To my mind, the timing is deeply suspicious… in much the same way that a dog sitting beside a large pile of dog crap on a recently-cleaned living room carpet is deeply suspicious. There might be several explanations for the state of affairs, but it doesn\u2019t take a genius to figure out which one is most likely.<\/p>\n More recently, Facebook has allowed itself to become a platform for the far right to spread disinformation. Because Facebook is used as a media outlet by various content creators, one might think that the platform has a responsibility to police lies, threats and disinformation spread on its platform. It does\u2026 it just doesn\u2019t act on that responsibility, at least not in the case of right-wing output. According to this article<\/a> on Crooked.com,<\/em>\u00a0the website\u2019s algorithms don\u2019t differentiate between legitimate political analysis and far-right propaganda content such as \u2018Infowars<\/em>\u2019 (if you haven\u2019t heard of Infowars<\/em>, it\u2019s a lunatic, neoconservative web-series thingy that specialises in the kind of conspiracy theories that would make David Icke raise a dubious eyebrow).<\/p>\n Despite containing outright lies and threats of violence against leftist politicians, Infowars’<\/em>\u00a0video and textual content isn\u2019t restricted by Facebook and is presented alongside less deranged political pages. One might assume that this is simply Facebook<\/em> enacting perfect neutrality by not interfering with the content it is used to distribute. However, the same hands-off approach doesn\u2019t seem to apply to more left-leaning output. For example, a Pod Saves America <\/em>video posted on Facebook was recently flagged and given an 18+ rating. It contained no threats of violence, no aggression, no actual disinformation: it was a pretty dry analysis of an investigation into some political misconduct by the Russian state. On Facebook, you have to be over 18 to watch a potentially educational political video. However, impressionable youngsters can watch the abusive, violent crypto-fascist ravings of Alex Jones.\u00a0I think that seems a little unbalanced.<\/p>\n Cambridge Analytica<\/strong><\/p>\n However, the most spectacular and irrefutable piece of evidence against Facebook is its involvement in the Cambridge Analytica scandal. For those of you who don\u2019t remember the scandal, here\u2019s a quick recap: in 2014, Cambridge Analytica used data harvested from literally millions of Facebook profiles to create software that could analyse voters and influence decisions at the ballot box. The software was used to aid Trump\u2019s electoral campaign in the US and the predominantly right-wing (and very racist) pro-Brexit campaign here in the UK. You can find a detailed summary of what happened here<\/a>.\u00a0 The point is that Facebook allowed this to happen. Over 50 million profiles were malappropriated by election-rigging rightist software sociopaths, and the platform did the square root of bugger all to stop it. I\u2019d go so far as to say that it was cheerfully complicit in Cambridge Analytica\u2019s activity.<\/p>\n But what does it all mean? We\u2019ve established that Facebook has a monarchist bias, a Trump-y bias and (possibly) a pro-Brexit bias, but why has the platform allied itself with these random pieces of rightist ideology? Facebook is still run, more or less, by Mark Zuckerberg, and we may never know what goes on in that dude\u2019s head. He is, after all, a mumbly pseud with a seemingly infinite capacity for talking bollocks without offering the slightest whiff of insight. The same guy who played him in The Social Network <\/em>recently played colourful comic-book sociopath Lex Luthor and I think it\u2019s telling that the latter was vastly more sympathetic.<\/p>\n However, even though we can\u2019t penetrate the cloud of self-aggrandising Silicone Valley guff that wafts from Zuckerberg\u2019s every pore, we can come up with an explanation using my all-time favourite philosophical tool: Occam\u2019s Razor! All other factors being equal, the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. In this case, the simplest explanation is that Facebook is a business first – an advertising paltform – and a communications platform second. Businesses like the British monarchy because they attract weepy, gurning monarchists with disposable incomes and a lot of time on their hands\u2026 time that can, for instance, be used gawping at Facebook and the adverts that appear thereon. Businesses like Trump because he\u2019s totally okay with them paying almost no tax and exploiting their workers. Tech<\/em> businesses such as Facebook even like Brexit, because it means they won\u2019t have to worry about enforcing the EU\u2019s online copyright laws.\u00a0<\/p>\n The fact of the matter is that one doesn\u2019t have to look very far to uncover the rationale behind Facebook\u2019s multifarious biases: profit. The company is simply doing what all companies do: maximising its profit margins and baulking against legislative threats. It\u2019s an obvious truth, but we tend to forget it far too often: all corporations are inherently selfish institutions, and Facebook is no exception. It\u2019s agenda is nothing more grand or impressive than the grubby pursuit of money and users. Capitalist companies are under a fiduciary duty to maximise the returns to the shareholders who own and invest in the company. it would be against the rules of the game for Facebook to pursue the common good rather than the good of the small number of rich and powerful shareholders that own it.