Dan Pfeiffer, a long-time Democratic political player has provided an analysis of how the Democrats usually fail in matching the Republican’s messaging machine in his book Battling the Big Lie: How Fox, Facebook, and the MAGA Media Are Destroying America. He provides a number of interesting insights that merit discussion. Here we will describe his dark view of Facebook and his assertion that its quest for ever-greater profit has produced an operation designed to circulate the fear and hatred that motivates the radical right.
Facebook’s strategy is to keep its users engaged on the platform as long as possible each and every day. The more the platform can observe our likes, dislikes, and interests the better able it is to direct advertisers to us and make more money. It has demonstrated that any public purpose it serves is only incidental to its quest for profit. Pfeiffer argues that Facebook is not fixable. Its structure is designed to preferentially circulate disinformation and things that create outrage.
“The Facebook algorithm decides what nearly three billion users see when they open the Facebook app or log on to the site. How it works is one of Silicon Valley’s great secrets. But here is the shortest, most simplified version: Facebook does not show you everything your Facebook friends post. Instead, the ever-evolving artificial intelligence-powered algorithm shows you the posts you are most likely to engage with based on the massive amounts of your personal data Facebook Hoovered up when you weren’t paying attention. Facebook wants to show you engaging content because it wants to keep you on the platform for as long as possible in order to suck up more of your data and show you as many ads as possible.”
“More often, the content that generates engagement on Facebook is outrage bait; and outrage is the language of Trumpism. Trolling, unsubtle racist fearmongering, and conspiracy theories dominate the platform because they are shared and liked by people who agree with them and comment on them and because they are disliked by those who are outraged by them.”
Facebook might provide a pleasant experience to its users, but that is not an explicit goal. It does not care whether your visit to the site generates happiness or hatred, as long as you stay online.
“In other words, Facebook values all engagement the same. Dislikes are the same as likes. Hate is valued the same as love. Calling something out as obviously racist or homophobic spreads the offending piece of content nonetheless. Fact-checking conspiracy theory means more engagement and, therefore, more people exposed to the conspiracy. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Heads, Mark Zuckerberg wins. Tails, America loses.”
The data indicates that radical politics is the winner on this type of platform.
“A National Public Radio analysis of data from NewsWhip found that, in May 2021, Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire ‘generated more Facebook engagement on its articles than the New York Times, the Washington Post, NBC News and CNN combined’.”
From data generated by Kevin Roose.
“Facebook posts by Breitbart received nearly three times as many shares as the official pages of every Democratic senator combined.”
Mark Zuckerberg went through the motions of trying to control the amount of disinformation and hateful content that was being circulated on his platform after the 2016 election. But he was under a lot of pressure from the radical right who were among his best customers to leave them alone. Meanwhile, prior to the 2020 election:
“The Democrats running for president were promising to look very seriously into breaking up Facebook and raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy. Trump’s reelection meant a lower tax bill for Zuckerberg and the executives at Facebook, who had all become fabulously wealthy profiting off the destruction of democracy.”
Zuckerberg was moved to come up with a new policy.
“Facebook would not factcheck politicians or political ads.”
“In a campaign between Joe Biden (or any other Democrat) and Donald Trump, who do we think would benefit from being given carte blanche to lie?”
“This new policy had a dramatic impact on the election. The Facebook CEO was no longer an overly self-conscious liberal trying to avoid poking the bear. Instead, Facebook, under the counsel of the Republican-leaning policy team, decided to throw in with Trump and the MAGA world.”
In Pfeiffer’s view it is Facebook and its algorithm that enabled Trump and his politics. And that platform will continue to radicalize our nation.
“Whether Donald Trump is on Facebook or not is beside the point. With or without him, his message dominates the platform. While Democrats were celebrating on Twitter, the Right was dominating Facebook. No matter his original intent, Mark Zuckerberg had built a pro-Trump platform. No matter what they tell themselves, the people working for Facebook are working to push Trumpism. Without Facebook, there is no Trump. Without Facebook, there is no January 6 insurrection. And if Trump is reelected president in 2024, it will be because of Facebook.”
We have had enough of
this. It is time for Facebook to end.
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