To: Molly Wood – MarketPlace Tech
From you May 7th episode on Facebook and their
Oversight Board, it seems you and your guest missed several of the problems
that the Oversight Board is ill-equipped to deal with, and all of the rather
obvious solutions to the plethora of problems plaguing the social-media environs.
One can be forgiven for the latter. After all, Facebook seems unable to
recognize the many solutions to various problems and missed opportunities; and even
where governments have attempted to provide a regulatory structure like the
European Union which has taken the old and ill-suited path that a legislative/regulatory
approach provides. Even the “Real-Oversight Board” you referenced doesn’t
appear to see how to resolve the various virulent strains of social-media
abuses and risks.
Now, Facebook’s Oversight Board is a fine entity to have
available to provide some ‘independent’ guidance and judgement over some
high-profile or significant issues or cases that will arise absent the
implementation of some competent features, capabilities, and policies by
social-media platforms like Facebook. But realistically, how many instances of
various abuses, misinformation campaigns, threats, risks, and even criminal
activities can the Oversight Board contend with compared to how many there are
actually occurring every day? Even if you cherry-picked the most notable
instances the Board would be swamped in cases.
The argument proposed that good polices, rules, or regulations are needed to
provide a fair and open democratic environment which protects people’s free
speech and other rights, while also controlling or eliminating the problems
sound like a perfect solution except it is a bit of ‘wishful thinking’. The
central proposition is fine, but it is completely and absolutely dependent upon
the understanding, foresight, and competence of the policies’, the rules’, and
the regulations’ specific design, implementation, and execution. A good policy
poorly conceived and designed can be worse and do more damage than not having a
policy at all. Ineffective or easily avoided rules do not eliminate the harm or
risks that they are to prevent. Regulations which do not hold anyone even
partially accountable for might as well not exist. We can wish that we have
created the proper policies, the smart rules, and the good regulations; but
wishing is no more a good strategy than ‘hope’ is in really solving problems.
Based on this episode’s content and similar discussions in
previous podcasts on MarketPlace Tech, MarketPlace, and many other entities
discussing the same issues and problems with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and
the many other social-media environment you would think that these are especially
difficult if not intractable problems to solve; especially, if one expects that
users’ democratic social rights and norms would be protected. Testimony by
major social-media and Big-Tech companies have even testified several times
before Congressional committees on the difficult of the various problems. The
CEOs that have testified have stated that their companies are investing
significant resources and energies into addressing the problems that confront
and concern the public, the government, and purportedly the industry itself.
Several companies has indicated that they are investing in research and
development of Artificial Intelligent approaches which are still some years
away.
However, not one CEO indicated that many if not all of these
problems are readily solvable. Of course, that may simply be because they do not
know that there are good, effective solutions to their platforms’ issues.
Knowing and admitting that you have a problem may be the first step; but it
does not guarantee that you will or can see all the solution and certainly
nothing requires you being able to recognize some of the easier and even best
solutions. No one from Facebook apparently sees how to fix some of the very
prevalent problems that they have had for years, that have been quite important
of late, and that are chief concern regarding the nation’s future crises that
social-media may unleash.
The Oversight Board demonstrated some of the shortcomings that
Facebook’s current policies and rules have. But the Board did not provide any
of the obvious solutions that would significantly reduce or eliminate the
underling causes and vulnerabilities which not just allowed but enabled various
abuses of the platform. There is no reason that the Oversight Board should have
done this, since it is not obvious that they possess the requisite skill sets,
knowledge, or perspectives that would even make them consider solving the
underlying problems. Nothing prohibits them from having done so, but they did
not.
How about the “Real” Oversight Board group you referred to?
Did they provide any general solutions which ‘fix’ the problems? I did not
recognize one if it was mentioned, so that could explain it. I am not sure I
care if ‘they’ are a ‘better’ Oversight body, if they cannot provide solutions
to the real problems not just to the after-effect problems.
I hope I do not have to explain why we should not or cannot
rely upon politicians. I think politicians would rightly deserve that motto one
finds above the entrance to Hell in Dante’s Divine Comedy. Logically this
applies to Congress to a greater extent due to the compounding effect and their
propensity to create more problems than they solve.
What appears to be missing is not a particular group or type
of individuals, though there are competencies that persons involved in
resolving these problems would need to possess, but rather a sound and reasoned
approach for problem-solving used throughout the scientific world, the technologies
world, the engineering world, and the mathematics world: Problem-Solving
methodologies.
Social-media platforms’ and services’ problems need to be understood properly.
This includes an appreciation of the constraints and requirements that must be
met; and it includes a well-defined set of goals and objectives that are being
sought. Even if the social-media companies undertook to do the proper
problem-solving effort, they may still need so innovative, critical thinking,
or entrepreneurial individuals who see solutions options and paths that just do
not follow the pre-supposed solution approaches. The trick may be to ask the
right questions, or to expand the space that the problem is thought to reside
in or the space that the solutions are assumed to be found.
Imagine if solving “fake-news” were something that could be done almost overnight with next to no research, a tad of development, and the ability to enhance the social-media platform’s image and its value. What would that be worth to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, … or the users or shareholders of those enterprises? It is after all, quite simple to do.
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