Great Reporting, terrible sponsorship

Post reports tend to be very thought-provoking, in-depth, and a joy to listen to. Lots of topics are covered and I find myself enriched by them every day. They dovetail into and supplement the paper wonderfully.

How jarring is it to currently hear Facebook claim in advertisements on the lead-in to each WaPo show that they are committed fact-check, care about truth, etc when their CEO and founder is on the record that he couldn’t care less about those matters?

By its very design, Facebooks algorithm hooks users with stories of outrage. That leads to self-radicalization among the susceptible and the formation of anti-social and dangerous affinity groups (anti-vaxxers, white nationalists, etc). So per the ad, a small band of Facebook fact checkers are supposed to keep tabs on the very algorithm that keeps the $$ rolling in? Come on.

No amount of “truth” fig leafing / correction after-the-fact can hope to counter the disinformation machine at the top of the food chain at Facebook. Besides, no one reads the corrections, especially not the self-radicalized groups that facebook has nurtured all these years.

Facebooks WaPo ads are gaslighting, pure and simple, and should not be allowed. WaPo, please report more on the hundreds of thousands of people killed around the world thanks to Facebook collaborating with local radicals to stir up racial, ethnic, or religious hatred.