{"id":54756,"date":"2017-12-16T06:37:05","date_gmt":"2017-12-16T06:37:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=54756"},"modified":"2017-12-16T06:37:05","modified_gmt":"2017-12-16T06:37:05","slug":"facebook-defends-itself-against-critics-of-social-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/technology\/facebook-defends-itself-against-critics-of-social-media.html","title":{"rendered":"Facebook defends itself against critics of social media"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 18pt\"><strong><span style=\"color: #000000;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">Facebook defends itself against critics of social media<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;color: #000000;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">Facebook defends itself against critics of social media:- Facebook Inc on Friday struck back against scientific researchers and tech industry insiders who have criticized the world\u2019s biggest social media network and its competitors for transforming how people behave and express emotion.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;color: #000000;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">Facebook, in a corporate blog post, said that social media can be good for people\u2019s well-being if they use the technology in a way that is active, such as messaging with friends, rather than passive, such as scrolling through a feed of other people\u2019s posts.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;color: #000000;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">It was the second time this week that Facebook had published such a rebuttal, signaling a new willingness to defend a business model that translates users\u2019 attention into advertising revenue.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;color: #000000;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">On Tuesday, the company released a statement saying that former executive Chamath Palihapitiya, who at a conference publicly blamed Facebook for \u201cdestroying how society works,\u201d had been gone for six years and was unfamiliar with the company\u2019s recent efforts to improve.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;color: #000000;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">Palihapitiya on Thursday revised his view, writing in a Facebook post that the service \u201cis a force for good in the world.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;color: #000000;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">Online services such as Facebook and its Instagram unit, Twitter Inc, Snap Inc\u2019s Snapchat and Alphabet Inc\u2019s YouTube are under attack for their seemingly addictive nature and perceived promotion of anti-social behaviors.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;color: #000000;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">A study in March by U.S. researchers found that using such services at least two hours daily was correlated with reporting feelings of social isolation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;color: #000000;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">A nonprofit organization called Time Well Spent, led by a former Google design ethicist, is pressuring tech companies to move away from products that try to hook people\u2019s attention.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;color: #000000;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">In its blog post, Facebook acknowledged what it called \u201ccompelling research\u201d on the negative effects of social media and cited two such academic studies.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;color: #000000;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">The company said, though, that those studies are \u201cnot the whole story.\u201d It went on to cite other studies suggesting that the dangers of social media may be exaggerated, and that it has potential benefits if used correctly.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;color: #000000;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">\u201cWe employ social psychologists, social scientists and sociologists, and we collaborate with top scholars to better understand well-being and work to make Facebook a place that contributes in a positive way,\u201d said the blog post, written by Facebook Research Director David Ginsberg and Research Scientist Moira Burke.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;color: #000000;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">Fundamental change would require turning away from \u201cwhere the money is,\u201d said Roger McNamee, a venture capitalist and early Facebook investor who recently has criticized the social network.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;color: #000000;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">\u201cFacebook\u2019s business model depends on monopolizing consumer attention, and content that appeals to fear and anger is the most profitable way to do that,\u201d McNamee said in an email on Friday.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;color: #000000;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">A Facebook representative declined to comment beyond the blog post.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;color: #000000;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">Facebook is spending $1 million on research into the relationship among technology, youth development and well-being, the blog post said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 8pt\">Source:-\u00a0https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-facebook-socialmedia\/facebook-defends-itself-against-critics-of-social-media-idUSKBN1E92R8<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"fb-background-color\">\n\t\t\t  <div \n\t\t\t  \tclass = \"fb-comments\" \n\t\t\t  \tdata-href = \"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/technology\/facebook-defends-itself-against-critics-of-social-media.html\"\n\t\t\t  \tdata-numposts = \"10\"\n\t\t\t  \tdata-lazy = \"true\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-colorscheme = \"light\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-order-by = \"social\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-mobile=true>\n\t\t\t  <\/div><\/div>\n\t\t  <style>\n\t\t    .fb-background-color {\n\t\t\t\tbackground: #ffffff !important;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t.fb_iframe_widget_fluid_desktop iframe {\n\t\t\t    width: 630px !important;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t  <\/style>\n\t\t  ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Facebook defends itself against critics of social media Facebook defends itself against critics of social media:- Facebook Inc on Friday struck back against scientific researchers and tech industry insiders who have criticized the world\u2019s biggest social media network and its competitors for transforming how people behave and express emotion. Facebook, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54783,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[293,109750,109751,6734,108660,3299],"class_list":["post-54756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-crime","tag-facebook-defends-itself-against-critics-of-social-media","tag-mental-illness","tag-social-media","tag-society","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}