6 ms·

Network TV might be a better analogy, since it is free to watch as long as you are willing to sit through the ads. The business model is the same as Facebook's

Network TV might be a better analogy, since it is free to watch as long as you are willing to sit through the ads. The business model is the same as Facebook's: advertisers paying for the right to attempt to modify viewers' behavior. The difference is that Facebook has much more information about the viewers, and much more control over what is shown to individual viewers, than TV networks ever did. Everyone who has looked up "what Facebook knows about me" can tell stories about how wildly wrong some of Facebook's guesses are. However, unlike the TV networks or the NY Times, Facebook will get better with time. Will we get better at resisting its manipulations?

Latteland 8y ago
Good points - you could boil down the difference to the pre-existing networks was there were many different networks competing. Today there are only two that do most online advertising, facebook and google. For multiple reasons, facebook is the one that seems to be used to manipulate people, perhaps because it's not searches plus ads, it's more used to put people together and reinforce their opinions in small groups. It's the ability to manipulate (reinforce, push horrible narratives) that causes the problem. Back in the usenet days of the 90s, it was exciting to meet people like me (programmer, geeky, interested in science, liberal, or whatever). There must have been people pushing racism, nationalism, everything is a conspiracy, but why didn't that cause the trouble we have today? Probably because it wasn't so ubiquitous.