No One Can Fix Facebook

The world's largest social network has simply grown too big to handle

Two days ago, I logged in to my Facebook account, the first time in two weeks. Normally, I don’t look at all the friend requests. But that day, I was waiting for someone important. So I checked. And I was creeped out.

I’m not deleting it — not yet, anyway. It’s just too big and important for that. But what I saw was not nice at all. Can you guess what it was?

My high school teacher. My aunt. A friend of my cousin. A few of my sister’s friends. Some strange guy from India who sells potato chips.

It’s too much.

Why all the fuss, you ask. Your posts are by default only visible to your friends. But what if your high school teacher — whom you don’t really like because of one detention a few months back — asks why you didn’t accept her friend request. What then? Sorry, Ma’am, I didn’t see it?

This has actually happened to me.

I’d have said that, but Facebook Messenger shows when you were last active. And you can’t lie. Now, you’re in a social ditch. There was nothing I could do at this point, and so I stayed mute. I friended her when I got home. But that isn’t what I want a social network to be about.

I want to be able to tell certain people — not everyone I know — certain things, without having to explicitly configure that. I don’t want to be criticized based on what I do online, as long as it’s legal. That’s what the Internet is about.

I don’t want to be friends with everyone I know

Now I know Facebook’s great. Everyone in the world uses it, and it’s a great place to meet people. Because of its ubiquity, you can create a group and be sure everyone will be there. Even though it’s a bit creepy, all social networks are creepy. Facebook just happens to be the biggest social network ever, so it’s creepy 100X.

No one can fix Facebook

Facebook’s 2020 stats show that it has over 2.6 billion total users, with 1.73 billion daily active users. That’s more than half the world. No single person can handle that.

Placing one person in charge of Facebook is like placing one person in charge of the phone service, globally. Something this big should be run by a government. Or, the Open Source movement. Or like Bitcoin.

Think Mark Zuckerberg can fix it? Mind you, he’s just one person. He can make mistakes. He already has — think Cambridge Analytica. And he has his own interests at hand, not to mention the interests of the company’s investors. Facebook pulled in $70.7 billion in 2019. If that’s not the equivalent of a money factory, I don’t know what is.

We can’t give it to the government. They’ll just use it for advanced privacy breaches, under the guise of counter-terrorism. Or worse, they’ll stifle free speech as we know it, turning the entire world into a giant version of China.

No one can fix it. But we can’t break it now, so why not try? After considerable consideration, and a Twitter poll, here are my top three solutions.

1. Give it to Elon Musk

Elon Musk, superstar CEO and diehard futurist. He runs Tesla — an electric vehicle company, SpaceX — (you know this one, don’t you?), and Neuralink — they make brain chips.

He’s the hottest thing on Twitter right now, and he’s also filthy rich. But that’s not why I’d give Facebook to him. The reason is…

People actually like Elon.

Mark Zuckerberg is famous (or should I say infamous) for his lack of a PR bone. I don’t blame him for that — he’s done a great job with Facebook, but everyone gets tired after a while. And he’s a quintessential tech guy, which means good humor and social aptitude doesn’t come naturally to him. All of this adds up to give him a very unfavorable public approval rating.

But Elon’s a different figure entirely.

He’s got a great sense of humor — just check his Twitter. He’s actually doing something important, exploring space, and saving the planet. And he’s never capitalized on people’s personal data to make money.

In fact, this is a great idea. The only downside is that Elon will probably die of burnout, which would be such a shame.

2. Decentralize it

Blockchain is cool. In fact, I’d go as far as saying it’s more important than cryptocurrency in general. It is basically unhackable. It is free and open-source software, which we all love. And more importantly, no one controls it.

Imagine a social network running on the blockchain. No more data theft. No more annoying privacy scandals. You’d be virtually anonymous — a truly free, open Internet. Like the OASIS, but real.

The major problem with this idea is that it’ll never happen. Why? There’s just too much revenue going down the drain. Would you throw away a $70 billion-dollar check, just to say “I did the right thing”? You’re not crazy, are you?

3. Make it a utility

Everyone in the world is already on Facebook. It’s as ubiquitous as salt and water. What officially declaring it as a utility really does is hold it up to the same standards as utility providers, like the phone companies and ISPs.

In simpler terms; you’d be able to sue Facebook for am unwanted dirty pic, the same way you can sue the water company for unclean water.

The Facebook that emerges would be heavily toned down, instead offering the essential and non-scandalous features of the original site. It’ll also be simpler to use. Several media outlets have already suggested this, and personally, I think this is the best idea yet.

The only problem is that, like the government, regulations can be worked around. Anyone who is in charge of writing Facebook’s new rules would be sitting on a gold mine or a land mine. It depends on who that person is.

Maybe we should just ditch the whole thing.

Since I began writing all this, three hours ago, I got 11 new friend requests. This recent batch includes more of my sister’s friends (has she been using my account?), and 7 more random people. I don’t really know any of them, so I can safely ignore them.

But I can’t live like this much longer.

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