Untangling Facebook.

No one can deny that Facebook and it’s offspring’s are a amazing, astonishing and awesome success. A social media platform with 2.89 billion subscribers, 56,604 employees and $9 billion in profits just this last quarter of 2021. The boy wonder Zuckerberg has succeeded beyond his own expectations. Unfortunately, the boy-wonder has become persona non-grata all over the planet. His enemies don’t like him? To be expected. But his friends don’t like him either and he walks a very thin line where he loses respectability. His money can’t save him. He falls very short in the very important areas of morality and ethics.

Uneducated, street rough people are at times expected to behave like thugs since they respond to lack of opportunity combined with many needs. Housing, food, transportation… just to name a few. It harder to stand on a soap box with an empty belly demanding food. But Zuckerberg comes from privilege and he has capitalized on this privilege taking his place in economic high brow society to new and unexplored heights. No empty belly here demanding food. No sick child at home demanding that something be done now. He could have enjoyed all of his success and still come away clean. Instead he focused on the money, a lot of money and turned his back on how he made that money and who he damaged. He has become just another thug.

The recent internal Facebook papers everyone is talking about demonstrates how the company, it’s management, at all levels, were well aware of how Facebook was damaging particular sectors of society. They are also well aware of how Facebook contributed to fanning the fire of misinformation in a country about to erupt in yet another civil war. They all knew and contributed to the arena of destruction and horror that developed during our last 2020 election. There are no excuses for his behavior, there is no forgiving or condoning his complicity in these events. Internal memorandum’s from employees trying to bring specific and crucial developments to the upper management were blatantly ignored. They just don’t care.

Zuckerberg had the power and the opportunity to do things differently and decided not to. He has become just another white boy with money and power and no morals.

Since Facebook’s brand has become dirt he now seeks to rebrand the product into a metaverse that is costing him and his shareholders billions of dollars. Let’s just hope that his arrogance has been shamed and tamed and this time he creates a saner and kinder world. I am a realist with a dash of optimist. Time will tell.