Peter Williams: Facebook's credibility problem

The social media giant you can no longer trust

In less than twenty five years Facebook has become a global phenomenon. It’s extraordinary to realise that Mark Zuckerberg and a few friends at Harvard University developed the first prototype of the social media giant as recently as 2004.

Nowadays over three billion of us in 112 countries have Facebook accounts and the company, officially known as Meta, is valued on the NASDAQ at $US1.8 trillion.

Ani O'Brien: Ministry of Health leaving X for a dying platform full of furries and CSAM

The New Zealand public service is a law unto itself. As someone remarked on X today, the Coalition might be in Government, but they are not in power.

One small, but significant way our ministries, departments, and agencies are registering their defiance and hatred of people outside of their echo chamber is by shutting down (or reducing) their X accounts in favour of alternatives like BlueSky.

John Klar: Is Social Media Fueling Crime and Violence?

Burning, vandalizing, and even defecating on Tesla EVs have become commonplace despite cameras that capture culprits in the act. Such brazen behaviors are endorsed and encouraged, embracing lawlessness as a moral good. Vietnam War protesters were not this extreme, and their goal was more visible and less self-destructive. Social media algorithms seem to be fueling terrible side effects.

Musk Derangement Syndrome and TDS

Dr Will Jones: Facebook Dumps “Politically Biased” Fact-Checkers That Have “Destroyed More Trust Than They’ve Created”

Facebook is to scrap its fact-checkers after founder Mark Zuckerberg said they have “been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they have created” as he pledged to “restore free expression” on the social network. The Telegraph has more.

David Farrar: Scheme to levy fees on search engines and social media sites

How annoyed would NZers be if NZ news media were no longer findable on search engines and social media?

Readers will be aware that the Government’s Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill has seen both Meta and Google warn that rather than pay a levy under the proposed law for links to news stories, they would block NZ news stories from Google and Facebook.

Curia was asked to poll 1,000 New Zealanders on:

Dr Eric Crampton: Canada’s example shows how ‘link tax’ bill will fail

New Zealand moves inexorably from the ‘faff around’ to the ‘find out’ phase of the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill process.

On Friday, Google’s New Zealand blog noted that if the bill becomes law, Google would be “forced to stop linking to news content on Google Search, Google News, or Discover surfaces in New Zealand and discontinue our current commercial agreements and ecosystem support with New Zealand news publishers.”

Google described the Bill as setting a ‘link tax’.

Eric Crampton: The 'shakedown' news legislation that is heading to parliament

Shakedown rackets are, thankfully, illegal.

Except when government legislates them. In that case, all bets are off. And if I were Facebook, I’d be off too – or at least thinking about it.

The Government finally released the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill this week. The bill aims to improve news funding by requiring payments from those who link to news online.

Eric Crampton: Canada a cautionary tale for big tech paying for news

Donald Trump convinced himself and a lot of Americans he could build a wall at America’s southern border and make Mexico pay for it.

It was an obviously terrible idea. And, unsurprisingly, it did not go well. Hundreds of miles of walls were built. But they weren’t very effective. And the money to pay for it largely came out of the US defence budget. Some parts of the wall cost $46 million per mile.

A lot of New Zealand’s newspapers have convinced themselves and the New Zealand government that they can have a whole lot of new newsmedia funding and make Big Tech platforms pay for it.

It is also an obviously terrible idea.

Jeffrey A. Tucker: Facebook Is Dead Unless You Post Something that Does Not Matter

Since Elon Musk has taken over Twitter, it’s been quite a wild ride. Thousands of doctors and scientists have been unbanned and are now speaking. Same with journalists. Accounts that posted against Covid restrictions and mandates are now unthrottled. Brownstone’s account is now at 31K and my own personal reach is up some 175 percent.

Of course, this is also infuriating. When we needed these voices the most was during the biggest attacks on liberty in our lifetime. Now that the powers that be have been forced by public opinion to dial back their oppressions, these voices can speak again. It’s good that the truth is getting out there but imagine the kind of difference it would have made for these 33 months if there had been no blocks on information from the start?

Graham Adams: The no-go areas that are killing mainstream media

The failure of mass news outlets to cover debates raging on social media — including transgender and Treaty issues — threatens their survival. As does avoiding contentious court cases.

In mid-March, a veteran political journalist commented on the Kiwi Journalists Association Facebook page about the problems the industry faced. He was responding to a discussion over a generational divide between older and younger journalists, in which it was alleged that reporting and analysing the news these days is much harder than it was decades ago.

However, he sidestepped the generational friction to look at the bigger picture — the existential crisis the mainstream media is facing:

Muriel Newman: Can you help?

As you know, the New Zealand Centre for Political Research administers this Breaking Views blog, as well as running our busy NZCPR.com website and NZCPR Facebook Group.

John Samples: Some Reasons to Trust Mark Zuckerberg with Freedom of Speech

Last week Mark Zuckerberg gave an interview to Recode. He talked about many topics including Holocaust denial. His remarks on that topic fostered much commentary and not a little criticism. Zuckerberg appeared to say that some people did not intentionally deny the Holocaust. 

Later, he clarified his views: “I personally find Holocaust denial deeply offensive, and I absolutely didn’t intend to defend the intent of people who deny that.” This post will not be about that aspect of the interview.

Let’s recall why Mark Zuckerberg’s views about politics and other things matter more than the views of the average highly successful businessman. 

Karl du Fresne: How my heart bleeds for Mark Zuckerberg

I note that $80 billion was wiped off the value of Facebook’s shares following a scandal over privacy breaches.

Oh dear, how sad, never mind, as the crusty sergeant-major in It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum used to say in mock pity whenever misfortune befell one of the motley crew of misfits under his command.

I delighted in Facebook’s discomfort, just as I admit having derived some satisfaction from the embarrassment of the British-based charity Oxfam after some of its aid workers were exposed as sexual abusers who took advantage of vulnerable girls and young women in disaster-ravaged countries such as Haiti.