It's difficult to see this article from that perspective given the clear mendacity and sleight of hand at play from Zuckerberg.
It's not like a Facebook feed is the deterministic result of a given user's subscriptions to friends and businesses, as if Facebook were a kind of user-friendly clone of a FOSS mailing list. Facebook engineers the contents of the feed in a way that is typically inscrutable to the user, and often harmful-- driving division and filter bubbles in order to keep up engagement. It's democratic in exactly the same way that Las Vegas would be democratic if you removed every single regulation on the gambling industry there.
So I'm perfectly happy to concede that even in a system designed with dark patterns to eat as much users' attention as possible-- well past the scant value they receive from using that system-- it'd be even worse to censor the POTUS account. But I highly doubt that's the kind of reasoned defense you're talking about. Any Facebook employee uttering that knows the next question coming is why they work for a company that employs so many dark patterns to generate so much anger and misinformation among its userbase.
It's not like a Facebook feed is the deterministic result of a given user's subscriptions to friends and businesses, as if Facebook were a kind of user-friendly clone of a FOSS mailing list. Facebook engineers the contents of the feed in a way that is typically inscrutable to the user, and often harmful-- driving division and filter bubbles in order to keep up engagement. It's democratic in exactly the same way that Las Vegas would be democratic if you removed every single regulation on the gambling industry there.
So I'm perfectly happy to concede that even in a system designed with dark patterns to eat as much users' attention as possible-- well past the scant value they receive from using that system-- it'd be even worse to censor the POTUS account. But I highly doubt that's the kind of reasoned defense you're talking about. Any Facebook employee uttering that knows the next question coming is why they work for a company that employs so many dark patterns to generate so much anger and misinformation among its userbase.
Edit: clarification