Facebook as the fabric of reality

Last week, Mark Zuckerberg presented his vision for Facebook as the future platform for "building global community" across the whole world in both the political and the private sphere. Zuckerberg's plans for the future deserves some critical analysis: as being one of the richest persons in the world enables him to affect the future to a large degree and exercise considerable soft power through the Facebook platform itself and his well-funded charity initiative. At the same time, we have to take his words at face value, and not automatically assume that there exists a hidden agenda. This is after all, a billionaire who has pledged to give away all of his wealth for the greater good.

My take, after reading the piece, is that if his plan succeeds, Facebook will slowly weave itself into society, becoming the fabric of reality through which all communications can be channeled and filtered. The Fabric will, to a large degree, be controlled by a beneficial artificial intelligence, whose goal is to optimize for global community among all people. This may de facto, already be the case today, but the new implication is that the political discourse would be channeled through Facebook as well, to help foster this sense of community at the political level. One might have expected that Facebook, after having recognized the problems with the "filter bubble", would have backed down on its active role in shaping the news, but instead it seems like the plan is to double down on the same path in order to weed out fake news and disinformation. It represents a very technocratic view on how to counteract the trend of increasing polarization in society, but at the same time, given Facebook's successful experiment with manipulating public opinion, there is empirical evidence that such an approach would likely work. The concern is more about its moral implication and the effect it would have on society. One does not need much imagination to draw up possible dystopian scenarios where Facebook would trap us in a Matrix-like filter-bubble.

What I find interesting is the polarization, the split of opinion, and the alternate narratives surrounding this and virtually any political issue these days. For many people the vision is obviously dystopian: a robot overlord overseeing all human communication in an effort to maximize advertising (because Facebook has to make money). Yet for others, this is the ultimate example of progress, spearheaded by using cutting edge technology to build the future global democratic and inclusive society. Privacy concerns are not really an issue in this context, because privacy undermines transparency, which is seen as the greater good. Similarly, the argument of advertising intruding in everyday life can, for example, easily be dismissed by the fact that we have ads everywhere in our reality already, in newspapers, on billboards, on the TV, on our clothing etc, and smart advertising would actually lessen the burden. Framed in this context, Facebook is more of a modern, more progressive, competitor to traditional news media and societal institutions, as evidenced in the recent article in the Atlantic, where the manifesto is described as "a blueprint for destroying journalism". But again, this is not necessarily seen as a big problem in some circles, because they see the media as being largely responsible for the growing political division in society in the first place. Might Facebook actually be morally justified in seeking to destroy traditional journalism?

A further perspective I find interesting is to contrast Zuckerberg's public vision for Facebook with the underlying business strategy. There does not seem to be much public information about what is being said to major investors, but it is clear the Facebook is still aiming for making more money. Growth of its total user base is expected, with a very high company valuation as a result. Judging from the PE value, the implied growth rate of earnings is at least 3% per year. Long-term, it means that Facebook will soon have grown to over 2 billion daily users, possibly more if earnings grow slower than the active user base. In this context, the vision looks more like a justification of the existing business strategy and a response to the critics of Facebook's role in the US elections. Extrapolating forwards, it looks like Facebook will eventually connect a major part of humanity and become the de facto communications platform. We are already spending on average 50 minutes per day on Facebook. In this light, the manifesto is more of a PR statement to frame the present development as a path towards the greater good. Yet, when analyzing Facebook from a business perspective, the main focus seems to be on how to enhance the monetization of their communication networks, especially the messaging services and Instagram. Consider, for example, this interview with Facebook VP David Marcus in 2015 where he states that "Eighty percent of our time is really focused on making Messenger your primary messaging platform" and explains that user engagement drives revenue. I see the key question as being: does the message of global community align with Facebook's core business goals, which is to increase the user base, engage more people with platform and drive higher advertising revenue and commissions as a result? It does not seem obvious, as Facebook might generate just as much revenue even if there is universal discord and community is slowly evaporating. What kind of governance will Mark Zuckerberg put in place at Facebook to make sure this does not happen? And how would you program an AI to take it into account? Increasing polarization of opinion through the filter bubble, catalyzed by evermore sophisticated AI might just as well lead to even more engagement, as it would drive people to show their dislike with the opposing view. For example, Facebook saw record revenue and stable growth during the US election year, which probably saw the fiercest wars being waged on Facebook so far in history and indirectly prompted Mark Zuckerberg to publish this manifesto as a response to the critics.

The lack potential lack of alignment between the public mission statement and the business strategy begs the question of what Zuckerberg's true goal for Facebook is. I can see how the other investors in Facebook might start to worry about the business focus (but given that many of major shareholders are insiders, it might not be a big problem). Does he want to improve the business at all costs and use the proceeds for charity, or is the goal to gain political influence by leveraging the Facebook platform to further his philanthropic goals? And how will the different organizations he control intend to work together? For example, how does Facebook's new mission statement relate to the activities of the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative? Imagine for a while that Bill Gates, instead of forming the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, would have announced that Microsoft would change its business strategy to become a future "force for a global, supportive, safe, informed and inclusive community", presumably by extending its SharePoint platform from business customers to encompass all of society. You would probably feel a little bit uneasy. I think this underscores the strangeness of the new Facebook manifesto.