I'm no fan of Mark Zuckerberg, but this whole boycott Facebook thing has me a bit perplexed.
When Facebook first started, it was basically Zuckerberg's way of giving a platform to the popular people. Wow, what a great guy! (Sarcasm.) When I signed up 10 years ago at 40, I was one of the oldest people on Facebook. If you go through my Friends List today, I am one of the youngest.
My kids don't want to be on a platform that their Dad (or their Grandparents) are on. They are not alone, most young people are on Instagram, Snapchat, or Tik Tok. The problem is, it is simply harder to monetize those platforms. Mark Zuckerberg kept Facebook free, not out of the kindness of his heart, but because advertisers crave information. The more people who congregate anywhere, those areas are coveted by advertisers. So you or I give Facebook our information, and Greedy Mark Zuckerberg sells the algorithms of your likes and dislikes for money. He also sells advertising space straight to advertisers in a more traditional way, you see a sponsored link, you know a company bought that space.
If you really don't like the Facebook business model, you can leave Facebook. It is really that simple. People under 30 have abandoned Facebook like a sinking ship, but Facebook continues to grow. If people know their business model, why are they still going there?
BECAUSE.
IT.
IS.
FREE.
Facebook lured old people to Facebook in a number of ways:
Free TV? Facebook Watch.
Free Classifieds? Marketplace on Facebook.
Free Commentary? Websites as big as CNN and as non-consequential as cleveland.com (sorry, I couldn't resist) have outsourced their comments section to Facebook.
Free Soapbox. The "Uncle Franks" of the world are gravitating toward Facebook. You know how many times I read "love 'Merica or leave 'Merica?" Probably every day for the past 3 years from relatives. Uncle Frank was forced to leave Twitter last year because he was being attacked by Woke Mobs.
Older people skew more Conservative, that is simply a fact, so the older Facebook gets, it would make sense that the content of Facebook would naturally lean more to the right. The problem is, if the concept of Facebook was really a Free Speech platform, you would need almost no levers of control.
This whole #StopHateForProfit movement is absurd because
I have never received a post from Facebook itself, I have never received an ad from Facebook itself. I believe that Mark Zuckerberg worships at the Capitalist Alter, and if your check clears, you are free to advertise on Facebook. If you don't like Uncle Frank's posts, adjust your settings and make him disappear. You don't even have to unfriend him. If you're a young person, you are tech savvy enough to make Facebook the Leftist Utopia that you want it to be. You don't like that Uncle Frank is influencing others on Facebook? By trying to stop your own Uncle, you are using censorship.
Does Facebook censor more Conservative voices? I assume they do, but not for the reason you think. Let's continue to keep on picking on Uncle Frank. Uncle Frank just posted something (it's not my Uncle Frank, but there's a real person behind the pseudonym.)
Once that hits Facebook, all of a sudden Frank's niece's and nephew's all start to convulse and hit the Report Post buttons. They're mad at Facebook for giving Uncle Frank a platform and return to their primary accounts on Twitter and bash their own Uncle. Then they find a clever meme and slap it on their Facebook page.
Uncle Frank, sees the meme and kicks his dog. He doesn't even know there's a Report Post button. "Young people today don't understand morals!!!" He screams at his fourth wife.
But the premise is: Is Facebook Racist for allowing Frank's Free Speech? More people complain about Uncle Frank than complain about his woke nieces and nephews. Leftists want Facebook to act as a referee to show that they're right in the culture wars.
Twitter tried banning Conservative Speech, then Conservatives started to flee to Parler, (whatever that is.) I do not understand attacking the platforms when you choose who's on your contact list.
So #StopHateForProfit's argument is basically don't advertise on platforms where there could be different forms of speech on your Facebook Feed? That is a very dangerous form of groupthink.
Advertisers pulling out of Facebook is not controlling hate speech, but limiting Free Speech. Facebook already blocks Hate Speech in their own way. Where is their line? I have no idea, but Zuckerberg assures us that it's there. For all I know, the line is a logarithm. If x amount of people complain about a post, it gets banned. It could be that simple. Or it could be a Facebook Moderator trying to interpret guideposts set by Mark Zuckerberg himself. Are guideposts specific, or vague, allowing each Moderator the leeway to interpret context? (Again, I really don't know.)
The Blaze shut down its comments section, put it on Facebook, then Glenn Beck complained that Facebook leans too far to the left. I don't have sympathy for Glenn Beck at all, he outsourced Comments to save money. But now, I think that Beck may have been crazy like a fox and forced more Conservatives to use Facebook, moving the platform to the right.
This isn't just a Facebook issue. I keep reading how leftist Google is. When I first started researching the subject, I couldn't understand how Google leaned left. Then I realized that they manipulated search results and hid certain slices of free speech (that seemed to lean to the Right.) Then I heard tech veterans bemoan Google and they implored the public to use other search engines.
I am not Nerdy enough to understand the search engine game, but from my experience, Slugger McBuster seems to have nailed it.
When is the last time I got a Ad on Facebook and then actually clicked on the link? That's kind of off-topic. Okay, there was an ad for a Sludge/Doom Metal Band called Bog Wizard from Ludington, Michigan. I thought "that's a cool name for a band" and gave them a chance. Listened to their single Swamp Golem and liked it.
I wonder what Bog Wizard's politics are? Let's see....
We are a "Fantasy inspired doom metal band based out of West Michigan." When they say fantasy-inspired, I think they mean like Lord of the Rings-ish or Dungeons and Dragons-y inspired imagery. Thankfully no politics anywhere.
Let's check out the Stop Hate for Profit Page:
Uggh.....
That's enough. We're done here.
Stop Hate for Profit is another website that thinks "their" side has free speech, but "your" side doesn't. They are pissed that Facebook allowed counter protesters to BLM to exist and use their platform.
Do yourself a favor and download some songs from Bog Wizard's Bandcamp Page, they're probably more friendly to the concept of Free Speech than #StopHateForProfit.