Facebook – bendingtheneedle

Why I broke up with Facebook

You might have some real friends on Facebook. But Facebook ain’t one of them.

Facebook and Instagram use artificial intelligence and algorithms to learn our views on race, identity, religion, and politics. They don’t come straight out and ask us about our views or interact with us in a meaningful way. Instead, they collect data from what we share, like, comment on, and engage with on their platform.

They analyze the data and come up with a profile of me and you (conservative, male, republican, pro-life or liberal, female, democrat, pro-choice), and based on that profile, they determine what content to send us. And the content they send us reinforces our views, solidifies our attitudes, and affirms our opinions.

Facebook knows which content pulls us in and which content we breeze over.

Facebook knows what we like, who we like, and with whom we like to share.

What’s the danger in that?

What’s the danger of analyzing and understanding our behavior and then delivering us content based on that understanding?

Isn’t that a good thing?

No, it is not.

And here’s why.

We share more about ourselves with data scientists at Facebook than with our priests in the confessional.

But the priest (in theory) wants to counsel and help us. Facebook wants to use us.

To Facebook, we are a commodity. And when you’re a commodity on a technology platform with a data-driven business model, you’re prone to exploitation and manipulation by powerful and self-serving individuals and institutions.

Facebook and Instagram are a conduit for misinformation and lies. We saw this real-time with the Big Lie about a stolen election.

We felt it with the constant stream of misinformation about COVID-19 and the COVID-19 vaccine.

The people who consumed and bought into those lies are lost. Perhaps forever. Tragically, they’re part of a growing community of people who believe misinformation. And as humans, we long for a sense of community – more so, it seems, than truth.

I don’t think Mark Zuckerberg or the other executives who launched Facebook did so with bad intentions. They had a business model and the technology to make that business model successful.

What they didn’t account for was the consequence of their success.

Categorized and codified by cold calculated algorithms, Facebook incentivizes our human desire to be with people who share our views, while fueling our dislike of those who don’t.

Because of Facebook, our society is more divided, less trustful, and has more built-up animus than ever before.

We are seeing the unintended consequences of technology and human nature smashing into one another.

That’s why I broke up with Facebook.

For me, the detriments far outweigh the benefits – it’s scary, because sometimes I think the best and only way to fight misinformation is to counter it with truth.

If lies and misinformation can spread fast on FB, why not use that platform to spread the truth?

I think many of us buy into that argument.

And so we get caught up in this endless battle with others. We live for hours at a time in an environment of constant combat and argument – we look for mistruth, engage the enemy, and fight the fight.

Post-to-Post combat.

Blood pressures rise.

Friendships get wrecked.

Family members are disowned.

Nothing gets solved. We just become agitated at those who don’t share our views.

We willfully retreat to our camps – we lose empathy – we lose trust – we lose any sense of the things that hold us together as a country and a society.

We lose our ability to compromise and discuss coherently and intelligently with whom we disagree.

Facebook is toxic, destructive, and a danger to society.

We should turn away from it en masse.

Fake Patriotism – Blech!

Republicans all over Facebook are trying to hijack patriotism with fake-ass outrage at an Olympic athlete protesting. These are the same people who turned a blind-eye to a lying ex-president who inspired and praised an insurrection against the United States of America.

“Look at me supporting the flag wavers, the anthem standers, the pledge sayers – I’m a true blue American!!”

Blech!

Posts of proud and talented athletes draped in the stars and stripes, don’t make you “patriotic.”

Posts showing disdain and disgust towards the American athlete who protested, don’t make you a “true American.”

And all the patriotic posts in the world won’t erase the un-American act of supporting a President and a political party that tried to overturn a free and fair election and destroy our democracy. That dark, dank, stank envelops you. It sticks to you like white on rice, and you can’t “patriotic-post” your way out of it.

You want to be a true blue American? Speak out forcefully against the big lie, protest voting laws that make it harder for your fellow citizens to vote, and show your outrage at the refusal to investigate a politically-motivated insurrection against your country.

You, me, Facebook and our dickhead President

Facebook friendships are tenuous things. Examine them closely, and you’re bound to notice some cracks in the foundation.

How many times over the past 3 years have you been stunned at posts from Facebook friends, wondering to yourself why the hell are we friends?
If you use Facebook regularly, you’re forced to reconcile the word “friend” with a fuck-load of posts that are diametrically opposed to the values you hold. Still, we hold on to our Facebook “friendships” – why is that? I suspect it has something to do with our relationship to the word “friend” itself and the social context it holds (outside the realm of Facebook).

In life, we’re taught that friends stick together through thick and thin. Being friends means accepting each other’s differences. We’re taught that friendships are a thing to value and that we shouldn’t dismiss them capriciously.

We’re hemmed in by the meaning of the word “friend.” We feel the weightiness of its definition and the social-contractual obligation that comes with being a friend.

So, we stick.

For a lot of us, our Facebook friendships are based on a shared high school experience. We became “friends” on social media because we shared the same teachers, coaches, classes, dances, parties, proms for four years. We suffered together, and we exalted together. So when Facebook came along, I guess we thought that sharing 3rd period Spanish some 30 years ago was a good enough glue and something we could build on.

Then, along comes Donald Trump, and with him, a strong need to express ourselves (both for and against). And now, when we read each other’s posts, we realize that 3rd period Spanish some thirty years ago is the only thing we have in common.

Nostalgia is pleasant, but it can’t bridge the gap between bigotry and tolerance, so let’s stop thinking it can.

