It's time to break up Facebook

Facebook co-founder, Chris Hughes:

Mark is a good, kind person. But I'm angry that his focus on growth led him to sacrifice security and civility for clicks.

Not sure 'kind' is the right word to use to describe a person that wields this kind of power, unopposed and unapologetically. Facebook's biggest friends are those that are abusing it's reach and platforms.

Facebook engineers write algorithms that select which users' comments or experiences end up displayed in the News Feeds of friends and family. These rules are proprietary and so complex that many Facebook employees themselves don't understand them.

In 2014, the rules favored curiosity-inducing “clickbait” headlines. In 2016, they enabled the spread of fringe political views and fake news, which made it easier for Russian actors to manipulate the American electorate. In January 2018, Mark announced that the algorithms would favor non-news content shared by friends and news from “trustworthy” sources, which his engineers interpreted — to the confusion of many — as a boost for anything in the category of “politics, crime, tragedy.”

Curation is hard, but it should be up to the user to curate by following or unfollowing the people and topics that interest them, not the platform. These algorithm driven timelines are a menace.