Page 59 - AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report

• to deal with the concentrated power of these companies – historically, similar situations have led to government interven- tion in the West; are they already too big to separate?
• to deal with growing issues ranging from political advertising and influencing elections to online privacy: Facebook is called on to control their networks, the EU is about to launch the General Data Protection Regu- lation (GDPR) in May 2018, a robust set of requirements aimed at safeguarding personal information and reshaping how organizations approach data privacy;
• to consider also competing on a global stage – China’s companies do not face the same level of increasing regulatory attention and may be less politically vulnerable in Asia than FANGs are in the West;
• to consider that users like their services – more oversight could make some users even more comfortable.
Voice of the Social Media platforms leader
Facebook was dominant in 2017 as the leading Social Media platform with an additional focus on video and messaging, augmented and virtual reality becoming even more popular. According to SmartInsight Social Media Research, Facebook is the most popular Social Media platform and attracts 89% of US Internet users, whilst Face- book-owned Instagram came second with a 32% penetration rate. With more than two billion users, Facebook is shifting towards a single geopolitical factor and power, so governments of some countries are starting to put pressure on Facebook in order to regain some control over how their citizens communicate.
Facebook is even subsidizing connectivity and Internet access in developing countries with the
mission of making Facebook accessible to every- one. For those users free access to Facebook may be their entire experience of the Internet. Some critics call this digital colonialism thinking how easy it could be to influence people who only or mainly have access to the reality of Facebook. But Facebook’s reality is based on algorithms which reward engagement that often prioritizes inflammatory (controversial, harmful, hateful) posts. On the one hand Facebook’s efforts bring information to more people in the world than ever before, but on the other hand many entities can use that to spread rumors, fake news or propaganda around the community. Problems go further than fake news and mislead- ing conceptions: it is about what gets promoted and why. The main goal of Facebook is not incentivized to cut down on fake news and misconceptions but to keep its community captive and growing ever larger. Some critics regard the Social Media platforms as an addictive waste of time. Moreover, according to Face- book’s ex-president Sean Parker, Facebook’s founders knew they were creating something addictive that exploited “a vulnerability in human psychology” and a “social-validation feedback loop”.
Facebook has effectively become a media company, even a mass media company. Some critics suggest that Facebook seeks to leverage its success as a global influencer without the responsibility that comes from being a mass media company. This privilege may disappear if the government imposes on Facebook and other Social Media platforms the kind of requirement
AC/E DIGITAL CULTURE ANNUAL REPORT 2018
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Digital Trends in Culture