There is something about social media that makes people angry. Even presidents.
On July 16, United States President Joe Biden accused Facebook of "killing" people. Coming as it does from the US president, the accusation took a serious tone. But it appears that Biden wasn't dead serious.
On Monday, he decided to row back, saying that was not what he meant. So, if not Facebook, what is killing people? Misinformation about vaccines is, Biden clarified. Be that as it may, Facebook isn't free of all blame.
There is so much misinformation in the platform, not only about vaccines, but on loads of other things. Facebook knows this, but is reluctant to put its algorithm to work against it. Because, doing so would mean loss of audience.
And audience is what Facebook and other social media platforms are selling to advertisers. George Friedman, famed for hawking geopolitical futures to nations and companies, is right in saying that Facebook is in the advertising business. Sadly, misinformation drives traffic. And traffic is the audience advertisers are looking for.
Rave or rage, there's money — lots of it — to be made for Facebook. Commercials are the pith and marrow of Facebook's commerce.
Last year was an especially good one, with the company earning US$84.2 billion just from ads compared with US$69.7 billion in 2019. This is no surprise as the platform has 1.84 billion daily active users, a metric that Facebook uses to highlight its financials.
Facebook had a strong first quarter this year, too, with ad revenues turning in US$25.4 billion, a 46 per cent increase on last year's first quarter ad revenue. Average price per ad, too, has surged 30 per cent year-over-year. It is in these numbers that Facebook's recalcitrance to change resides.
But US Surgeon General Dr Vivek Murthy, whose report — "Confronting Health Misinformation" — was the source of Biden's "killer Facebook" remark, may try to ebb away the tech giant's recalcitrance. Dr Murthy is calling on tech giants like Facebook to "redesign recommendation algorithms to avoid amplifying misinformation". But he may not know Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg as he does his vaccines.
The tech giant's founder isn't going to give in to a surgeon general's advisory, which Dr Murthy's report is. Something with more bite is needed. Like regulations. Here, the US has a tonne of reluctance, some of which is sponsored by the tech giants.
Zuckerberg himself was once on record as saying tech giants need a business environment without regulations to thrive. If he had his wish, he would have hived off Silicon Valley as his newfoundland.
Zuckerberg appears to have rowed back from this. And we have his word for it. Writing in the Financial Times early last year, he said good regulation may hurt Facebook's business in the near term, but it will be better for everyone, including us, over the long term. But knowing Zuckerberg, he may just label regulations that bite hard as not good regulation. Or counter with "Of course, we won't agree with every proposal" as he opines in the op-ed.
Biden may want to give Zuckerberg's op-ed another read. If not for anything, at least to use Zuckerberg's words against him. "Tech companies should serve society," Zuckerberg trumpets. We can't agree more. But are they? Is Facebook serving society? We think not. Facebook may want to make a start.