Re:Dear Mark Zuckerberg: Democracy is not a Facebook focus g...
by coffeemug on Tuesday February 21, 2017 @02:32PM
(#13698899)
> Facebook has no incentive to remove or alter this content in any way, other than to avoid illegal content that could produce lawsuits.
In the short term, you're right. In the long term, you aren't. The long view is that people will get tired of reactionary content, and as that happens the credibility and utility of Facebook as a platform will drop, as will its profits. Since Mark has control of Facebook, he has the advantage of being able to operate on long time horizons (and has demonstrated his ability and willingness to do that). So he (and Facebook) have every incentive to fix this issue, and it seems like they're working hard to try and get it done.
In the short term, you're right. In the long term, you aren't. The long view is that people will get tired of reactionary content, and as that happens the credibility and utility of Facebook as a platform will drop, as will its profits. Since Mark has control of Facebook, he has the advantage of being able to operate on long time horizons (and has demonstrated his ability and willingness to do that). So he (and Facebook) have every incentive to fix this issue, and it seems like they're working hard to try and get it done.