Tag: facebook

Facebook for Business:  Use at Your Own Risk?

COVID-19 shutdowns naturally affected some businesses more acutely than others, and many who felt the sting turned to entrepreneurism. Some saw new ventures as their only options, while others viewed the crisis as a forced opportunity to try something they had long dreamed of pursuing. No matter what motivates people to take that career leap, it’s a safe bet that nearly every entrepreneur will make more extensive use of internet platforms like Facebook to promote and/or directly sell their products or services.

The opportunity for low-cost, DIY entrepreneurism has always been one of Big Tech’s most effusive promises. And in fairness, many self-starters, from jewelry designers to storytellers, do successfully use free platforms to attract fans and customers without the need for intermediaries or costly infrastructure—or even a unique website in many cases. But what the major Silicon Valley companies failed to mention, of course, is that the ways in which they built their platforms and their business models on a laissez-faire approach to online moderation also created new opportunities for entrepreneurs in hacking, identity theft, piracy, and scams.

In a recent example, I know of one an old school friend (we’ll call her Sally) whose storefront business was critically affected by COVID shutdowns, and among the choices she made in response was to launch a podcast series. Whether she expects the podcast itself to eventually generate revenue, or simply to be a vehicle that will keep her in touch with the market while she rebuilds the original business does not really matter. It was a new venture, and people started tuning in, and like any self-starter, she would see where the podcast might lead.

But a few weeks ago, Sally announced that both the Facebook page she had created for the podcast and the page for the original business were hijacked, apparently by foreign actors. The hackers took over the admin for Sally’s pages, renamed them, and (it appears) began promoting a completely unrelated line of products to a foreign market. Why the hackers slaved her pages, which did not have thousands of followers, rather than create their own Facebook presence is unclear, but what is clear is the remedy Facebook was willing to offer when Sally contacted them for help:  not a damn thing.

To put it bluntly, Facebook told Sally she wasn’t a big enough deal for them to do anything for her, and the implications of this Emperor’s New Tech Support should be chilling to every entrepreneur on the platform, whether they’re small retailers or artists. Facebook informed Sally that they could have helped her if her page were “verified,” which does not seem to mean much because bullet point Four under the requirements to receive a “verified” badge is that the user must be “Notable: Represent a well-known, often searched person, brand or entity.” So, a big deal then.

Facebook makes a fortune from the commercial uses of its platform, and it promotes those features to everyone, but apparently without any obligation to support everyone. Why the hell not? A company with the computing power and influence of Facebook ought to be able to at least shut down a hacked page, if not fully restore it to its rightful administrator. And if this really cannot be done, the company should be required to post a warning label for less “notable” users informing them that they’re basically on their own when it comes to security.

Meanwhile, I have seen friends put in “Facebook jail” for making jokes its moderators (or algorithms) don’t understand. In fact, my colleague David Lowery made a Bugs Bunny reference about “Killing the Wabbit” in one of his posts, and some Magoo flagged it for inciting violence and gave David a time out to think about his behavior. It seems to me that if Facebook can screw up so exquisitely and with such granularity that it homes in on a single Looney Tunes reference, the company has the ability and obligation to help the Sallys of the world recover their pages from hackers.

In no other context would consumers tolerate a company declaring that it has built a system too big to manage. Nowhere in Facebook’s promotion of its commercial services do we see bold, red warning signs that say Use at Own Risk. The reasonable expectation in the market remains that when a company sells something, it bears certain obligations to its customers. My bank has tens of millions of customers worldwide, and I am by no means a “notable” customer. But if a fraudulent use of my card were to occur, it will be immediately and effectively addressed, and the bank will even eat the fraudulent charges. So, really? Facebook can’t help victims of hackers get their pages back? Really?

Illustration by: VIGE

Ethics & Platform Governance – A Conversation with Dr. Michael Katell

In February, legal scholar and journalist Kate Klonick wrote a detailed exposé for The New Yorker about Facebook’s Oversight Board, which some are calling the platform’s “Supreme Court.” In theory, the Board will have the authority, even over Mark Zuckerberg, to write a set of principles by which content is allowed (or not) to remain on the platform.

As any reader knows, I am unapologetically cynical about the premise that social media was ever particularly good for democratic societies in the first place. And that cynicism certainly does not wane with the prospect of Facebook’s Oversight Board. But to discuss some of the issues raised by Klonick’s article, and the subject of platform governance in general, I hosted this podcast interview with Dr. Michael Katell of the Public Policy Program at the Alan Turing Institute in London. Follow him on Twitter.

