First let me say that some people think I do not like Facebook and I have it out for them. Nothing could be further from the truth. I enjoy the platform. I have gotten to meet and become friends with people all over the world. I have gotten a whole regular segment on my show because of Facebook. I can even tolerate the needless interface changes that Facebook regularly engages in. For the low, low price of free who could complain?
That is not to say that it could not be much better. It is free to the users but Facebook is making money off of advertising which they carefully market to based on your online activities. For everything Facebook offers I can deal with the targeted advertising. I can’t deal with the lies, the spin, the head in the sand, and the unwillingness to improve on important matters that Facebook engages in. Forget about me the free user. The advertisers should not tolerate it.
What am I talking about? Well for starters there is no live tech support or instant chat for help when needed. If you have unique issues there is no help at all. When somebody turned my page Arabic and cloned my page I had no course of action. I could not report the page because it was in Arabic. The place where you report bugs said it was not a bug. I am still waiting to hear back from legal. Meanwhile that Arabic me page is still out there…months later. What happens if they target military personnel? Can you imagine the propaganda that could be spread if a scammer posed as a US
Speaking of the military there are thousands of fake military profiles floating around on Facebook. The Pentagon has worked with Facebook to delete fake profiles in a secret program which we have reported. The problem is once a profile is active it is too late as there may already be victims of scams. Facebook and the Pentagon or put in a position of whack a mole as even if you delete a profile it will just resurface again and maintain contact with victims. Do we really need people in the military scouring Facebook when Facebook could eliminate fake military profiles better? The solution is stopping the profiles before they ever get online. Facebook requires an email address to start any new profile. Email addresses and emails require IP addresses. When a “soldier” gets a new account and says he lives in Afghanistan but his IP address is Africa or Malaysia
Facebook says it does not allow the conducting of crime or selling of stolen goods on their platform. Unfortunately there are dozens of pages filled with stolen credit card information and stolen goods. When the pages are reported Facebook claims they do not violate their Community Standards. Clearly they do violate the standards. It just indicates that either Facebook does not care or the people looking at the pages can’t see the obvious. Either way it is not good. I even worked with a cyber security expert of one of the biggest banks in the country. I showed him the pages. His company is one of Facebook’s biggest advertisers. He saw one of his customer’s information on there and reported it. Facebook did not take it down.
Facebook says no nudity especially where minors are concerned. In fairness Facebook can’t see every picture that is uploaded instantaneously. Facebook does remove pictures as well. Where Facebook falls drastically short is where pages that cater to pedophiles and groom children and show porn are not taken down for weeks after they are reported. Instead Facebook says there are no violations. That is ridiculous. Facebook spins it like they are doing everything possible and for the most part the media allows them to get away with that. They could do more. They could be better. They are extremely profitable company with an extremely low amount of employees considering the breadth of the company.
I am not a prude. I do not care about nudity or porn for myself. Pedophilia of course is very disturbing. The problem is Facebook caters to teens. Teens are the life blood of social media. Parents assume Facebook is safe and allow their teens to use the site. Even if a parent takes every reasonable precaution to keep their child safe by filtering what is allowed in the home Facebook and the predators still get through.
Parents think that when they publically post the picture of their cute kid taking a bath that it is only for their friends. If you leave your setting to public I promise you there is a creep somewhere using your kid’s pictures for things you thought were unimaginable. I have to leave my page open because of my career and for fans to access me but if you notice I have very few pictures of my daughter online. I am proud of her and love her but I will not provide “material” for a pedophile. Plus to be fair, your child never asked you to post scantily clad pictures of them online. Those are there forever and they have to deal with those from classmates as they get older.
The Facebook business model is based on the amount of users and creating the illusion that it is a place where the whole family can come to interact. Grandma can talk to her high school grandchild so to speak. This is what they sell to corporate America
I do not expect Facebook to be perfect. I do expect them to live up to their Community Standards. I do expect the media to hold them accountable. So far only the NY Post has been interested in this. Would I like there to be more coverage? Yes. The people have to demand it. The people need to write to their media outlets and let them know you know the truth and you want it exposed. History shows with Facebook that they respond when they are publically shamed. You will hear how a man did just that on next week’s Davin’s Den. The corporations need to know what exactly they are paying for. You need to write to the corporations and tell them you will take your dollars elsewhere if they do not hold Facebook accountable. Some say it is just social media but it really is much more. We are talking about scams that fund terrorism, stolen credit cards that fund terrorism, lives ruined over stolen IDs, tax dollars wasted trying to indentify military impersonators by untrained personnel, and worst of all the grooming of children to be sexual objects for pedophiles.
Our social media is filled with the most anti social of elements. Let’s take it back!