Hans Väre: Murky waters of social media about to be muddied further

Social media will continue to offer both good entertainment and useful information, but alongside this, unchecked insults, falsehoods, hatred and fraud are spreading with increasing frequency. This makes it all the more important for journalism to uphold and raise its standards, Hans Väre argues in a commentary for Vikerraadio.
At the start of a new year, people often aim to improve some aspect of their lives. For my part, I removed the Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) apps from my phone's home screen and replaced them with two journalistic outlets that hadn't made it there previously.
As a journalist, I can't completely abandon X and Facebook. I still use them to gather and share information. In fact, I'll be posting a link to this very commentary on both platforms. Perhaps someone will discover it, even though social media algorithms actively suppress links to journalistic content. Increasingly, however, I find myself questioning the point at which the harm caused by social media outweighs its benefits, making it necessary to unplug for good.
The algorithms on Facebook and X have become increasingly irritating for me. The large social media platforms serve up an overwhelming amount of nonsense and triviality, while offering far too few meaningful ideas or clever insights. They no longer help me stay informed about the activities and perspectives of important people or organizations but instead present me with a void of meaningless content seemingly based on an incomprehensible logic.
Elon Musk's involvement in European domestic politics through X and Mark Zuckerberg's decision to eliminate fact-checking in the U.S. across Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads are just the toxic cherries atop a cake that has long been spoiling.
Most users likely don't often consider that social media's shared space is largely illusory and frequently distorts reality like a funhouse mirror. Algorithms divide the vast oceans of information into puddles and seas, then selectively splash us with drops or drown us in tsunamis as they see fit.
Zuckerberg and Musk like to emphasize that their platforms give people a voice, but they talk less about how it's ultimately their decision whether that voice will actually be heard. Why do I constantly see posts from pages I neither follow nor interact with, while missing posts from those I intentionally follow? Why am I perpetually updated on the activities of a distant acquaintance but never see the posts of a close friend?
The workings of these algorithms are as inscrutable to ordinary users today as divine will was in the past. Their sole purpose is to keep your thumb scrolling endlessly, even if you're a highly impressionable under-13-year-old who, by the platform's own rules, shouldn't even be on Instagram.
Beyond the platforms' own hidden forces, information operations originating from places like Russia, China, Iran or other "interesting" countries also seep into people's minds, as do smaller targeted campaigns. For instance, The New York Times recently reported on how Justin Baldoni, the lead actor and producer of the film "It Ends With Us," allegedly hired a PR team to smear his co-star Blake Lively on social media, which significantly damaged her public image.
Some of the platforms' biases are publicly stated — though the average user may remain unaware. At least the tech giants occasionally spell them out. For years, Meta has reduced the proportion of political content shown to users in an effort to decrease societal polarization. In August, Zuckerberg even announced his desire to distance himself and his company from politics to the extent that it would seem like they weren't involved at all.
Yet, at the start of this year, the company's position appeared to shift. In a video message, the social media giant declared that "we've started receiving feedback that people want to see this kind of content again," promising increased visibility for political topics.
How much of that feedback came from Mar-a-Lago, where Zuckerberg met with the soon-to-be-inaugurated Donald Trump, and how much from other channels, is an open question. Regardless, the behemoths of social media have decided to trample over societal interests in favor of their business priorities.
Let's not forget that Facebook implemented fact-checking and other measures to combat misinformation in the wake of the tumultuous U.S. presidential elections of 2016 and 2020, which also led to a reduction in political content. Now, however, they're giving the green light to content previously deemed divisive while simultaneously dismantling most protective mechanisms.
Facebook's fact-checking system was far from perfect. Posts were often removed without valid justification. For instance, in December, Facebook decided that an article from Sakala about patient insurance at Viljandi Hospital violated their rules. Not only did they suppress the link, but they also reduced overall traffic to Sakala's Facebook page. When a car's brakes occasionally fail, they need fixing — not complete removal. Freedom of speech is crucial for sustaining democracy, but unless we desire anarchy, it must always come with responsibility.
In Europe, Meta has no plans to abandon fact-checking, as local regulations make it difficult to do so. Nevertheless, we can feel the effects of new algorithms and other measures firsthand. Social media will continue to offer entertaining content and useful information, but it will also increasingly spread unchecked insults, lies, hatred and fraud. This makes it all the more important for journalism to maintain and raise its standards, so that people have a source where they can quench their thirst for knowledge with water cleansed of harmful impurities.
In the animated series The Simpsons, the greedy millionaire Mr. Burns doesn't care in the slightest that radioactive waste from his nuclear plant is flowing into the local river. Sure, a three-eyed fish might seem intriguing at first glance, but eventually, living by a poisoned river takes a toll on one's health.
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Editor: Marcus Turovski