Am I missing something? Take the Senator who spoke about monopolies. An oil monopoly is bad because we all need to get to work and trains need to run. Microsoft monopoly, arguable but I can see how it can be bad. All companies end up using Microsoft and this affects everyone, hospitals, schools ... Facebook is optional, we won't starve, hospitals won't close, aeroplanes will continue if we delete Facebook. Is this an acceptance that modern man cannot but keep up with the Jones. Just because my neighbour and school friends are on Facebook, I need to be on Facebook. Don't mind though me as an African we have some way to go before this becomes a burning issue.
Are there are job offers on Facebook? (That's a genuine question; I don't have an account.)
Perhaps some service providers are only (or primarily) contactable for complaints via Facebook (and maybe Twitter and a couple of others), and therefore to contact them you need an account with one of those companies.
So perhaps to participate in society without a disadvantage, you need an account with Facebook Inc, or at least I think that's the idea.
(Also, there are alternatives to oil! If you don't like the service provided by Oil Inc, you can buy your energy from Electricity Ltd instead.)
It's actually pretty good. One of the only things I'm really proud about pertaining to Facebook. Many blue collar workers, especially those out of the workforce need any assistance they need and it's HARD to gain motivation to apply via LinkedIn or individually find places. From this, it's right on Facebook, they understand the UI and the first initial step in the job process becomes a lot easier and then it cascades after that. I like how it's targeted to blue collar work as well.
Not participating in facebook puts you on a social disadvantage (during an interview for a job, the question of a lack of facebook account came up and the interviewer noted negatively that they weren't able to confirm my CV that way, I didn't take that job)
Facebook as a monopoly is bad in the same way that Microsoft as a monopoly was/is bad because while you can still work on your computer using Linux, you'll have a hard time opening Word documents from the latest MS Office release that contain non-trivial formatting.
You can probably still use the document but you are disadvantaged.
It's a quasi-monopoly. They don't operate a resource necessary for survival, Microsoft never did either, but not participating in their quasi-monopoly puts you at a disadvantage.
It probably will come back to haunt him. I just feel all sorts of other issues are being blamed on Facebook. Humans can be horrible, there was a genocide in Rwanda. Facebook wasn't needed (not sure it was around back then). If we going to blame Facebook we might as well blame the Mobile phones for enabling us to have Facebook. I feel they should stick to the privacy issues which are true issues.
>Humans can be horrible, there was a genocide in Rwanda. Facebook wasn't needed
Sure, but that doesn't mean we don't evaluate new issues as they crop up. If FB is unwittingly aiding in a genocide then it's reasonable to ask questions. People killed other people before nuclear bombs were invented, but they changed the playing field and allowed for far more destruction than was previously possible.
I agree with you. I just felt the manner in which the question was asked implied that Facebook was responsible for the Rohingya crissis. Even if Facebook wasn't available the Rohingya crissis would still have happened. Groups of people have been prejudiced against other groups for thousands of years.
Sure Facebook could implement some system that uses AI and humans to catch hate speech. Then the debate shifts to what exactly is hate speech, should Facebook a private company be determing what hate speech is? Truth be told it is the Senators who should be determining what hate speech is and providing the laws that balance freedom of expression and hate speech. It isn't Facebook's job. Yes it should be discussed. I felt Senator didn't think through or didn't know what the implications of allowing Facebook to determine what content is allowed and what content isn't allowed.
