Facebook and Lies

Currently, pharmaceutical companies are under lawsuit for misleading marketing – for promoting LIES about how non-addictive their opioid products are. Cities are suing oil companies for deceiving the public that they don’t really know that fossil fuels are the causing climate change – in other words, for LYING about their knowledge about the real impacts of fossil fuel. And isn’t there truth in advertising laws forbidding companies to make misleading claims about their products? Don’t journalists have to find corroborating evidence for all tips called in and can’t make up stories? And we can’t yell fire in a theater.

So why is it okay for politicians to lie on Facebook?

Facebook can’t claim free speech rights because politicians don’t have the right to lie that will cause harm. Remember George Bush’s team’s claims about Saddam Hussein and his supposed weapons of mass destruction? We never found those weapons. Because it was all a lie. And out of that lie we have the forever wars and ISIS. Lots of Americans, and others, are either seriously maimed or have died because of that lie.

So, it’s not okay for politicians to lie.

Facebook can’t say the American people need to determine for themselves what kind of politicians we have because most Americans don’t have the time and resources to keep up with politics. And frankly, Americans can’t tell what’s true or not. We have a lot of conspiracy believers out there. All we have to do is look at what happened in 2016 when Russia successfully interfered with our election. All we have to do is look at what Rudy Giuliani has become (maybe he was always that nutty and I just didn’t know). Facebook can’t say that manipulation can’t happen on Facebook and then come back and say, “Oops, we were wrong.”

So, it’s not okay for politicians to lie.

Freedom of speech is not a valid argument. The right to see what kind of politicians we have running for office is not a valid argument. The only thing I will buy is the idea that it is hard, if not impossible, to keep up with the factchecking of politicians’ statements and then determining what to do. The whole idea of checking politicians’ ads may not be sustainable. That might be the only argument that I would buy… until someone comes up with a good counterargument.

So, it’s not okay for politicians to lie.

And on another topic…

No

No

No

Facebook cannot be trusted to handle our finances with cryptocurrency Libra. From the beginning, Mark Zuckerberg has not been honest. Facebook started out in college where you could determine who gets to see your posts and you could keep a lot of stuff private back then. It was easier to keep things private. Later, Mark Zuckerberg changed the terms to making as much data as public as possible, under the guise that people wanted to share and be known to the world. Users had to constantly make sure that their postings and private details were not set to be displayed to the entire world because Facebook would do upgrades and, apparently surreptitiously, make what was previously private public. Then there was the 2012 FTC lawsuit for deceptively telling users that they could keep some of their details private when in reality, that data was being made available to other companies. And then there was the Cambridge Analytica scandal where users’ data was secretly vacuumed up by Cambridge Analytica to be deployed for political purposes.

No, Facebook can’t be trusted.

And now Facebook wants to get into the monetary business via Libra, the cryptocurrency. This would not turn out good. For starters, Facebook is shareholder driven so anything that smacks of money and profit will be driven by shareholders’ desires and not driven by what is good for society. Remember, when people get laid off, shareholders cheer – they are happy that people are being laid off because that is more money for them. So, allowing shareholders having some kind of control, however indirect, over the cryptocurrency is not good. It bodes ill.

Facebook should not get into the monetary business.