After a spate of seemingly nonstop scandals, Facebook has developed a strategy to explain the myriad problems enabled by its social network.
Whether the issue is Russian election interference, metastasizing fraudulent news or incitements to genocide in Myanmar, the company essentially hews to the same talking points: Facebook’s mission to connect the world is well-intentioned. But when you connect billions of people, there are bound to be malefactors.
Never mind that Facebook designed its system to promote just the kind of intriguing or provocative content that people can’t resist clicking on. Or that it constructed a marketing machine that allowed users to direct propaganda precisely toward the most receptive audiences. At Facebook, it seems, harm is a cost of doing business on a global scale.
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