Facebook will knock out wall politics (and decide again what’s good for us)

Facebook will stop suggest militant or political groups to users, exactly as it did a few weeks before the US elections. In practice – he announced Mark Zuckerberg presenting the scented quarterly of the Californian giant – that choice extends to all markets in which the social network is operational. The goal is to get rid of users’ message boards, at least in part, political content but above all the suggestions that lead to groups organized around those topics, “to lower the temperature and discourage divisive conversations”.

Specifically, in a long post on his social media in which he announced 2.6 billion users across all of his products, Zuckerberg explained that “we need to make sure that the communities people connect with are healthy e positive, and this is something we have been working on for a while. One way to do this, of course, is to eliminate groups that break the rules about violence or hate speech. In September we announced that we had canceled more than a million groups during the year. But there are also many groups of which we could discourage attendance, even if they don’t violate our rules. For example, we stopped recommending civic and political groups in the United States before the election. We will continue to refine the mechanism but plan to eliminate its long-term and globally expand the decision».

Again, in short, a digital platform decides for its users what is good and what is bad, even if the rules are respected. In addition to the tenor of conversations, what is the climate in which they should take place and even tries to weaken the debate on important issues – civic and political – but continues in the attempt, started a couple of years ago, to bring the conversations back to the intimate, friendly, maybe frivolous side at times. It is not enough. Beyond the recommendations of the groups, in fact, Facebook is considering other moves for reduce short the amount of political content in the Newsfeed. But rest assured, Zuck will leave the right to speak: «To be clear, we will continue to allow people to be involved in political groups or discussions if they want. These activities can be useful and important. There may be ways to organize grassroots movements, expose injustices or learn from people with different points of view. We want these discussions to continue to happen. But one of the main problems with the bulletin board is that people don’t want politics and the harsh confrontation on those issues take precedence over our services ».

In short, let’s recap: politics divides, creates a heavy environment even when the conditions of use and rules are not formally violated, so we will show you less and invite you less to join groups who, while respecting the rules, deal with topics of that kind. With all due respect to the fact that everything is political and that commitment and civic awareness are the first key to discuss problems (local as well as planetary) and seek a solution for them. Meanwhile his group has made in the fourth quarter of 2020 11.22 billion in profits (+ 52%), equal to earnings per share of $ 3.88. Revenues jumped by a third to 28.07 billion, exceeding analysts’ expectations. Its dominant role in digital advertising is constantly growing.