Show Contents

  • 00:59 – Dr. Katell’s areas of study and expertise.
  • 05:34 – The Facebook oversight board.
  • 10:44 – Neutrality is not an option.
  • 18:38 – Social media aggravating flaws in human nature.
  • 27:14 – Social media and human nature continued.
  • 32:08 – Why don’t we quit social media?
  • 35:53 – Will people be penalized for not using social media?
  • 40:44 – Do social platforms have the power of governments?
  • 45:39 – Toward a state of technological feudalism?
  • 54:12 – Regulation without faith in democracy.
  • 58:09 – Living in alternate realities.

Facebook Blocks Oz. But Why Shouldn’t Platforms Pay for News?

This week, Facebook made good on its threat to block Australian news media on its platform. “Australian users cannot share Australian or international news. International users outside Australia also cannot share Australian news,” MSN reports. The move by the social giant is a hardline tactic designed to make the Australian government blink on proposed legislation that requires both Facebook and Google to pay for Australian news media that are shared across the platforms. Google reportedly has entered into agreements in recent days. For an in-depth analysis, especially from a global trade perspective, see Hugh Stephens’s post.

But acknowledging that the details are somewhere between opaque and invisible in the Facebook v. Oz story, I fail to see why the principle itself is terrribly flawed. Why shouldn’t the major online platforms pay for news media?

Google and Facebook (and potentially other platforms) derive substantial value from all those news stories that are shared across their platforms, but which others produce—often at great cost. Nevertheless, Facebook asserts that it does not need the news media as badly as the news media needs its platform. Perhaps that’s true. But in a statement released this week about the blocking decision, Facebook stated, “This is not our first choice – it is our last. But it is the only way to protect against an outcome that defies logic and will hurt, not help, the long-term vibrancy of Australia’s news and media sector.”

Combine that remark with the familiar generalization that the Australian proposal “misunderstands the internet,” and we are left to wonder if those are Facebook’s best arguments against the proposal. Because if the platform giants have ever been the least bit concerned with the “long-term vibrancy” of the news or any other media producing sectors, they must have been tripping balls when they built their business models. The underlying principle of every major online provider since roughly 2000 has been to monetize the flow of content produced by parties other than the platforms themselves.

Whether it’s someone making a joke or sharing a news story from the Washington Post, it’s all just data flow to Facebook. Very valuable data flow. And while we ordinary users may have volunteered to share personal comments or photos on the platform, the journalists whose salaries depend primarily on advertising revenues, did not voluntarily enter into the arrangement. While I recognize that the devil is in the details as to where the money will end up (i.e. does it pay journalists?), the underlying principle still seems sound.

Is really such a radical proposal that Facebook and Google (and potentially others if they achieve certain scale) pay negotiated fees to news producers? Certainly, the existing model has not done journalism much good, so why must we conclude that more of the same is necessary for the “long-term vibrancy” of the industry, as Facebook puts it? I noticed that Techdirt’s Mike Masnick tweeted his endorsement of Facebook’s rebuke to Australia, opining that the proposed legislation is just corporate welfare for Rupert Murdoch.

Admittedly, I find it difficult to defend journalism so broadly that it encompasses the work product of the Murdoch empire, but Masnick’s response is not wholly satisfactory to the question. What Facebook in particular has done to news—including where it has siphoned off revenue streams—has largely exacerbated the plague of alternate realities now threatening to unravel democratic societies worldwide. More specifically, to the extent that Masnick’s comment represents Facebook’s view, it obscures a much bigger truth:  that the major platforms have long been subsidized by the creators of works in nearly every field. That’s corporate welfare.

If the quotes listed on Yahoo! Finance, or the comments in this BBC piece are any indication, Facebook’s decision is not earning the company any goodwill—particularly in the middle of a global pandemic and brushfire season in Australia. And that’s on top of the fact that Zuckerberg & Co. have so reliably equivocated in its responding to demands to remove toxic disinformation and propaganda. “Well, that’s a tantrum. Facebook has exponentially increased the opportunity for misinformation, dangerous radicalism and conspiracy theories to abound on its platform,” said Lisa Davies, Editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, in response to the Facebook block.

Assuming the Australian proposal is a first test, it will be one to watch. There should be little doubt that if the platforms have to start paying for news in Australia and then the EU, we will see proposals to do likewise in the U.S. And that probably scares the hell out of Facebook and, perhaps Google as well. Presumably, Facebook will argue that the portal they built is so essential that they should not have to pay for any of the content that flows through it. But that seems about as irrational as saying that journalism itself is so important it should be free. Besides, I seem to remember a saying about great power coming with something. What was it again?