Facebook

I believe that many people actually know about the damaging practices that Facebook employs. Facebook, as a social media and data-sharing platform, has severe problems that persists despite a number of parties coming out in opposition. Facebook routinely siphons of millions of views from other video-streaming networks - such as Youtube - thus hurting the creators of those videos, who take no credit and make no profit from the views or ad revenue. Facebook has virtually no process for screening "news" that is put up on its pages. Neither do they make any effort to keep your data private, but harvest it for their own use and profit. In short, Facebook is a very serious case in which it is difficult to govern what the site can and cannot due, in part due to freedom of information online, and in part because very few users actually take issue with what Facebook does because the site caters to them when they use it.

A few years ago, a video by the German Youtubing group Kurzgesagt detailed to problem of Facebook stealing billions of views from other content creators. The video went viral, having been created only a short time after Facebook execs made the momentous claim that the site was generating eight billion views per day.

In short, the video summarizes the issue of Facebook claiming views from videos taken from other creators and posted on the site, often without the creators' permission. First, the vast majority - 750 out of 1,000 - of the most highly viewed videos on the site were stolen from a different source. Further, the issue is becoming more and more common on the site, and those who maintain the site are doing nothing to prevent or curb video theft. Among numerous other problems such as counting views when people are not actually watching and an unnecessarily awkward and difficult copyright infringement claim process, Facebook clearly needs to take steps to improve its media streaming process, as the system damages and discourages original content creators as it stands.

One of the more broad problems with social media is the issue of news preferences, for which Facebook is an excellent example, but far from the sole offender. In short, many media sites use algorithms and personalized data in order to make advertisements, news, and suggested media more relevant to you, which on the surface doesn't seem like such a bad thing. However, the matter of media personalization is directly connected to matters of extreme polarization and proliferation of misleading and sometimes completely incorrect studies and news reports.