扎克伯格希望糾偏Facebook，他有五種方式可供選擇
JEFF JOHN ROBERTS
2018-01-24
|
Facebook的首席執行官這次說得一點都沒錯。通過一系列公開評論，馬克·扎克伯格承認了眾所周知的事情：Facebook已經成為了一個可能讓用戶感到孤單和沮喪的討厭網站。 扎克伯格也下定決定對此做些什么。他把糾偏Facebook列在了自己的2018年度挑戰中。在一次坦率的訪談里，他稱這個項目是對女兒的責任。 扎克伯格對《紐約時報》（New York Times）表示：“馬克思和奧古斯特長大以后，感到她們的父親對世界做了些有益的事情，這對我來說很重要。” 毫無疑問，扎克伯格可以做出這樣的改變——他是一位天賦十足的首席執行官，深受員工愛戴，自2004年在宿舍創立公司以來，一直完全掌控著這里。問題在于他是否會堅持到底，還是說他的宏偉計劃只是又一次營銷造勢。 沒錯，扎克伯格已經宣布了改變計劃，例如把與家人和朋友互動的重要性調整至其他業務之上。不過他還可以采取其他一些大動作，向我們展示他確實真心想要糾偏Facebook。例如以下五條： 1）坦白Facebook尋找“朋友”的算法 Facebook“你可能認識的人”算法，是其最強大的工具之一，也是人們感覺這個社交網絡像是由反社會的操縱者運營的重要理由。調查記者克什米爾·希爾指出，Facebook侵略性的數據挖掘技術導致了許多令人不安的情況。 其中就包括一位匿名的精子捐獻者在Facebook的可能“朋友”中發現了他的女兒，而精神病患者會看到同病房的其他人出現在“可能認識的人”里。 Facebook堅持拒絕公布任何相關的機制，也不給用戶更多權限來設置誰可以搜到他們。如果扎克伯格真的希望讓Facebook成為更加友好的社區，他首先可以對這最令人不安的功能透露一二。 2）給一個關閉嬰兒和動物內容的開關 我并非針對嬰兒，但我不希望他們出現在我的Facebook推送里。不幸的是，Facebook熱愛婚姻的算法堅持認為沒有比嬰兒更好的事物，并不斷顯示嬰兒的圖片，他們大多來自我幾乎不認識的父母。于我而言，這只是一點小困擾，不過那些剛剛失去孩子或迫切想要一個的人恐怕會對此感到心碎。 Facebook的人工智能當然已經足夠優秀到分辨嬰兒圖像，并讓用戶選擇減少它們出現的頻率——如果用戶喜歡，甚至還可以提高頻率。類似的，那些愛寵一族喜歡發布他們小狗或小貓的照片。為什么不設立一個選項，讓我們看到更多或更少的動物呢？ 3）到國會上講述 許多證據表明，克里姆林宮和其他挑撥者都在利用Facebook病毒性的傳播網絡在美國人當中搬弄是非：“黑人的命很重要”、“德州分裂”……那些帖子似乎試圖在各個話題上搞破壞。在騷亂的大選年，這進一步加劇了美國的政治分歧。 扎克伯格至少不再說這些宣傳會產生作用的想法“很瘋狂”。不過如果他真正想要向美國人表明他關注公司對民主政治的影響，就應該在國會展開調查前親自證明這一點，而不是派律師和助理來解決。正如Facebook的早期投資者羅杰·麥克納米在《華盛頓月刊》（Washington Monthly）所寫的那樣： “盡管硅谷的許多企業家都是極端的自由主義者，但那里的員工還是傾向于理想主義。他們想要相信自己做的是好事。強迫扎克伯格這樣的科技公司首席執行官離開發言人或公關的庇護，在公眾面前給他們那套不合道理的說辭辯護，對于削弱他們在員工面前精心維護的個人崇拜大有益處。” 4）聘用公共編輯 扎克伯格宣布Facebook計劃降低新聞類文章的比重，但這改變不了他經營著史上最強媒體和廣告公司的事實（不要忘了Facebook還擁有Instagram和WhatsApp）。 如果扎克伯格真心想要減少在用戶推送中充斥的虛假或低質量新聞故事，他可以向新聞界求助。他可以任命一名專業記者擔任公共編輯，讓他/她從內部了解Facebook的媒體運營，并讓他們就公司對媒體環境的影響進行評估報告。 他甚至可以做得更好，任命兩位這樣的編輯——一位自由派，一位保守派——來幫助平息有關政治傾向的譴責。 5）讓用戶成為自身的算法 這無疑是扎克伯格在Facebook上可以做的最大改善：把所有那些強大算法的鑰匙交給受到它們影響的用戶。與其看到一系列Facebook程序員精心選擇的帖子，用戶可以自行選擇他們想看什么。一些人可能想看新聞文章，另一些人則可能想看嬰兒照片。 這種選擇的要素可以讓Facebook營造更加有尊嚴的體驗，降低了用戶的被操縱感。它需要一些實踐——現有的推送很有用，因為它可以讓用戶看到一系列內容，而不是幾萬條人們發送的推文——但聰明如Facebook，肯定可以提供工具，讓用戶限定自己想要的范圍。 扎克伯格本周在Facebook上寫道：“Facebook最優先的使命始終是四個字：‘賦能于人’。”如果他說到做到，就會承認算法的控制權不應掌控在他或是其他高管手中，而是應當交給Facebook的用戶。（財富中文網） 譯者：嚴匡正? |
Facebook’s CEO is saying all the right things. In a series of public comments, Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged what many people already knew: Facebook has become an unpleasant place that can make users feel lonely and frustrated. Zuckerberg has also resolved to do something about it. He’s made fixing Facebook his annual challenge for 2018 and, in a candid interview, described the project as a duty to his daughters. “It’s important to me that when Max and August grow up that they feel like what their father built was good for the world,” Mr. Zuckerberg told the New York Times. There’s no doubt Zuckerberg can make such changes—he’s a gifted CEO, beloved by his employees, who has total control over the company he started in a dorm room in 2004. The question is whether he’ll actually follow through, or if his grand plan will be just another marketing exercise. Yes, Zuckerberg has already announced changes, such as favoring interaction with family and friends over businesses. But there are other big steps he could take to show us he’s sincere about fixing Facebook. Here are five: 1) Come clean about how Facebook finds “friends” Facebook’s “People You May Know” algorithm is one of its most powerful tools, but also a big reason the social network can feel like it’s run by a sociopathic manipulator. As investigative journalist Kashmir Hill revealed, Facebook’s aggressive data-mining tactics have led to many unsettling situations. These include an anonymous sperm donor seeing his daughter as a possible “friend” on Facebook, and patients in the same psychiatric office seeing others suggested as “people they may know.” Facebook has resolutely refused to shed any light on how any of this works, or to give users more control over who can find them. If Zuckerberg really wants to make Facebook a more hospitable place, he can start by shedding light on one of its most unsettling features. 