Facebook in denial about what it is

FACEBOOK’S existential crisis arrived with a vengeance this week. But Mark Zuckerberg didn’t want to talk about it much. As he took to the stage on Tuesday at a Facebook conference, he nodded to what had happened just two days before: a cold-blooded killing posted for millions to see, with live-streamed commentary from the killer soon after.

“Our hearts go out to the family and friends of the victim in Cleveland,” Zuckerberg said. “We’ll do all we can to prevent tragedies like this from happening.”

But then Facebook’s founder and chairman dived right into an extended discussion of the next Facebook frontier – augmented reality. His mention of the killing, while seemingly sincere, still felt like a kiss-off. But it’s not surprising. Denial is, far too often, the Facebook way.

Remember just after the presidential election when Zuckerberg shrugged off the importance of the hyper-partisan lies in the form of news stories – like Pope Francis supposedly endorsing Donald Trump?

In time, he changed his mind about that, and Facebook has made some significant moves to flag, limit and remove financial incentives for lies and misinformation.

But Facebook still hasn’t come to terms with what it really is – a media company where people get their news and which generates news content. Since Facebook Live began, rape, a horrible attack on a disabled person, and more than one suicide have been live-streamed.

An innocent man and his killer, who committed suicide on Tuesday, are dead. But that can’t be the end of the story. – Washington Post