Most people I know have Facebook accounts and use sparingly to keep up with friends, family, and hobby groups. For the majority of users, the realities of Facebook are relatively boring. Nothing like the hyper-dramatic portrayal of social media as a "threat to our democracy" or an incurable, society-destroying addiction.

I think traditional media is overplaying their hand by cherry-picking the most problematic Facebook users and trying to tell everyone that those rare edge cases are actually the norm on Facebook. These stories are extremely popular with people who don't use Facebook because they validate their decision in an almost self-congratulatory manner. Everyone likes being told they made the right decision, so reading stories that Facebook is evil is some nice validation for someone who happens to fall into the non-Facebook camp.

Meanwhile, I think the general public is going to tire of these hyper-dramatic Facebook stories. The anti-Facebook news stories are starting to feel like an exaggerated moral panic relative to the boring realities of the average person's Facebook experience.

I am, however, concerned about the second-order effects of this new anti-Facebook culture war. What, exactly, do people expect to come of all of these calls for more regulation of speech on the internet? It's starting to feel like the tech communities are being tricked into rallying behind calls for more government intervention and censorship of speech on the internet, which is not something I would have predicted a decade ago.