I'm going to take a brief moment to say something nice about Facebook. Stand back.
Actually two nice things. First, Zuckerberg has done an admirable job of staying neutral in the culture wars. I know there are cadres on either side of the fence that think staying neutral makes you the enemy. I'm sure they both leverage Facebook's neutrality to forward that belief.
The second thing occurred to me while reading this very insightful Scholar's Stage essay about the lost world of internet forums and why Twitter is so awful. I would argue the Facebook Groups are the new internet forums. Like the old forums access is controlled. Only people involved in the special interest get themselves into the associated group, so there is no broad-based piling-on by the wider web. Group admins can be as ruthless as they want, because they can't kick people off Facebook, only out of their group. If folks think they have been treated unfairly, they can just start their own damn group, but their access to Facebook is unchanged. (This happens usually when you get a group member who won't shut up about politics.)
I've become a real fan of Facebook Groups and belong to a number of them. I highly encourage it to keep your online life marginally sane.
While I'm thinking of it, let me add a third good thing about Facebook: the ad model. The banner ads down the right side of the webpage don't count; they are easily ignored and I don't think you get them on mobile. I mean the ones they pop into your news feed. They do an excellent job of matching them with your needs and interests. I know a lot of people freak out about how this is an invasion of privacy. I think those fears are overwrought, but that's a topic for another post. Since I get Facebook for free, like TV, I expect commercials, but at least I get commercials of the sort I am interested in. And if I don't like something, blocking it going forward is about a 10 second operation. I actually get ads in my feed I want and frequently click on, which is something I never would have predicted 10 years ago.
And now, with all the controversy about TikTok being spyware, they just released a competing product, which was a truly sharp move. Facebook is for old folks now, but they could snag the young audience if it becomes a default replacement if TikTok is banned.
