Facebook's Terribly Hard Problems With Very Easy Solutions

Today’s CBS Sunday Morning segment on Facebook’s misinformation risks/dangers presented yet another assessment that there are severe societal problems that Facebooks has not just revealed but which it and other social-media platforms have enabled and empowered. Your piece used the COVID pandemic’s plethora of misinformation as it’s central focal point, but it has long been known that social-media has wrought a wide variety of harmful ills with the ability to spread more easily, broadly and dangerously.

Even the researchers on social-media’s impacts on society presented yet another societal problem which Facebook creates. Facebook may have the ability and right to restrict and block anyone they choose that might be investigating the ills of social-media or of the corporations which provide or profit from social-media but that just adds to an already long list of enabled problems. While Facebook doesn’t deny in total that there are problems with their platform or with social-media in general, they insist that they are working diligently to address and overcome these problems. Facebook also notes that this isn’t easy to do and that they have an obligation to their users, clients, and the business to not engage in censorship or other practices which would be wrong or illegal. Even the researcher talked about how difficult the problems that Facebook is enmeshed are to deal with and solve. This is where I fall off the log.

I am aware that Facebook and other social-media entities have claimed that the problems which are of grave concern or are just seen as minor annoyances are very hard to resolve. They even take credit and pride in stating how much time, effort, and resources they are ‘pouring’ into handling and correcting these problems they are investing. Facebook actually created an “Oversight Board” to monitor their performance in applying their standards and procedures properly, fairly, and effectively to prevent grave abuses by any Facebook users who are violating those standards. Technology experts, journalists, and reports also present assessment of the problems and the technical or business challenges and difficulties that need to be overcome to resolve any given problem area. And of course politicians, who provide no substantive value or comprehension of the problems or solutions to these problems, are also chiming in about the critical, urgent, and responsible need to ‘fix’ these problems. Note: As with anything that politicians are engaged with, there are opposing views of what the problems are since some problems exist only in the ideological views of the politicians as a fund-raising theme.

But what if the difficulties that Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google, Instagram, WhatsApp, … and other platforms providers, technology experts, social-media researchers, journalists, politicians, and the public at large are wrong? Is there a Law of Physics which requires that the solutions to the identified ills, abuses and problems with social-media are difficult? Is there some technological capability which is not yet within our grasp or competence to use in resolving these problems? Does the business or profitability model of social-media depend upon the very abuses and problems that the general public agrees need to be dealt with and solved? I suspect that many, maybe most if not all, think that none of the problems have relatively simple solutions or available solution strategies. However, there is no Law of Physics that prohibits this, there is no technical barrier to be breached, nothing about the social-media business eco-system or profitability model requires these problematic attributes to operationally persist. It may be the case that perception is reality in this context but then all that needs to change is one’s  perception and then “poof!” the reality is that these problems can be solve. And, they can be solved today; without a key breakthrough in technology (e.g. some advance in Artificial Intelligence capabilities); without a huge or even significant investment of time, effort, or resources; and without the need to sacrifice one’s business mission or profitability. In fact, solving these issues can be highly valuable to the social-media entities and to their clients and users. There of course may be some who don’t benefit, like politicians who won’t be able to raise campaign funds on these issues or they will not be able to legislate solutions which either utterly fail or make the problems worse.

So, why is it just accepted that there are no good solutions that are available? The answer to this problem may be that no one has asked the rather simple question: “What are readily available methods, approaches, strategies, and options for dealing with the [fill-in-the-blank] problem on Facebook (or any social-media platform)? The COVID Misinformation problem ought to have provided an excellent opportunity to ask this question, and Facebook should have at least one innovative designer or problem-solver who could have presented a dozen or more solutions that could have been and could still be implemented with little difficulty. Social-media experts and researchers should be able to present some insightful solutions. Journalist, reporters, and news media entities should have found someone who can explain the simplicity of solving these issues. I would say what politicians should have been able to do except, well: politicians!

If Facebook is serious about addressing these problems and haven’t found solutions that will work, have they done what any good and well-managed company would do when stumped by a business problem? Have they asked for help?