Faulty Facebook: A Social Destruction

I remember the day my final exams’ results were to be posted online. Our whole house was scrambling to get the old family computer to work. As my father sorted out the series of adapters and extensions we had in place for the computer, he calmly explained, “The first rule of fixing anything: Reduce the points of failure to narrow down the problem”. Surely enough, he narrowed it down to a single wire, and after fixing it, the computer was up and running.

I use the same principle while solving problems in my personal life. And what can be more personal than someone’s social media space? So as a user, I believe that before discussing who’s responsible for posting questionable content online, we need to understand that sites like Facebook have transcended geographical boundaries, which makes them not only follow the US laws, but EVERY law. Leaving a backdoor for law enforcement (The Republic, 2020) and sharing the algorithm for scrutiny’s sake (Time, 2021) are both recipes for disaster as it adds potential points of failure. I am convinced that the Government should absolutely not be regularizing the content on online sites.

Which leaves the responsibility on both, the site, and the user. While there being evidence of negative impacts on mental health through Facebook (Wall Street Journal, 2021), it does not explain every ill-intended content that gets shared. Likewise, the people spreading misinformation are clearly wrong (The Conversation, 2021), but that does not grant Facebook immunity from fact-checking the ads that are run on its platform. As long as there’s a forum for broadcasting one’s views, there will be people who abuse it. But these forums should also continuously address these miscreants to improve the experience for everyone. It is hard to narrow down the point of failure in this case as there is some responsibility for both parties.