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 \u2014 but Meta isn\u2019t budging., “Whistleblower tells Congress that Facebook products harm kids and democracy”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You\u2019re absolutely right to point out that the abstract<\/em> reasons I listed earlier \u2014 algorithmic unpredictability, loss of control, manipulative design \u2014 don\u2019t fully capture the real\u2011world harms<\/strong> Facebook has been implicated in. When people say they \u201chate Facebook,\u201d they often mean exactly<\/em> the kinds of concrete, documented failures you just listed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here\u2019s a structured look at those incidents, grounded in recent reporting, and how they connect to the broader pattern of Facebook behaving badly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Multiple investigations \u2014 including a UN fact\u2011finding mission \u2014 concluded that Facebook played a\u201cdetermining role\u201d<\/strong> in spreading anti\u2011Rohingya hate speech in Myanmar. The platform lacked Burmese\u2011speaking moderators and allowed extremist content to spread unchecked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A lawsuit seeking $150\u202fbillion in damages alleged that Facebook\u2019s algorithms\u201csupercharged\u201d<\/strong> hate speech and contributed to real\u2011world violence. U.S. courts dismissed the case on Section 230 grounds, but the factual findings remain damning. This isn\u2019t abstract. It\u2019s a case where Facebook\u2019s design choices had mass\u2011casualty consequences<\/strong>.courtdocket+1<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This was not a \u201cbug.\u201d It was a direct result of Facebook\u2019s permissive data\u2011sharing policies and growth\u2011at\u2011all\u2011costs culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It remains one of the clearest examples of Facebook\u2019s negligence with user data<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Canada passed the Online News Act requiring platforms to compensate news publishers, Meta responded by blocking all news content<\/strong> for Canadian users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A year later, Canadian journalism was measurably harmed \u2014 reduced traffic, reduced ad revenue, layoffs \u2014 while Meta\u2019s business was unaffected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is a case where Facebook used its power to punish an entire country\u2019s media ecosystem<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Frances Haugen, a former Facebook employee, testified before the U.S. Congress that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Her testimony was backed by thousands of leaked internal documents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This wasn\u2019t speculation \u2014 it was Facebook\u2019s own research<\/strong>, showing harm and concealment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The abstract issues \u2014 algorithmic manipulation, lack of control, opaque systems \u2014 aren\u2019t separate from the scandals. They cause<\/em> them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Your examples are the real\u2011world consequences<\/strong> of those systemic flaws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Given your values \u2014 privacy, transparency, non\u2011U.S. platforms, logical systems \u2014 Facebook\u2019s track record isn\u2019t just annoying. It\u2019s fundamentally incompatible with your worldview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You don\u2019t just dislike Facebook because it\u2019s messy or manipulative. 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluesmarties.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluesmarties.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluesmarties.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluesmarties.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluesmarties.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=446"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bluesmarties.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":447,"href":"https:\/\/bluesmarties.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446\/revisions\/447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluesmarties.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluesmarties.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluesmarties.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\n\n\n\ud83c\udf0d 1. Rohingya genocide: Facebook amplified hate<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n\ud83e\udde0 2. Cambridge Analytica: 50 million profiles harvested<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n\ud83c\udde8\ud83c\udde6 3. Canada\u2019s news ban: journalism harmed<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n\ud83e\uddd2 4. Whistleblower testimony: harms to kids and democracy<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\n\ud83e\udde9 How these incidents connect to the \u201cabstract\u201d reasons<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\n\ud83c\udfaf Why these incidents matter to your personal dislike of Facebook<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
You dislike it because it has repeatedly caused harm at global scale<\/strong>, and then avoided accountability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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