Mark Zuckerberg has pledged to ‘fix’ Facebook, but new changes may only be skin deep
Despite the company announcing new measures, it’s still not clear if these tweaks will produce lasting change, or if they are only cosmetic improvements to generate goodwill, while also keeping Facebook’s business strong
To Mark Zuckerberg, fixing Facebook means many things – protecting users from abuse, preventing election meddling, weeding out fake news and “making sure time spent on Facebook is well spent”.
But for many critics of Facebook the steps taken so far strike them as insufficient, and in some cases are aimed as much at keeping people glued to the service in the future as at really addressing Facebook’s underlying problems.
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Zuckerberg, who publicly sets himself a “personal challenge” every year, has in 2018 set himself the task of “fixing Facebook”.
But fixing Facebook, critics say, should also involve making it less addictive and its business model less dependent on as many people logging in as often and for as long as possible. It’s also definitely not about creating new products for younger kids who can’t use its flagship platform, particularly amid all the worries about Facebook’s effects on the health of adults and teens.
The company has already announced a slew of new “fixes”. It’s just far from clear if these tweaks will produce lasting change, or if they’re merely cosmetic adjustments designed to generate goodwill while also keeping Facebook’s business strong.
