Facebook's Aim Is to Make Money and Not Raising Your Child

Two years ago, there was a discussion on Intelligence Squared on whether Facebook is damaging society. Supporting this motion were Damian Collins, chair of the House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee and Nina Schick, technology expert, and advisor to former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen. Against this motion were Dex Torricke-Barton, former head of executive communications for Facebook, and Ed Vaizey, former Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries (2010-2016). The discussion was chaired by Helen Lewis, staff writer on The Atlantic and former associate editor of the New Statesman. At the end of the discussion, the audience was asked to cast their votes and 60 percent agreed that Facebook is a menace to society.

Above copied from Intelligence Squared

Fast forward to present, our representatives on Capitol Hill are now asking the same question, but this time, there is an emphasis on how Facebook is affecting our children. In a Senate hearing, Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen accuses Facebook of causing children to become anorexic, and specifically targeting both teenagers and children under 13 for revenue purposes. Of course, defending Facebook often comes with the claim that the platform promotes meaningful social interactions. That claim obviously can be proven only if we understand how Facebook chooses which posts a user should see first. Unfortunately, the algorithms used by Facebook are not public. Sadly, if we knew how Facebook selects posts, we would be gaming it, so that is simply opening a new can of worms. It is not rare to see posts begging for your likes for some parent's child to win a contest. Somehow, the number of likes a post garners has been equated to some merit or capability. Hence, if we knew how Facebook selects posts, we would be gaming it, so this is simply opening a new can of worms. 

We may be upset with regard to how this social platform is being used but the truth is this: Facebook makes money. It is probably in our retirement funds and it has grown tremendously over the past few years:

Above copied from Yahoo Finance

We use Facebook for so many reasons but we need to keep in mind that this is a company whose sole purpose is to make money. It is still our obligation to raise our own children. It is our duty to make our children see and learn what is truly valuable in life.