What if Facebook Was Boeing?

The facts about the 737 MAX aren39t in dispute Boeing promised the airlines that their pilots could fly the MAX without more training in flight simulators Training would cost its customers money But the new MAX included fixes in its flight control system that could be fatal if they went haywire and aircrews weren39t schooled on what to do Boeing knew they had a problem and that the remedy would be costly Add cooked selfinspections and rushed okays The reasons behind Boeing39s failure to act and the consequences are as obvious in retrospect as is the faulty technology that brought the MAX downSo is the teaching point regarding the public interest when corporate selfinterest fails The 737 series is Boeing39s cash cow and not surprisingly explaining the company39s decision to push the new plane despite its fatal flaws goes straight to the bottom line So do the resulting costs From civil criminal and congressional investigations to lawsuits the aftermath of the 20monthlong ban on flying the MAX hammered Boeing39s brand as well as stock value Trouble didn39t end with the MAX Recognizing where they dropped the ball federal regulators imposed tougher oversight on the company including other Boeing products as wellThe wild blue yonder isn39t the world wide web but the parallel with Facebook is hard to miss From ignoring Russian political attacks that leveraged its platform in the 2016 presidential election to hiding its research on Instagram39s damage to teenage psyches this year Facebook39s crises and the damage done just keep on coming To cope last quarter alone the company laid out some 5 million on lobbying in Washington while boosting spending on advertising and marketing 32 percent to 36 billion in the same quarter as well Amped up politicking and PR notwithstanding Facebook apparently doesn39t realize it hasamp160already crashed and burnedquotThe company knows its products can be deeply harmful to people and democracyquot Chris Hughes a Facebook cofounder wrote last month in the Wall Street Journal quotYetquot he continued quotFacebook39s leadership charges right alongquot Testifying in Congress in October Frances Haugen the former Facebook employee who gave the Wall Street Journal documents for its investigative series on the company explained why The company refuses to redo its moneyminting algorithm designed to engage and hold users despite the evidence it prioritizes incendiary hatefilled commentary The corporate calculus looks familiar Profits it seems trump public safety in cyberspace just as with the MAXamp160in the airFacebook39s problems aren39t confined to the home front The EU parliament is focusing on its toxic content as legislators rework the European Union39s Digital Security Act Revelations elsewhere also are hitting the company hard Last yearamp160Facebook acknowledged its posts amplified Sri Lanka39s 2018 antiMuslim rioting The platform played a similar role in Myanmar39s bloody strife that year as well In 2020 Facebook was fingered for promoting Beijing39s propaganda portraying China39s Uyghurs as happy citizens despite the regime39s genocidelike repression of the Muslim minority Ethiopia is the latest example This year employees reportedly sounded alarms that Facebook is fanning violence in the country39s growing civil warCongress is considering several bills to deal with the economic and societal problems posed by Silicon Valley39s trilliondollar technology empires For Facebook and other social media companies the question of whether they have a legal liability for how they disseminate their users39 content Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act now gives them a pass takes hate speech head on One measure of Facebook39s concern The company reportedly has clamped down on internal discussion of the subject Human rights group also say the company is slowrolling an independent report it commissioned last year to investigate hate speech and sectarian violence in India where more than 300 million use its platformThe hate speech issue as well as the others in the pending bills from antitrust legislation to privacy protections are complicated For Silicon Valley39s behemoths the stakes also are huge Along with Facebook Apple Google Amazon and Microsoft have made no bones about it fattening their multimillion dollar lobbying budgets to protect their corporate interests as well as bottom lines Indeed their ad campaigns couldn39t be clearer all but conjuring the collapse of Silicon Valley bread lines cratered American competitiveness and a return to whale oil lamps if they don39t get their wayBut what if Facebook was Boeing Instead of calculating the cost of regulation in financial terms what if the metric reflected the public39s safety for example if the platform was misused the cost in human lives Take the last few years In Myanmar where Facebook apologized belatedly for its role in helping foment violence in 2018 one study estimated the military and Buddhist militants murdered some 24000 Rohingyans a Muslim minority that year Or consider 2020 India39s ruling Hindu nationalist party among other things used incendiary Facebook posts to foment riots in Delhi Over 50 people mostly Muslim diedAirplanes are one thing algorithms another but common sense suggests a parallel nonetheless Like the aerospace giants and the airlines that use their products Facebook Twitter Alphabet and the other technology giants call for a level of public oversight proportionate to their power and influence That includes the potential harm they can wreckClick the social buttons to share this story with colleagues and friendsThe opinions expressed here are the author39s views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet

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What if Facebook Was Boeing?

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Kent M. Harrington

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What if Facebook Was Boeing?

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