After Trump’s win, even some in Silicon Valley wonder: Has Facebook grown too influential?
Web Publication: LA Times, by David Pierson
The dog bites the hand that feeds it
Sometimes I wonder if Facebook will remain relevant given privacy concerns and the swings back and forth between Facebook manipulation and user freedom. At a minimum, it is still an emerging hot topic as indicated by this article about the role of Facebook in the election cycle. Facebook leadership thought that it had found a way to be a player in the election cycle by manipulating the real news feed, only to be supplanted by a much greater volume of content all across the spectrum of truth: true, questionable, outright fake. I personally observed a lot of fake news sources on both sides of the election. Even though the article makes it sound like a conservative phenomena, it was really equal opportunity deceit. Read this article to understand the issues.
My take on the key points are as follows:
- Silicone Valley interests are not immune to making a knee-jerk reaction, especially in the face of their shock towards their heavily favored candidate losing the election
- Ultimately, Silicone Valley will do just what Wall Street does: they will follow the money
- As a minimum, expect greater manipulation of your news feed, both by fake news hackers and by Facebook’s inside regulators
- Consequently, you should be even less sure of any news you find on Facebook – you WILL be played, both directions!
- Facebook will become an even greater battleground
- Do yourself a favor and at least make an attempt to figure out where to find real news
Parting thought: Big outlets like the New York Times and the Washington Post charge a premium price for unlimited web access. Quite frankly, who do they think is going to pay that price other than their well heeled core fan-base? Hey big media: if you want to be a player to the masses, this is where you may want to look to change this equation.
Postscript 11/11/16: Today Zuckerberg is in the hot seat about his role in allowing fake news and the election upset as per this (typical) article. My thoughts about his assertions:
- Z is a bit out of touch with how much fake news was on his site. While I can’t validate all fake news, my modest friend feed was filled with buckets of questionable news from never-heard-of-before sources.
- Z is naive to assert that fake news didn’t affect the election. It was a small secondary but very real effect.
- Z very anxious to not become the target of significant scapegoating by the left.