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The "Facebook Papers" reveal two truths about social networks

2021-10-27T16:44:26.447Z


The "Facebook Papers" scandal tarnishes the company, but it also reveals two great and troubling truths about social media.


The serious consequences Facebook would face 3:35

(CNN) -

Two things have come to light in recent days: that social media can be exceptionally corrosive to society, and that people will continue to use these products in impressive amounts.

The recent headline storm may be tarnishing the reputations of Facebook and some of the other giants in the industry, but the earnings figures these companies present in their earnings reports show that people will continue to use them regardless.

Yes, there is a lot of talk right now about how dangerous these products are, how unethical they are, how for years they have poisoned the public conversation with hatred and misinformation and outright lies and conspiracy theories.

And yet you have to ask yourself: has that forced a significant number of users to log out?

To press the delete account button?

Abandon toxicity?

  • What are the so-called "Facebook Papers"?

    Four facts to understand the new scandal of the social network

Everything indicates that no.

People continue to use these platforms, but they also understand how destructive they can be.

Seriously, ask yourself: are you still using Facebook?

Viewing photos on Instagram?

Videos on YouTube?

A gambler would be unwise to believe that you have abandoned the

online

universes

these companies have built.

Expert: Looking the other way, Facebook's great sin 1:02

YouTube posts amazing revenue in the third quarter

Take YouTube, for example: The company, along with Snapchat and TikTok, was questioned on Capitol Hill Tuesday about the safety of children and whether it does enough to keep them safe online.

It was the only platform that on Tuesday did not commit to publishing an internal investigation into how it affects the mental well-being of adolescents.

Not exactly a great headline for the company.

  • Personal data, likes and billions of dollars: how much are social networks worth?

But these types of negative headlines do not seem to be an obstacle for the company to make spectacular profits.

YouTube said Tuesday that in the third quarter it generated $ 7.2 billion in advertising revenue, an annual increase of 43%.

For context, Netflix made $ 7.48 billion of revenue in the third quarter.

Which puts YouTube right on the heels of the world's largest streaming services on the internet.

advertising

Twitter gains 5 million users

Twitter's size pales in comparison to a mammoth like YouTube, but the company also reported ad revenue in the billions on Tuesday.

Twitter said its third-quarter ad revenue was $ 1.28 billion, up 37% from last year.

And while the company also reported a one-time litigation charge of $ 766 million, it said it had added 5 million daily active users since the second quarter.

He also said Apple's privacy feature has had "no less than expected" impact on its business.

What Facebook's internal documents reveal 3:53

"What the heck is it now?"

That's the question Charlie Warzel posed in his newsletter Tuesday. Warzel wrote specifically about Facebook and the "Facebook Papers." But the point he made is applicable to industry in general. "Big tech companies have largely succeeded in reimagining and remaking parts of our culture, government, and economy," Warzel wrote. "But these big companies not only act on these institutions / forces, they are all terribly intertwined, making each node in the tangled ecosystem worse? More complicated? You can make Facebook or YouTube more secure. But you can't change necessarily the ways that all this shit has changed us or the ways it will continue to distribute / redistribute money, power, influence, culture and information.Ways to improve inequalities can probably be found, but 'fix' is a poor word when it comes to Facebook. Fix ... what exactly? And how exactly? "

  • The great conclusions of the "Facebook papers"

Warzel went on to write: "I'm also concerned that it will be difficult to decouple Facebook and the rest of the platforms from, well, everything else, including the way these platforms have changed us - the way the architecture and nature of these platforms they act on us and how, even reluctantly or unknowingly, we absorb some of their characteristics. That reckoning will be particularly painful and I'm not sure we have the language or the compensatory institutions or the historical hindsight to begin that work in earnest now. same".

Source: cnnespanol

All news articles on 2021-10-27

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