HOW FACEBOOK CAN EARN FORGIVENESS
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently begged forgiveness for the harm caused by his company during the 2016 election. Unfortunately, we don’t yet know the extent of the harm, as is obvious from news that Russian ads on Facebook targeted voters in Michigan and Wisconsin.
If Zuckerberg wants forgiveness, we must insist that he earn it. I would ask him to start with five actions:
Provide complete support and transparency to every agency and committee investigating Russian interference in the election. This must include transparency about Facebook’s algorithms.
Implement a substantive plan to prevent further exploitation of Facebook by malicious third parties.
Facebook must disclose to its users whether they were targeted for Russia paid ads or induced to join any group or event created by the Russians.
Guarantee that bots will no longer be able to impersonate humans on the platform.
Zuckerberg needs to testify before Congress in an open hearing about Facebook’s business model and the design priorities for its algorithms, and defend his view that Facebook is not responsible for what third parties do on its platform.
Facebook did not set out to increase political polarization and undermine democracy. But this inevitable outcome was the result of countless decisions, made in pursuit of greater profits. In order to maximize its share of human attention, Facebook employed techniques designed to create an addiction to its platform. It de- ploys digital trackers to monitor and monetize the digital lives of its users. As a result, Facebook has emerged as one of America’s most profitable companies.
Facebook has created impenetrable bubbles around users that exclude contrary ideas, empowering groups of like-minded people to share emotionally charged ideas on a platform that is vulnerable to exploitation by bad actors.
The ongoing harm goes beyond Russia and the election. Significantly, Facebook takes the position that its only policing obligation is to support community standards on issues such as displays of nudity. As a result, it was not even looking for — much less working to prevent — interference in our elections.
In retrospect, Facebook’s architecture invited malicious interference in the election. For a trivial sum, the Russians were able to wreak havoc. A congressional committee is investigating to what degree they exploited other platforms — 4chan, Reddit, Twitter and Google — but so far it appears Facebook was the one that did the most damage.
The issues with Facebook’s business model have not gone unnoticed. For years, the advocacy group Common Sense Media has been decrying the public health threat to children from social media addiction.
I noticed a disturbing pattern on Facebook in early 2016 surrounding Black Lives Matter, the Democratic primaries and Brexit. I reached out to Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg before the election, but they dismissed my concerns, just as they would dismiss those of President Obama a month later. Zuckerberg called concerns about Facebook’s role in the election “crazy.”
Zuckerberg needs to come clean. To this point, much of what we know about Russian exploitation of Facebook has come from third parties rather than Facebook itself. That has to change.
Facebook depends on trust. Consumers know Facebook spies on them, but they assumed it was harmless. If more evidence of Russian political interference on Facebook comes to light, trust in the firm will erode further. It is one thing to trust an American company with our personal information, but quite another to trust a hostile foreign power.
It cannot be easy for Facebook employees to accept that their platform has been accused of undermining democracy in the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Germany, but that is where we are. Facebook must accept responsibility. When Zuckerberg and team do that, and act to prevent further damage, it will be time to forgive them.
Roger McNamee, an early investor in Facebook, is the managing director and a co-founder of Elevation Partners.