The arm-wrestling in Australia, with Facebook and big tech taking on the government and much of civil society, crystallised a question of global concern: what is the purpose of a company that is based on the sharing of content, which it neither pays for nor takes responsibility for, despite earning some US$86 billion in 2020? Although only a decade-and-a-half old, Facebook already seems out of step with new environmental, social and governance (ESG) standards that the world demands of global companies. Instead, it seems focused entirely on turning in huge profits, regardless of the cost to the democracies and societies it claims to serve. Since its foundation, Facebook’s business model has been similar to that of a media company – it raises its mountain of cash by selling advertisements to people who view its content. Newspapers and magazines discovered a similar model more than three centuries ago. Facebook, however, took this business model to an extreme. It receives billions of dollars from advertisers, convincing people to provide their data and expose their habits, without paying a penny for the content received. The dispute in Australia presented itself as a financial controversy. But in essence, we are deciding whether we and future generations will live in democracies in which differences are treated with respect, enabling the search for a common purpose that allows societies to function harmoniously. Since the beginning of its dispute with the tech platforms, the Australian government has identified that there is much more at stake than the remuneration due to publishers for the copyright on the information they produce. Australia points out ways to maintain independent journalism and to extend to digital giants the regulations, as well as legal and moral obligations, that should apply to all those involved in the production and distribution of content. What is being argued in Australia is that the digital giants must take responsibility for the disinformation and hate speech that are side effects of their business operations and take steps to reward those who work hard to clean up this ecosystem. They should do this voluntarily, as responsible business operations. In the absence of this, the state and its regulatory bodies are justified in stepping in. In addition to efforts in Australia, France and Canada, the world must act before it is too late. At the current rate of financial erosion, professional journalism, already in serious crisis in many parts of the world, mainly due to the digital duopoly, is in danger of extinction in one or two generations. Covid-19 has accelerated the trend, as advertising revenues which financed many newsrooms dry up. If journalism’s role continues to be consistently weakened, systemic crises in the economy, politics, health and social life will become commonplace. Without journalism, autocrats would be emboldened and strengthened to assert their views as the truth, based on their alternative facts , or unquestioned sense of the will of the people. The ability of the public to challenge and counter these supposed truths would be compromised. And without truth, society’s ability to make critical choices and decisions would be lost. In effect, democracy itself would also be lost. In some parts of the world, the consequences of the disappearance of professional journalism are already evident, due to a phenomenon called “news deserts”. In Brazil, my native country, 18 per cent of the population, or 38 million people, and 62 per cent of the country’s municipalities, no longer have local journalism, according to the Atlas da Notícia organisation, a project to map news deserts , ironically supported by Facebook. The consequences of this range from the loss of local identity and the lack of recognition of people, values and themes relevant to communities, to the emergence of digital bandits. The latter occupy journalistic vacuums, devoid of ethics and principles, to threaten politicians and local businessmen. The trouble with fake news – and fake ‘fake news’ – the dissemination of doubt Thankfully, Facebook recently announced that it was stepping back from its move, in response to new Australian legislation, to block journalistic sites in Australia. Yet, its actions did not come as much of a surprise to those who follow these media issues. Facebook has been especially egregious among the tech platforms in its dealings with the media. In early 2018 for example, Facebook suddenly recalibrated its algorithm to drastically reduce the reach of news media in its feed. Without any consultation or explanation, news organisations found that the audience coming to them from Facebook collapsed. Even more strangely, Facebook justified the change as an effort to fight fake news. Those who live in Brazil, as in so many other countries where audiences avidly use Facebook, are well aware of the consequences of a platform that has become a digital Colosseum. Hate bubbles, the stifling of a plurality of views, and attacks on professional journalism gave rise to conditions that turned Brazil into a country where extreme ideological divisions leapt from online discussions into real life. A video shot at a demonstration in Brasilia in 2019, for instance, shows supporters of the Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro booing reporters and shouting “WhatsApp, Facebook!”. Facebook, it would seem, is not oblivious to the scorched earth around it. In 2017, it changed its mission statement in response to growing public demand that it change its behaviour. It says its mission is “to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together. People use Facebook to stay connected with friends and family, to discover what’s going on in the world, and to share and express what matters to them”. The problem is that building communities in this way is not necessarily generating a better world. In Brazil, as in so many other places, communities of fanatics and extremists, science deniers and obscurantists join Facebook to find fertile ground for dishonest acts or to spread delusions about vaccines, to proclaim miraculous cures for the coronavirus or even incite disagreements and violence, with sometimes tragic consequences. Furthermore, Facebook’s reaction in Australia of blocking the news organisations that bring information to people is counter to its self-espoused mission of helping people “to discover what’s going on in the world”. Limiting access to journalism only serves to cover up the truth and provide cover for disinformation. In Brazil, where Bolsonaro attacks the press almost every day, such a blockade would be a dream come true for the autocrats. What it lacks as a company is a strong and meaningful purpose, like making an effort to build a better and more harmonious world. By avoiding this, Facebook is wasting an opportunity to move from being simply a big tech company to being a great one. In the long run, no company will survive with such narrow vision. Marcelo Rech is a Brazilian journalist and former president of the World Editors Forum (WEF)