Definitely Not Zucking Up: Well, Maybe a Little Bit

November 9, 2023

This essay is the work of a dumb humanoid. No smart software required.

I don’t pay too much attention to the outputs from CNN. However, this morning I spotted a story called “Mark Zuckerberg Personally Rejected Meta’s Proposals to Improve Teen Mental Health, Court Documents Allege.” Keep in mind that the magic word is “allege,” which could mean fakeroo.

Here’s the passage I found thought provoking:

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has personally and repeatedly thwarted initiatives meant to improve the well-being of teens on Facebook and Instagram, at times directly overruling some of his most senior lieutenants

If I interpret this statement, it strikes me that [a] the Facebook service sparks some commentary about itself within the company and [b] what a horrible posture for a senior manager to display.

An unhappy young high school student contemplates a way to find happiness because she is, according to her social media “friends”, a loser. Nice work, Microsoft Bing.

I am setting aside possible downstream effects of self mutilation, suicide, depression, drug use, and excessive use of lip gloss.

The article states:

Zuckerberg’s rejection of opportunities to invest more heavily in well-being are reflective of his data-centric approach to management, said Arturo Bejar, the former Facebook engineering director and whistleblower who leveled his own allegations last week that Instagram has repeatedly ignored internal warnings about the app’s potential harms to teens.

Management via data — That’s a bit of the management grail for some outfits. I wonder what will happen when smart software is given the job of automating certain “features” of the Zuckbook.

With the Zuck’s increasing expertise in kinetic arts, I would not want to disagree with this estimable icon of social media. My prudent posture is that an individual capable of allowing harm to young people has the capacity to up his game. I am definitely not Zucking up to this outfit even if the allegations are proved false.

Stephen E Arnold, November 9, 2023

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Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under Facebook, News, Social Media

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.