While Facebook has arguably, always been a source of general misinformation and
disinformation, the years of 2015-2020 will forever be known as the years when Facebook destroyed the world. Whether it was Anti-Vaxxer disinformation, Russian Malfeasance, The proliferation of hate groups, election disinformation, or Donald fucking Trump, Facebook metamorphosed from being the darling of silicon valley—and the product of its wunderkind founders—to being a tried and true blight on polite society that is propped up by none other than a board of profligate silicon valley tech villains.
In the years since, its founder—as well as the organization’s highest-ranking officials—have been invited to Washington by congresspeople of all strokes to answer for the very chaos that the platform has been at the center of, with many democrats (rightfully) claiming that Facebook has become a honeypot of disinformation and radical extremism, and many republicans (absurdly) claiming that it has become a tool of informational bias, and silencing conservative voices.
Now, whether or not the last bit is actually true is another story, but that won’t stop senators from political grandstanding on TV and raising their voices when these proceedings are going on to try and look tough for their respective constituencies. So the next time you see Ted Cruz yelling at mark Zuckerberg, just know that he’s raising his voice for the dipshits back home.
Of course, the product of all this yelling—whether from democrats or republicans—haven’t been actual solutions to problems. Instead, the product has been PR spin, new commercials, and corporate half measures all while senators and congresspeople agree to more “listening” sessions with tech industry bros that are ready to sugar dick their way out of more regulation with political donations. All the same, because most of the politicians in Washington don’t even know how social media makes its money—much less, how it even fucking works to begin with—they actually agree to let these tech industry psychopaths regulate themselves.
Damn, it feels good to be a gangster.
So it should be of little surprise that the latest news in tech industry self-regulations that are bound to fail, is that Facebook will now let groups appoint their own experts in an effort to combat misinformation. According to Gizmodo and CNET,
“After being named an ‘expert’ in their group, designated individuals will receive official badges that appear next to their names, which will, ostensibly, act as an easy signifier that they are more knowledgeable than the average user on a given topic. But who will be responsible for bestowing such an honor? That’s the rub, a Facebook spokesperson told CNET; the selection of experts will be ‘all up the discretion of the admin to designate experts who they believe are knowledgeable on certain topics.’”
Yes, you heard that correctly: people can now pick their own experts! I mean, seriously guys, what could go wrong? The platform has only struggled with informational bias, outright lies, disinformation, and foreign propaganda for years. Of course, I don’t think this actually matters in the end: ever since it has been summarily abandoned by Milennials, Zoomers and beyond, all that is left of its regular user base is a large contingent of angry, entitled, boomers that mentally chainsmoke homophobic memes, conspiracy theories, and the hottest of hot takes straight from the “good people” at Fox News and Newsmax… Put another way: everybody left has a strong appetite for bullshit.
If you haven’t gotten the memo yet, Facebook is the borderline equivalent of mental cigarettes, full stop.
SO naturally, the “rub” as so adorably put by the spokesperson at Facebook, is that if you are an admin of a conspiracy theory group, anti vax group, or something else, you could totally hand pick a panel of experts that will support your wild as shit theories about any garden variety of topics. Think 9/11 was an inside job? Believe that Joe Biden isn’t the duly-elected president? Got a belief that the earth is flat? Well, lucky for you, there is an expert for that.
2 steps forward, five steps back. At this point, hopefully everybody knows that they should only trust Mark Zuckerberg as far as they could throw him…. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I could throw him very far. (via Gizmodo and CNET)
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