Facebook Can’t Fix What It Won’t Admit To

Some of you are complaining that I should keep away from politics and stay in my lane. Speaking at the company’s first Community Summit in Chicago, he explained that the best part of Facebook is its “meaningful groups,” those that address a user’s passions or needs and connect them with others who share those interests. Zuckerberg believed this so much that he changed Facebook’s core goal from “connecting the world” to “giving people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.” In a post explaining this, he wrote, “Communities give us that sense that we are part of something greater than ourselves, that we are not alone, and that we have something better ahead to work for.” More than three years later, some of those groups have done exactly what Mark Zuckerberg envisioned: They bound together for a passionately held common cause. But the “something greater than ourselves” probably wasn’t what he had in mind: overthrowing the peaceful transfer of power following a fair and certified election in the United States. According to a 2016 internal study, “64 percent of all extremist group joins are due to our recommendation tools … Our recommendation systems grow the problem.” The article also revealed that the company’s efforts to address this were stifled by interference from the company’s political wing, ever sensitive to criticisms from the right.