>If we wanted to ignore research, why would we create an industry-leading research program to understand these important issues in the first place?
I wonder why tobacco companies studied lung cancer and oil companies studied climate change. Was it because those industries thought those issues were more important than profit?
> Was it because those industries thought those issues were more important than profit?
I take a more cynical view - they wanted to get ahead of the narrative before the public did. It meant a better PR angle, a more well thought out strategy to thwart external pressure, and a better forecast on how long you could milk the cow.
To be clear, I was being sarcastic. I agree with you and don't think it is in anyway cynical. It is the obvious reason. It allowed these industries to change the public discourse regarding these issues. For example, the oil industry was a big force behind the "personal responsibility" angle of fighting environmental problems trying to shift public perceptions from blaming the oil industry to blaming individual consumers.
I'm so baffled by Mr. Zuckerberg's response here: the core complaint is that research was sidelined and deemphasized, not that it didn't happen at all.
We can both be satisfied Facebook is seriously researching its impact on society, and also appalled that it has been too slow to act on the results of serious internal research. Our complaints with Facebook are complex; Mr. Zuckerberg is giving such a naive response.
Indeed. Was important for them to show a different narrative that let people think that tobacco was good and oil was not affecting the environment that much.
So same for Facebook I guess, they want to show us that they care and that they're not the evil here.
There are plenty of unbiased independent research that show the opposite of what they keep claiming
I wonder why tobacco companies studied lung cancer and oil companies studied climate change. Was it because those industries thought those issues were more important than profit?