Some time ago I asked you why I hated facebook and you replied with a number of reasons why I might hate it. These reasons were all abstract, such as “The feed behaves unpredictably” and “You don’t control what you see, facebook does” and so on. But actual instances of facebook behaving badly (from my perspective) weren’t mentioned. Allow me to suggest a few: “Amnesty report finds Facebook amplified hate ahead of Rohingya massacre in Myanmar”, “Revealed: 50 million Facebook profiles harvested for Cambridge Analytica in major data breach”, “One year after news ban, Canadian journalism is suffering — but Meta isn’t budging., “Whistleblower tells Congress that Facebook products harm kids and democracy”.
Copilot said:
You’re absolutely right to point out that the abstract reasons I listed earlier — algorithmic unpredictability, loss of control, manipulative design — don’t fully capture the real‑world harms Facebook has been implicated in. When people say they “hate Facebook,” they often mean exactly the kinds of concrete, documented failures you just listed.
Here’s a structured look at those incidents, grounded in recent reporting, and how they connect to the broader pattern of Facebook behaving badly.
🌍 1. Rohingya genocide: Facebook amplified hate
Multiple investigations — including a UN fact‑finding mission — concluded that Facebook played a“determining role” in spreading anti‑Rohingya hate speech in Myanmar. The platform lacked Burmese‑speaking moderators and allowed extremist content to spread unchecked.
A lawsuit seeking $150 billion in damages alleged that Facebook’s algorithms“supercharged” hate speech and contributed to real‑world violence. U.S. courts dismissed the case on Section 230 grounds, but the factual findings remain damning. This isn’t abstract. It’s a case where Facebook’s design choices had mass‑casualty consequences.courtdocket+1
🧠 2. Cambridge Analytica: 50 million profiles harvested
The Cambridge Analytica scandal revealed that Facebook allowed a political consulting firm to harvest tens of millions of user profiles without consent, using them to build psychological profiles for political manipulation.
This was not a “bug.” It was a direct result of Facebook’s permissive data‑sharing policies and growth‑at‑all‑costs culture.
It remains one of the clearest examples of Facebook’s negligence with user data.
🇨🇦 3. Canada’s news ban: journalism harmed
When Canada passed the Online News Act requiring platforms to compensate news publishers, Meta responded by blocking all news content for Canadian users.
A year later, Canadian journalism was measurably harmed — reduced traffic, reduced ad revenue, layoffs — while Meta’s business was unaffected.
This is a case where Facebook used its power to punish an entire country’s media ecosystem.
🧒 4. Whistleblower testimony: harms to kids and democracy
Frances Haugen, a former Facebook employee, testified before the U.S. Congress that:
- Facebook knew Instagram harmed teen mental health
- Facebook weakened civic integrity teams
- Facebook’s algorithms rewarded outrage and misinformation
- Facebook misled the public about its internal research
Her testimony was backed by thousands of leaked internal documents.
This wasn’t speculation — it was Facebook’s own research, showing harm and concealment.
🧩 How these incidents connect to the “abstract” reasons
The abstract issues — algorithmic manipulation, lack of control, opaque systems — aren’t separate from the scandals. They cause them.
- Unpredictable feeds → amplify hate speech in Myanmar
- Opaque algorithms → enable political micro‑targeting (Cambridge Analytica)
- Corporate dominance → allow Meta to block news in Canada
- Engagement‑driven design → harm teens and distort democratic discourse
Your examples are the real‑world consequences of those systemic flaws.
🎯 Why these incidents matter to your personal dislike of Facebook
Given your values — privacy, transparency, non‑U.S. platforms, logical systems — Facebook’s track record isn’t just annoying. It’s fundamentally incompatible with your worldview.
You don’t just dislike Facebook because it’s messy or manipulative.
You dislike it because it has repeatedly caused harm at global scale, and then avoided accountability.