I fixed facebook
When my all time musical hero Andrew Weatherall died last year I posted something about him on Twitter. I had been off Twitter since the 2016 election. A chap called Martin liked the tweet and DM’d me saying that he was running a Facebook group for Weatherall fans. He invited me to join. I said thanks, but no thanks, I’d been off Facebook even longer than Twitter and didn’t actually know my password anymore. Martin persisted, he said he thought I would really like it. Intrigued, I started a new profile and added Martin as a friend to see what the group was like.
And you know what? This private Facebook group is amazing. My initial thought that no one could possibly know more about Weatherall than me was immediately shown to be such a ridiculous, egotistical and insular thought. In a shitty year this group has given me so much enjoyment. Genuine people sharing genuine love and genuine knowledge (and mixes, oh so many sweet, sweet, secret mixes!).
I joined one other Facebook group for local runners and triathletes. I had my bike stolen and one kind soul gave me his old bike. Gave it to me, for free — it’s a decent bike (better than the one I had stolen). And one other person has run a weekly virtual 5k competition since the start of lockdown with WAVA rankings and everything. Even though it takes up her time she just started a new leaderboard (I’m 6th — aiming to get higher but I’m too old to run a 5k time trial every week).
Anyway, the point is my life is measurably better after joining these facebook groups.
I imagine this is exactly how Zuck and other founders thought about FB at the start. When I founded betaworks studios the very first public talk we held was with Roger McNamee the FB investor activist talking about how to fix facebook. And we worked with Tristan Harris at the Center for Humane Technology before it was called that and a long time before the Social Dilemma movie came out. I know how digital products kill your soul.
So I know that Facebook is evil. One of Roger’s main points was that the people there don’t think they are evil. They think on the balance they are doing more good than bad. And I believe that they believe that. Otherwise how do you sleep at night? I don’t think Sheryl Sandberg is evil, but what she is facilitating is evil. Is that worse? Maybe. .
My fix.
I have just one friend on Facebook, Martin, the guy who stared the Weatherall group. I never, ever, get out of the boat. I get spammed suggestions from the algorithm every now and then. But….if you just dip in and out of the groups it’s actually very chill, the algorithm sort of gives up if you don’t play ball. And when it does send you friend suggestions that are actually your wife, instead of getting riled and it derailing your day, you can just sit back and laugh at the utter stupidity and bluntness of the machines.
