We can no longer ignore the dangers of social media

TEenings are likely to buy things that make them feel better in their skin when their self -esteem is weak, so if you want to sell them beauty products, it is useful to know when they are the most vulnerable. Because people reveal their emotions online, Facebook can tell you and serve a relevant ad at the most profitable moment.

To this end, as Sarah Wynn-Williams discovered it when she was her director of global public policy, Facebook followed the use of words such as without value, stupid and unsafe among the 13 to 17 year olds, as well as the deletion of selfies. It was not a secret operation: Wynn-Williams describes the company that boasts of this installation to advertisers.

Meta, owner of Facebook, won an injunction in America to avoid Wynn-Williams promoting the book she wrote on her six years on Facebook, who says that it is false and defamatory. It is a bitter end to a relationship born in hope and high -mindedness. When Wynn-Williams joined in 2011, Facebook rose a wave of optimism on the power of social media to do good.

Wynn-Williams believed in his bosses, as well as technology. She describes Mark Zuckerberg, the boss, as an intense Nerd, focused on engineering than on power or money. Sheryl Sandberg, then head of the company's exploitation, was a charismatic charmer whose campaign to bring women to lean a global celebrity. They encouraged employees to bring your authentic self to work. Facebook, at that time, was paradise for progressive idealists.

It didn't last long. When Facebook's bosses had to choose between the interests of the company and the rest of humanity, Wynn-Williams claims that the first took priority. It is not only adolescents in rich countries who have undergone the consequences. The United Nations investigators discovered that in Myanmar, the Junta used Facebook to concoct an anti-Muslim hatred, which resulted in thousands of deaths. In theory, Facebook had a content modation system to eliminate inflammatory equipment, but in practice it was ineffective.

Facebook has also damaged America. In 2016, Donald Trumps' team used its large database to pump the disinformation and polarization announcements to voters. Facebook leaders were so impressed by his innovative innovative team of the platform that they discussed the hiring of some of its employees.

The reason why social media has proven to do more harm than good is that even if it can indeed encourage democracy and the community, it earns more money from fear and hatred. Negative emotions are more powerful engagement engines than positive engines, and engagement stimulates income. The ideological justification to allow people to publish incendiary and incendiary material is to protect freedom of expression. Ideally, also maximize profit.

Facebook's lethal neglect what the denunciator saw

As the title of the book, Recklesssuggests that Wynn-Williams is inclined to blame Facebook's bosses for not having forced his tendency to exploit human weakness. They did not give AF ***, she said, on the damage he caused. But the problem is not that Facebook patterns are irresponsible people, but that technology and social media competition can be a toxic combination.

Competition encourages companies to push to the capacity of limited technologies to exploit human weakness. Facebook bosses would probably say that if their business had not offered customers the opportunity to snoop on vulnerable teenagers, another company would have done and put Facebook on bankruptcy. Someone else would have done if I didn't have an old argument that people use to raise guilt, but that doesn't prevent him from being true.

The assets go back to power means that there are even fewer reasons to moderate content these days. He has no interest in constraining his technical supporters. Elon Musk, an absolute system of dismantled twitters content moderation, when he bought the platform, and X is now largely based on notes published by users to correct disinformation. Zuckerberg, having folded his knee to Trump, followed the heads of musks. He said it was time to return to our roots around freedom of expression.

All this leaves the liberals of small states like me in a link. I want the government to interfere as little in privacy and private companies as compatible to allow people to live a decent life. But Market Economics is based on the idea that consumers are free to choose, and social media companies to play with the brains of peoples undermine freedom of choice, as well as dependence. In this sense, phones are today less like the phones of the 20th century than they are like drugs, and governments must treat them accordingly.

It is not easy. Since digital technology does not recognize borders, regulation is difficult. This is a problem which, like the taxation of digital companies, would be ideally treated internationally. However, the tax question does not offer an encouraging precedent. Three years ago, the governments of the rich countries met and agreed to charge digital companies of tax on a minimum rate of 15%. Trump denied this agreement.

It was therefore left with the choice to do so at the national level or not at all. There is a real concern that, if we regulate digital companies more closely here than other countries, let us put our technological industry in a disadvantage. But the health of our adolescents and our democracy is more important, so we must take measures. This is why I think we should start by following the Australian plan, which was to take effect at the end of this year, to ban social media for those under 16. Once we see how it goes, we can decide to go further.