2) Give us a switch for babies and animals I have nothing against babies but I don’t want them in my Facebook feed. Unfortunately, Facebook’s engagement-obsessed algorithm insists there’s nothing better than a baby—and shows a steady parade of children, often born to people I barely know. This is a minor nuisance to me, but it could be heart-breaking for those who’ve lost a child or want one badly. Facebook’s artificial intelligence is certainly good enough to identify infant images, and let people choose to see fewer of them—or, if they wish, even more of them. Likewise, the pet-obsessed like to post photos of their puppies and kitties. Why not create a setting to let us see more or fewer animals? 3) Go speak before Congress There’s plenty of evidence to suggest the Kremlin and other agitators used Facebook’s powerful viral machinery to sow discord among Americans: Posts intended to cause mischief about everything from Black Lives Matter to Texas secession helped exacerbate the country’s political divisions during a turbulent election year. Zuckerberg has at least stopped saying it’s “crazy” to think none of this propaganda had any influence. But if he really wants to show the American people he cares about his company’s impact on democracy, he can testify in person—rather than sending lawyers or lieutenants—before one of the ongoing Congressional investigations. As early Facebook investor Roger McNamee recently wrote in Washington Monthly: “While many of the folks who run Silicon Valley are extreme libertarians, the people who work there tend to be idealists. They want to believe what they’re doing is good. Forcing tech CEOs like Zuckerberg to justify the unjustifiable, in public—without the shield of spokespeople or PR spin—would go a long way to puncturing their carefully preserved cults of personality in the eyes of their employees. 4) Hire a public editor Zuckerberg announced that Facebook intends to downplay posts by news publishers, but this doesn’t change the fact he runs the most powerful media and advertising company in history (don’t forget Facebook owns Instagram and WhatsApp too). If he is sincere about reducing the fake and low-calorie news stories clogging up users’ Facebook feed, Zuckerberg could turn to the press for help. He could name a professional journalist as a public editor, and give him or her an inside view of Facebook’s media operations—and let them report on the company’s impact on the media. Even better, he could appoint two such people—a liberal and a conservative—to help deflect accusations of political bias. 5) Let users be their own algorithm This is easily the biggest thing Zuckerberg could do to improve Facebook: Turn over the keys for its all-powerful algorithms to the people who have to live under them. Instead of seeing a selection of posts curated by a Facebook programmer, users could select for themselves exactly what they want to see. For some, this might be news articles and, for others, it might be babies. This element of choice would make the Facebook experience feel more dignified, and less manipulative. It would take some practice of course—the existing curation is useful because it lets users see a handful of items rather than the hundreds or thousands of things people post—but a company as clever as Facebook can surely provide tools to winnow down the scope on their own. “The first four words of Facebook’s mission have always been ‘give people the power’,” Zuckerberg wrote this week. If he means what he says, he’ll acknowledge that control over the algorithm shouldn’t be wielded by him or any other executive, but by Facebook’s users. |