I want to live in a country that welcomes the stranger and demands equality under the law, has a healthy respect for dissent, and always strives for truth. As a child, these values were instilled in me as “American values” and serve as the pillars of democracy. And because of that, these values became part of my “American identity.” Thus, these values are at the heart of who I am as an American.

When I see “friends” treat these values fluidly or as something to skirt around when they come in conflict with one’s politics or religion, it pisses me off. When President Trump employs fear and lies to chip away at these values to shake our citizenry’s confidence and divide us, it pisses me off even more.

The continued support of this President puts my “friends” in an ugly light. If I were to meet you for the first time today (as opposed to 30 years ago in 3rd-period Spanish), I would choose not to associate with you, and I certainly wouldn’t consider you a friend.

Americans who were paying attention in 2016 knew that Donald Trump was dishonest, morally deprived, and vacuous. That’s why most of us didn’t vote for him. But because of the electoral college and the help of a hostile foreign nation, we have a national security threat sitting in the oval office.

After nearly 4 years of this egotistical ass-hat, still no replacement for Obama Care, no progress on fixing our infrastructure, no bold initiative to combat climate change, and no relief or reform on the high cost of college education and student loan debt.

What we do have is 34 indictments related to Russian Interference in the 2016 election, overwhelming evidence of obstruction of justice, a tax cut for the wealthy that failed to trickle down to the middle class, a lot of cozying-up to dictators, thugs, and autocrats, an increase in hate crimes and white nationalism, a cabinet built on nepotism rather than competence, a divided nation, a dismembered Washington Post journalist, and a lot of brown children in cages.

What happened to us? Under this President, America has been transformed from that shining city on the hill to an unstable tenement house, its occupants at each other’s throats, all to the glee of a narcissistic, petulant man-child rapist.

The President is petty, dishonest, vindictive, unethical, and shallow. For the last 3 years, these traits have been on display for everyone to see. In addition, there is video, audio, and text evidence that the President is demonstrably uninformed and a shitty human being.

And yet, so many “friends” turn a blind eye to it all. As long as abortion rights are being restricted, immigrants are being punished, unemployment is low, who cares about character, truth, honesty, and integrity.

If you decide to vote for this President in 2020 because the economy is doing well, unemployment is low, and “USA, USA, USA!”, then you are no friend of mine.

I’ve never ended a friendship over politics – but let’s stop pretending this is about politics. It’s about values – decency, competency, and respect for truth, honesty, and integrity.

I won’t put friendship above these things.

That’s not compromising; that’s compromising my values.

From 169 to 168 – an Election Day casualty

Watching the election returns last Tuesday night was all about the numbers. Which candidate will get to 270 first? How does Romney’s path to the presidency change now that PA’s 20 electoral votes are in Obama’s column? Will Obama finish with 332 or 303 electoral votes?

But for me, the most surprising number was 168. That was the number of Facebook friends I had the day after the election – one less than the day before.

In the month leading up to the election, I often logged on to Facebook to engage in spirited discourse with my Republican friends. Tuesday night, I went there to revel in the joy of victory with my Democrat friends.

On election night I watched with bemusement as Chuck Todd moved battle-ground states into the Obama column with the wave of his hand – like a mythological soothsayer. As the night wore on and it became apparent the President would be reelected, I felt euphoric and somewhat vindicated (selfishly so). Vindicated, because I had argued with some republican friends that Obama’s vision for America was better than Romney’s, and that most Americans would see it that way. To me it was a choice between two very different views about the role of government in America. It was about social and economic justice. And watching Karl Rove stubbornly deny the science of polling (in much the same way his party denies climate change and evolution), only to be smacked down emphatically by truth was the frosting on the cake. It was remarkable.

In the heat of an election candidates and voters can let their emotions get the best of them – taking on an aggressive tone and speaking words that normally they would not. On election night as my son and I sat on the couch watching the returns, the network cut away to Todd Aikin’s concession speech. It was a divisive speech, ungracious, and full of the vitriol and misguided views of a typical Tea Party candidate. I immediately typed a statement on Facebook in which I referred to Mr. Aikin as the dime-sized part of the human anatomy directly south of the tailbone and north of the nape of the knees. Without forethought or hesitation I tapped the Enter key and sent my words into the infosphere. A few seconds later my son chided me with a “that’s not a very nice thing to say dad”, and of course he was right.

I am convinced that my actions resulted in being “unfriended” by an old high school classmate. It had been many years since I had seen or spoken with him in person, and if not for Facebook we probably would not have kept in touch. My friend’s Facebook page was like everyone else’s, a reflection of his likes and dislikes, from pop culture and sports to politics and religion. He has strongly-held views about the role of government (keep your hands off my money, put my god in your classroom, and put this trans-vaginal probe in your vagina).

Politics is a blood sport, and to the victor go the spoils. In this case those who elected Obama are the victors and the President has a sacrosanct responsibility make good on his campaign promises. At the same time, the President must be mindful of the 49 percent of American’s who voted for Mitt Romney’s vision of America. Some republicans would argue that Obama does not have a mandate. I strongly disagree. That said, the President has a difficult road ahead – pushing his vision for America while at the same time keeping the 49 percent who disagree with that vision “in the fold” of the American family. He needs to extend an olive branch to Republicans, while staying true to his principals – no easy task. Push too hard and he risks further fracturing the country, don’t push hard enough, and the same risk applies.

While the president does his part, I will do mine by reaching out to my republican friend in an effort to get back to 169.