<\/p>\n Instagram<\/strong><\/p>\n So, Facebook is obliged by the capitalist system to pursue profit. I suspect that this factoid surprises precisely nobody. But can Facebook be redeemed? To answer that question, let\u2019s take a look at a related scandal that broke in the news recently.<\/p>\n As some of you may be aware, Instagram is on the verge of integrating with Facebook so that the two platforms can trade data more effectively. Unfortunately, it also may have killed a few teenagers. Instagram has been accused of hosting content that actively encourages self-harm and suicide. You can read the cold, hard facts (and some heartbreaking testimonials from parents) here<\/a>.\u00a0Of course, we can\u2019t expect platforms with literally millions of users to check every single piece of content that they host, and there\u2019s no legislating for the random malice and psychosis of web-users themselves.<\/p>\n However, Instagram seems to have made almost zero effort to control content with self-harm and suicidal imagery (which is detectable by algorithm, in case you were wondering). What\u2019s more, it\u2019s worth remembering that Instagram, like Facebook, has algorithms that are designed to harvest information about its users and then throw them content that it thinks they\u2019re likely to click on. These algorithms obviously aren\u2019t specifically designed to show suicidal teens suicide-encouraging content, but Instagram doesn\u2019t seem to care that it\u2019s a likely side-effect. Its business model as an online advertising platform requires it to seek and keep the attention of the maximum number of potential consumers – how it does that is of secondary importance.<\/p>\n Like Facebook, Instagram is motivated by profit and that\u2019s what the blind pursuit of profit does: it turns companies into slathering monsters quite willing to create hillocks of self-mutilated corpses, just so long as the corpses can be monetized first.\u00a0<\/p>\n What is to be done?<\/strong><\/p>\n How do we apply the principles of cultiural democracy – shared ownership and democratic management – to Facebook? There are several things that could be done, preferably by an incoming Labour government. Although the company is based in the US, it still has to maintain servers in the UK. There\u2019s no reason why executive-level Facebook employees in Britain shouldn\u2019t face charges for their complicity in the platform\u2019s manipulation of the political landscape. After all, Facebook has influenced elections and referendums while pretending to be neutral: at the very least, it\u2019s committed consumer rights offences by not being upfront about its biases.<\/p>\n Some legal action has already occurred surrounding the Cambridge Analytica scandal, but a more generalised case could and should be made against the site\u2019s malpractice. It would also be useful to introduce new laws that specifically pertain to the neutrality of online communications platforms. You\u2019d be shocked if your telephone company started cutting off your calls because you expressed a political preference for Jeremy Corbyn or socialism, yet it seems that online communications networks can cheerfully censor some content while promoting other bits. At present, this behaviour is legally dubious, but new, clearer laws could make it completely and unequivocally illegal.<\/p>\n Of course, these legal steps are half-measures. If we want to maximise the common good, why not take Facebook into some form of social, common ownership? With democratic management by our elected representatives? I don\u2019t mean broken up into smaller platforms, or more heavily regulated: I mean actually, completely owned and managed by us – see here.<\/a><\/p>\n Alternatively, an incoming Labour government could close down Facebook’s operations in the UK, and create publicly-owned online multimedia communications platforms. Sites like Facebook are immensely profitable, partly because of their advertising revenue and partly because of their ability to harvest and monetise data. You can read a Marxist analysis of how such sites turn data-surveillance into profit here<\/a>.\u00a0Wouldn\u2019t it be nice if some of that revenue went into, say, our diminishing Welfare State – education, housing or the NHS? Plus, deciding what data to keep, what content to show and how to manage to political pages would be a job for public servants with a remit to protect users, not profiteering sociopaths.<\/p>\n Taking Facebook – and Google, Amazon, and Twitter – into public ownership, or simply closing them down and creating or adopting publicly-owned equivalents, could also encourager les autres, as they say. It could show the world the benefits of socially owned enterprises and be a major plank of a comprehensive programme of cultural democracy by an incoming Labour government. It could be the flagship of a fleet of detailed policy measures designed to reclaim the cultural commons – to take back into common ownership all of our culture around communication, the arts, sports, and all the other activities and practices which give us enjoyment, promote our happiness and well-being, and help us flourish as human beings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Paul Tims, our regular Culture Punch columnist, sums up the problems with Facebook and calls for an end to private ownership of such an important means of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":505,"featured_media":12855,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1649],"tags":[2236,2237],"class_list":["post-12856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tv-radio-internet","tag-canmbridge-analytica","tag-instagram"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/505"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12856\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}