I saw the hashtag #deleteFacebook trending on the Twitter. I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed, but the irony of that hashtag appearing on Twitter was not lost on me.
Now, I have a love/hate thing with Facebook. I have for a long time. When it’s bad, it’s awful but when it’s good, it redeems itself. Whether you like the Zuck or can’t stand him, he’s done something rather remarkable no one else has done. (I’m looking at you, MySpace.) And just when I think something SO horrible has happened on Facebook that I can not, in good conscience, keep my account, something wonderful happens that changes my mind.
Facebook is my “Brokeback Mountain:” I don’t know how to quit it.
#deleteFacebook brought up a lot of Tweets with angry people telling the world of Twitter that they were going to delete their Facebook. So, I decided to dig into the hashtag to see what was going on.
Turns out, very little digging was needed. No shovel necessary; I could have used a teaspoon. CBS Sunday Morning ran a story on the social media giant which segued into a 60 Minutes piece in which a Facebook “whistleblower” was going public with what she knows.
Oh, Facebook drama. There were so many scenarios running through my mind.
Is this going to be a Matt Lauer/Cuomo brother type story? <gasp> Scandal!
Will we find out that Facebook doesn’t actually use algorithms. Instead, a team of folks sit in a large underground bunker in an undisclosed location and monitor conversations all around the world. They hear you say, “OMG. I got my period,” and immediately, they send you a tampon ad in your newsfeed.
Will we find out Zuckerberg has a lair on an island somewhere with sharks swimming under the floor and a hairless cat named “Against Community Standards?”
WHAT NEWS IS THE WHISTLEBLOWER GOING TO TELL US?
I watched the CBS Sunday Morning piece first. They interviewed a woman by the name of Laura Edelson. Her job is something that, had you told me this in a face to face conversation, I would have thought you were joking, slapped you on the back, and said, “Good one!”
But no. This is legit. Edelson is a “misinformation researcher” at NYU who says that posts on Facebook should be regulated like we do banks. As in the federal government should regulate speech.
“First Amendment? We don’t need no stinkin’ First Amendment?”
Now, if EVER there was a clue as to what the “whistleblower” was going to be blowing her whistle about on 60 Minutes, this was it, handed to viewers on a government issued silver platter that cost 100x what it should.
Get ready, kids. This will blow your mind. Except not at all.
In a nutshell, the whistleblower told us Facebook isn’t fact-checking enough and Instagram makes teen girls feel bad about themselves.
THIS IS IT? No Matt Lauer-type lock-the door from under the desk? No secret island? NO SHARKS?
Now, I’ve had friends banned from the social media platform for sharing the most benign of posts, like, “OMG. I got a new car,” a photo of their vacation, or a link to an Amazon product. The fact-checking is so strange that it almost validates my underground-bunker-in-a-disclosed-location theory.
As for young girls getting a chunk taken out of their self-esteem via Instagram, yeah, ground breaking info. I half expected the whistleblower to follow up with, “And another thing you didn’t know, CBS: grass is green and water is wet. I have thousands of documents to verify it.”
And after watching both CBS segments, I could’t help but feel this whole “whistleblower” story was nothing more than an effort to gain public approval for more government intervention on the stories you and I choose to share and choose to read. A federal clamp down on free speech, speech that people in power don’t agree with.
Nothing threatens power more than freedom of speech.
“But, Lynn, it’s not right. People should not be allowed to share stupid things.”
Yeah, I know free speech can sometimes be stupid, but that’s what you GET when it’s “free speech.” You get the illogical with the logical, the inane with the common sense. And it’s up to YOU to decipher what is what, not the government, ‘cause when the government censors free speech, even the stupid stuff, it’s not really free anymore, is it?
In a FREE country you have a right to be stupid, say stupid things, believe stupid things…
all of which our own government does very well.
And Lynn’s writing carries on even when fb is completely down.
This is perfect 😁
You need a podcast!