Since the company was founded, Zuckerberg has repeatedly said that he wants to connect friends around the world.
(Photo: AP)
Dusseldorf Even the apology of the Facebook boss is bizarre: “Sorry for the interruption today,” wrote Mark Zuckerberg when that was possible again on his largest Internet platform. “I know how much you depend on our services to stay in touch with people who are important to you.” The post was preceded by an outage of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp for hours.
It’s another incident that once again shows the world how dependent it is on Facebook. And it comes at a sensitive time. A whistleblower had explosive internal information published for weeks. Above all, they reveal that Facebook and its founder, Zuckerberg, care very little about social relationships and the well-being of its users.
Since the company was founded, Zuckerberg has repeatedly said that he wants to connect friends around the world. But seldom has it been clear as it is today that the story of the friendly social network is a fairy tale. Zuckerberg is the boss of one of the largest marketplaces for goods and attention in the world. And nothing else is important to him.
Here are just three exemplary examples: For celebrities such as ex-President Donald Trump or soccer star Neymar, for example, Facebook’s usage rules only applied to a limited extent in the past. Hate comments were not automatically deleted, the same goes for nude photos. The footballer wanted to take revenge with such pictures of a woman after she had accused him of rape.
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And then there are also documents that show how Zuckerberg is driving up and down polarization in society at his own discretion. All he has to do is change the rules according to which outrageous posts are displayed. They’re usually good for business. Zuckerberg only let this throttle down when Facebook was under special scrutiny around the US presidential elections last year.
Many small business owners are dangerously dependent
When nothing worked on Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram on Monday, parts of the economy were particularly affected. Even if Zuckerberg suggests something else: nobody missed the almost forgotten school friends on Monday evening and you can also write to your loved ones by SMS or signal.
Image damage: At the beginning of the week, Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram were inaccessible to millions of users for hours. But CEO Zuckerberg only commented on this briefly.
(Photo: Reuters)
But more and more small business owners do a large part of their business via the platforms or earn their living from them. You are not that flexible. Facebook itself is driving this trend, it earns from sales fees and advertisements. The more dependent the professional users are on the platforms, the better for Facebook.
On Monday evening, none of those affected knew when they would start sales shows again, make money streaming online courses and answer customer inquiries in numerous countries.
Nevertheless, Zuckerberg had no “sorry” for her. As in the case of the revelations, he preferred to leave the essential communication on the problems to a manager. In the past few weeks one saw and heard from him only jokes, pictures of the fencing game with his daughter and of surfing.
Is Zuckerberg suffering from a loss of reality?
After everything that has happened, not only Facebook critics are wondering: Does the sole ruler of one of the most powerful companies suffer from a loss of reality? Or does he have no conscience?
The fact is: none of these now countless scandals has so far harmed Facebook, whether it was about attacks on the US elections, live-streamed attacks or stolen data.
Investors also shrug the latest incidents. The stock hardly suffers. And the entrepreneurs are already back again. For many of them, parallel structures are not worthwhile – the services would have to fail significantly more often.
This is why politics is now more in demand than ever. Whistleblower Frances Haugen testified in front of the US Congress on Tuesday. Finally, critics from both political camps also seem to agree that they have to do something about the overwhelming power of this corporation.
The power of Facebook is disproportionate to the political insensitivity of its founder. For the first time, in the algorithm expert, they have someone who can give them important insights into this. It is a once in a lifetime opportunity – and it must be seized.
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