As I see it | Byte back: Big Tech makes toxic social media worse, so governments should step in
- ‘Facebook Papers’ show reforms desperately needed including nuance and aggression filters and ‘nudges’ from policymakers
- Facebook engineers gave some emojis five times the weight of a traditional ‘like’ despite knowing more clickbait, abuse could follow
Here we are again having yet another debate on how social media is broken, and whether it can be fixed. This time, the global conversation is fuelled by hard evidence.
Like others who have a love-hate relationship with social media, in recent weeks I have spent an inordinate amount of time parsing the Facebook Papers – the series of articles published by a consortium of 17 US news outlets on the company’s struggles and inertia in dealing with harm caused by its apps.
The reports, based on a vast trove of documents supplied by ex-Facebook insider-turned-whistle-blower Frances Haugen, have triggered fresh hand-wringing among authorities on how to regulate Big Tech.
Haugen has also turned over the documents to authorities and testified before lawmakers in the US, Britain and Europe.
Speaking to British politicians, Haugen made a sobering pronouncement: propagating anger and hate, she said, was the “easiest way to grow on Facebook”.
