Facebook has more friends, but our friendliness sketchy

Facebook has a lot of friends— 2 billion active monthly users to be exact. Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive of the social media behemoth, announced the benchmark Tuesday. According to WebProNews, its users represent more than a quarter of theworld’s 7.5 billion people.

It’s not surprising that Facebook has continued to growin popularity. Our eyes are trained on its news feeds at home, atwork and sometimes in between (Please put the phone down in the car; it canwait.), and through its technologywe can be anywhere and everywhere at once.

As a transplant with all ofmy family out of state, I’m quite grateful for it. We can catch up with old friends and make new ones with the click of a button. Wonder what your favorite celebrity had for lunch? Knowin an instant, thanks to Facebook. Don’t want to know? It’s there anyway.

Good news abounds on Facebook. U.S. soldiers are reunited with their families for theworld to see, and there’s a community for every hobby or passion imaginable.

Facebook has leapt fromthe social arena and become essential to theworkplace. You’d be hard pressed to find a business that doesn’t have a page. Facebook, and social media in general, is a fast way to disseminate news, entice customers and expand product visibility, as advertisers figured out awhile back. Whatwe “Google” miraculously shows up as ads on Facebook. Yes, it can seem a little creepy, but it’s actually just a business strategy called remarketing or retargeting, which allows advertisers to pinpoint users with ads based on their browsing habits. There’s money to be made, people.

For all the joy and cash Facebook has wrought, it’s also pulled the veil off the darker side of humanity. As the Los Angeles Times reported, the social network has taken fire for the spread of propaganda and “fake news,” and for the continued existence of extremist and hateful speech on its platform. Facebook itself isn’t evil, but add humans with mal intent to any equation and there’s bound to be trouble.

We’ve seen teen suicides broadcast online. Facebook live streaming brought the nation inside a car after a Minnesota man, Philando Castile, was shot by a policeman during a traffic stop (Officer Jeronimo Yanezwas acquitted last month on all charges). We see the barrel of an angled gun, aman’s slumped body, bright red blood stains spreading on his white shirt. Castile’s fiancée Diamond Reynolds said of her graphic video, “Iwanted it to go viral so the people could see.”

Citizen journalism through Facebook and other social media has become a blessing and a curse. Lawenforcement agencies admit that footage can provide evidence and help identify suspects, but people oftentimes are tried in the court of opinion before due process can begin, and broadcasts air ugliness thatwe’ve not seen until this new age of information.

It’smy hope thatwe as a people, just as CEO Zuckerberg has expressed as a company goal, consider our social responsibility as we move forward. Facebook is only amirror. Ifwe “share” and speak the truth, rein in hate and show more respect for one another, that reflection will show. I’d “like” that a lot.

Elana Simms is deputy editor of the editorial page. Email her at esimms@sun-sentinel.com.