Elon Musk founder, CEO, and chief engineer/designer of SpaceX speaks during a news conference after ... [+]
This isn’t the first time and it likely isn’t the last.
Elon Musk recently posted on his Twitter feed that we should all delete Facebook. This came after comedian and actor Sacha Baron Cohen questioned the value of social media.
The Tesla frontman and celebrity entrepreneur, who recently released an EDM song to adoring fans, gave only one reason for canceling our accounts — because it’s lame.
Here’s the post:
Musk is a well-known Facebook hater. He’s incredibly active on Twitter, posting sometimes multiple times per day since he created an account in 2009. Baron Cohen wants to see more regulation over misinformation and abuses, and he has a point.
The problem? Deleting Facebook is not the answer.
The social media platform has 1.69 billion users as of 2020; it’s not going anywhere. Twitter has made some gains this year (the active user count rose to 275 million recently) and tends to pop up in the news cycle more often. Besides Musk, there is one other prominent user named President Donald J. Trump.
When anything is this widespread by the mass populace, deleting an account is admitting defeat. It’s ceding control over to the mainstream. What works much better is to stay on the network, fighting for representation in the battle against misinformation.
Think of the recent posts about the coronavirus. It’s appalling. Even in my Facebook feed I’ve seen posts from disreputable sources making ludicrous claims. Deleting my account will stop the misinformation...for me. I won’t have to read about it. But asking everyone to avoid the network is not going to help anyone. If those who don’t want to spread misinformation stick around, then there’s a chance of stopping it and adding some sanity to the conversation.
I want to be part of the solution. When I see erroneous posts, I tend to dive right in. As a journalist, I feel it’s my duty to report the facts and at least post links that contradict what I’m reading. In 2016, I was known to post links to well-reported articles about Hillary Clinton and her health, even when I knew it would stir up trouble. It was not a political move on my part. I knew the original posts were incredibly biased, the essence of fake news. I knew the intent was not to state the truth but to change the election results.
Leaving the network is tantamount to letting the seedy Facebook news influencers win. It’s clearing the battlefield and letting the misinformation march on and move further into the mainstream. It’s raising a white flag and saying misinformation won.
What if Musk and others didn’t do that? What if they were just as active on Facebook trying to make a case for AI regulation or championing other causes?
On Twitter, Musk is speaking to a small subset of the population. On Facebook, he could address the nation.
