I continue to have mixed feelings about Facebook. Obviously they do some bad stuff in the service of making stupendous amounts of money, but every corporation does this. On the other hand, they obviously provide a service that a huge number of people like and use regularly. What's more, I don't have mixed feelings about government interventions designed to influence the content on their site. When it comes to speech, I trust virtually everyone—even Mark Zuckerberg—more than I trust government officials.
But I would like to unmix my feeling a bit. The recent series of whistleblower articles in the Wall Street Journal didn't impress me all that much, so that wasn't of much help. What I would like is a nice, readable, balanced summary of all the research that's been done regarding Facebook.
So far I haven't been able to find one. At various times I've googled everything I can find, but as a non-expert it's inevitable that I'm not really getting a thorough look at everything that's been published. Nor am I sure that I can accurately distinguish the quality of everything I read.
Does anyone know of such a thing? And please: I really, really don't want something from someone with an axe to grind on either side. I want just the facts as we know them today. Surely there's someone well-versed in this field who has done something like this?
Most FB users don’t understand that they are the mark, not the customer. And so it is with most all social media platforms. I would suggest courses in critical thinking for all high school kids. It won’t alleviate all of the problems, but it’s a start. Oh, and start enforcing antitrust laws.