Meta's abdication of responsibility is an opportunity for magazine makers
I wasn’t planning to write another newsletter until next week, but I find myself somewhat exercised by what Kara Swisher called, “the most cynical move" she has seen Mark Zuckerberg make in the "many years" she has been reporting on him.
The only way I know to exorcise the simmering rage I’m feeling at the billionaire-platform-bros who think they’re the boss of everyone, is to write.
A really bad idea
I’m not going to rehash the arguments that firing 40,000 fact checkers is a bad idea, a really fucking bad idea. Of course it is:
The proposed alternative - Community Notes a la Twitter - is crap.
FZuck himself says we can expect to see more bad stuff… start the countdown to the next misinformation fuelled tragedy.The people that pay the price will be those most discriminated against, especially as Meta has also removed restrictions on forms of speech previously considered harmful.
What I would like to do is highlight how Meta following Twitter into their own self-perpetuating Slough of Despond is an opportunity for magazine makers.
See you Marky-Mark
Nick Mitchell, former head of audience at National World and now head of communications at petition site Change.org, says Zuck’s announcement signals that Meta is now “abandoning the tenets of trust and truth, once and for all”.
See you Marky-Mark, don’t let the door hit you on the ass on the way out.
Nick hopes publishers can differentiate themselves by developing new communities, new products and new online public spaces, where fact-checked information is still prized. He says the mission, should you choose to accept it, is to highlight the lengths you go to “to research and verify the journalism, information and content” you share.
‘Hundy-P’ as the younglings might say. In magazine land, trust built on accuracy, carefully checked facts and curated truth is our stock-in-trade.
Naïveté?
Is it naive to think that the death of fact checking on Facebook is an opportunity for magazine publishers? Only if you see it in terms of saving social media.
Facebook, like Twitter, is done as a place for serious people. The King of Moving-fast-and-breaking-things has joined the King of Tweeting-utter-shite and turned his network over to the swivel-eyed loons.
The opportunity for magazine makers lies in delivering an antidote to that anarchy.
Inoculation not elimination
In a newsletter lead proclaiming the death of corporate content moderation, Semafor technology editor Reed Albergotti notes that despite past efforts, half the United States came to believe Covid was a hoax and the 2020 presidential election was stolen.
He says, “The idea that the totality of internet content could be corralled into neatly defined pens was always ludicrous.”
I’m not sure that I agree with this - I think regulation of social media has to happen for the sake of a sane, civil society. However, Reed’s prescription for fighting misinformation right now is absolutely spot on… inoculation rather than elimination.
That, right there, is the opportunity for magazine makers. To show people that truth and trust matter, to bring communities together instead of pushing them apart, to protect the integrity of their niche rather than sacrifice everything to the expediency of self-interest.
Dude, facts are facts
I’m not suggesting that every magazine publisher become an investigative reporter, social justice warrior, or even a keyboard crusader. Just that they follow the age-old rules of journalism that the platforms have abandoned.
As an old, dear friend said to me of Zuck’s nonsense, “Dude, facts are facts.”
Of course we need to make space for opinions, even hateful opinions. What there should be no room for is lies, and that’s where magazine makers take responsibility in a way the platform-bros never have.
Whether you’re writing about food or fuel cells, art or arctic exploration, stick to the script and show people that it really is possible to report on the world as it actually is, rather than how the billionaires and their mental minions want it to be.