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> Give me a break. It's not Facebook's job to tell the truth from the lies. They provide a social network, for profit. They are not a charity or a non profit. T

> Give me a break. It's not Facebook's job to tell the truth from the lies. They provide a social network, for profit. They are not a charity or a non profit. They sell ads. If "news filtering" aligns with their bottom-line they'll do it, if it doesn't, they won't, that's business. This is a technology forum, so I'll warn beforehand that my opinion, although it has political conclusions, is from a systems perspective and not meant to cause a flame war. Your position, above, is a very common defense of capitalism. Each agent should act on its best interest, and disregard all else. Distilled like that, it's the purest form of capitalism. While that position has its merits, we should understand its limitations. It prevents capture of companies by the power struggle. On the other hand, in this case, it is failing to act on FB's exploitation of a negative externality. FB, by keeping users in their comfort zone is preventing society from improving. And is profiting from it. It gains the profit, sheds some costs to the society at large. Capitalism is the best society optimization mechanism we know. It is not perfect, though. It creates local maximums, it is short sighted and we must always be careful about its limitations.

asdfasdfa11112 10y ago
Is FB keeping users in their comfort zone, or have users clearly and regularly indicated they want their ideologically safe spaces? If the latter, any attempts FB makes will be create an exodus, lose-lose.
nickik 10y ago
> Each agent should act on its best interest, and disregard all else. Distilled like that, it's the purest form of capitalism. No. Each agent should act according to his own will and believes, that often is in his own best interest, but that not always true. Its a hard case to actually prove this assertion of facebook. I have not spent any time an it or read much research on it. Is it really that different from all Americans reading the same newspapers that thought the Spanish American War was a great idea?

asdfasdfa11112 10y ago

Is FB keeping users in their comfort zone, or have users clearly and regularly indicated they want their ideologically safe spaces? If the latter, any attempts FB makes will be create an exodus, lose-lose.

nickik 10y ago

> Each agent should act on its best interest, and disregard all else. Distilled like that, it's the purest form of capitalism. No. Each agent should act according to his own will and believes, that often is in his own best interest, but that not always true. Its a hard case to actually prove this assertion of facebook. I have not spent any time an it or read much research on it. Is it really that different from all Americans reading the same newspapers that thought the Spanish American War was a great idea?