Facebook announces a long-overdue transparency tool for News Feed
Over the weekend, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg sounded the alarm, calling for increased governmentregulation for internetplatforms including his own.
Facebook, as you may have heard, has run into a few issues in recent years that would make it an unlikely advocate for this sort of regulation.
This is a company, after all, that declares a commitment to privacy, while looking the other way when groups like Cambridge Analytica weaponize user data to influence elections.
Its a platform that routinely faces criticism for allowing advertisers to avoid showing property and job ads to Blacks and Latinos.
Its Zuckerbergs pet project, a twisted experiment that once sought to determine whether it could influence users moods based on filling their News Feeds with dark content.
But maybe, just maybe, after years of teetering on the edge, Zuckerberg, Sandberg, and the rest of this rag-tag group of billionaires has realized the error of their ways.
A far more believable theory is that Facebook, after taking its share of gut punches over the past few years, is anticipating the knockout blow yet to come.
Last fall, lobbyists fought against legislation that would make companies like Google and Facebook enact regulations meant to protect the integrity of local and national elections. Washington, thanks to the states Public Disclosure Commission, won that battle, forcing Facebook to disclose who is funding political campaigns using its ad platform.
After years of wondering why youre seeing some posts, but not others, Facebook is finally opening the doors, ever-so-slightly, in an attempt to be more transparent about why your News Feed looks the way it does.
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