Break it to make it
Facebook, although its management seemingly rather walks of a cliff than admitting it, has hit a roadblock. In previous years the company has not produced any results in dealing with the misuse of its services.
Political misinformation continues to be shared widely, preferred it is injected into the platform via paid advertisements. From human trafficking to the purposely misleading ad by Elizabeth Warren.
There are many in-betweens, but the fact is, the social network cannot get a grip on the main issues even if it spends the most by any standards on human content monitoring and AI. The stories about how these people are treated have been well documented by Casey Newton and published on The Verge.
The reason for this brief recap is that the same issues keep repeating itself, and Zuckerberg in many instances does not know the answers but rather waivers his responsibility by committing to a follow up during his US and EU appearances.
While being fully aware that Zuckerberg’s inability to be held accountable and responsible equal his inability to admit that he is simply not capable to actually doing better (plan continuation bias), there are ways not to hide behind libel laws, follow up excuses and sending PR representatives to take a fall for his faulty leadership.
Slice it
Facebook operates three major business models, mostly subsidized by advertising. Communication, media, and commerce.
Communication (Creation)
Retain the Facebook login, consolidate messaging as to allowing each and everyone to message across Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp. Users can keep their preferred app. If they want to share, they can share it to a feed that is not limited to Facebook’s main apps but simplified to that of the community it is shared with. Someone who is not your friend will not see it, there will no longer be public and private feeds, but group feeds. You can share either with everyone you know, curate your preferred group of friends to receive your updates. This service will be private, encrypted and cost you one $ annually. 2bn $ to maintain servers and admin for a messaging service should be profitable.
Media (Consumption)
The big boy business. The New York Times articles, Refinery29 questionnaires, Henry’s latest promotion to get a month of shaving supplies and of course your local Macy’s ad. This will be your gateway. Watch ads, get media credits for them that you can then spend on content, ie an FT article. You want it to be ad-free ? Pay for content, like back in the days when you paid for a newspaper, you will pay centralized for content via Facebook Media, which will share the profits accordingly with publishers. Per article payments, as well as subscriptions are both possible and recommended to allow each user to access media the way they want to. This will also be the place for influencers to promote their content and allow people to subscribe to them, clearly distinguished from their personal friends.
Commerce (Commerce)
Facebook Marketplace, Instagram shopping, in one place. Buy will give you access to a marketplace with each kind of product available online. Sell will allow individuals to sell products. Discover will replace the Instagram shopping experience. Stories and elaborate content according to the user data gathered from previous purchases, metadata as well as, if agreed by easily to understand TCs/ToS, the gathering of user data from the aforementioned Media platform.
Politics
Democratic values include the equality of every participant in a Democracy. Everyone is entitled to their opinions on political advertising and political action committees (PACs). Since no social media platform seems to be able to control the political content category, a rather European approach seems to be the most sensible. Every political party/candidate that is up for an election, gets listed in the politics tab. According to the number of departments in the country/state, they will be able to list their corresponding plans for each of them. I thoroughly believe that politics isn’t a spectator sport and voters should do their part to educate themselves on whom they are voting for, rather than being carpet-bombed by advertising.
You may think that this is too simple, too of the cuff. Hiding content away in private groups, which is going to take place anyway, people will be less connected. They will no longer be exposed to opinions and content that may spark briliance. I argue that this will not be the case because people can still connect, and they will, in the same way good ideas always get shared. It will protect people from the algorythm’s falsely intended raison d’etre. Separating the three main activities on Facebook will not only create more agile business entities but have massive user benefits. No longer blurring the lines between private, public, commercial and targeted content does no longer keep people glued to the screen because of the constant content updates. It will rather require them to spend their time more intentionally within an app, rather than becoming a spectator to the algorithmic content push.
