It is "bad" only because the right people cannot control it as easily, it was "good" 8-9 years ago when the good people (or the countries that they controlled/lead at the time) were using Facebook against "bad" people (i.e. Arab Spring).

If by utility, you mean enriching the pockets of their shareholders, then sure. But that is not a net positive for society. People got along in the world before Facebook just fine.

What utility is that exactly? I don't think I've benefited from having a Facebook account at all, though I hardly use it.

What utility is there?

The only utility Facebook gives me is Messenger, which I have to use because several family members use it. The only utility it offers over other messaging platforms is slightly better support for media and GIFs (maybe?) And network effects. I would really prefer they join me where I am, on Discord, which is where my local friends, neighbors and online friends go to exchange messages. (It doesn't support video sharing as well/easily as Messenger.)

I stopped using Messenger once they started with the ads. Signal is a great replacement. The chat heads on Android were cool but I don’t find I really miss them.

I'm glad you were able to move all of your contacts to Signal! That hasn't worked for me, though many people have joined me on Discord. My siblings are sort of straddling between Messenger and Discord, just like me, but they tend to be more responsive on Messenger. Perhaps they only use Discord to appease me.

I've never enjoyed the chat heads and always disabled them right away. I don't notice ads in Messenger, though I mostly use it from a desktop browser with uBlock Origin enabled!

But as a I said, I only use Messenger because I have to, as it is the primary messaging service family members tend to stick to.

I'm sure it's a comfort to the victims of the Rohingya genocide that your mother has a platform to share photos of her grandkids.

You seem to suggest that Facebook itself is to blame for that, and not the people interacting on it.

Previously, mass manipulation was only available to really rich and powerful, or states versed in it. Now it's available to much smaller and less sophisticated actors.

But I don't think that's an issue, the issue is that manipulation is acceptable at all, and how we can draw the new, better line there? (Looking at you too, Marketing)

In that case, why not blame Hillary Clinton for normalizing relations with the genocidal state, so that American corporations could have access to a new market?