One possible way to read the Facebook Files, an excellent series of reports from The Wall Street Journal based on leaked internal research from Facebook, is to read it as a novel about a powerful force Unstoppable, she crushes society on her way to the bank.
The series revealed compelling evidence that Facebook had a double-standard justice system, that it knew Instagram was exacerbating girls' body-view problems, and that it also had a bigger misinformation problem about vaccines than it allowed, among other problems. .
It may be easy to understand that Facebook is a terrifying power that can only be controlled with strict government intervention.
But there is another way to read this series, and that is the interpretation that resonates in my head with each new report.
It is that Facebook is in crisis!
Not a financial crisis, not a legal crisis, not even a crisis of senators screaming at Mark Zuckerberg.
What I'm talking about is the kind of slow and continuous decline that anyone who's seen up close a company can identify with that is dying.
A cloud of existential dread hangs over an organization whose best days are already gone, affecting every management priority and every production decision and leading to increasingly desperate attempts to find a way out.
This kind of deterioration isn't necessarily visible from the outside, but insiders see 100 small and worrying signs every day.
Such as anti-user growth scams, frantic shifts, paranoia at the executive level, and the gradual attrition of talented employees.
It has become fashionable among Facebook's critics to stress the company's size and dominance while attacking its mistakes. At a Senate hearing last Thursday, lawmakers questioned Antigone Davis, Facebook's global head of safety, with questions about the product's addictive design and its impact on billions of users. Many of the questions to Davis were hostile, but like most of the big tech hearings, there was a strange kind of respect in the air, as the board members seemed to ask: Godzilla, would you please stop running over Tokyo?
But if these leaked documents prove anything, it's Facebook's sense of itself that it's not Godzilla, as documents shared with the Wall Street Journal by Frances Hogan, a former product manager at the company, reveal that Facebook is worried about losing power and influence, not gaining them. The company's research proves that many of its products don't grow automatically.
Instead, the company is making an increasingly colossal effort to improve its image, and to prevent users from abandoning its apps in favor of more compelling alternatives.
What I'm talking about is the kind of slow and continuous decline that anyone who's seen up close a company can identify with that is dying.
It is a cloud of existential dread that hangs over an organization whose best days are already over.
A good way to think about Facebook's problems is that they come in two basic forms: problems caused by having too many users, and problems with having too few users the company wants: young Americans, culture makers, and mentors. The currents that advertisers aspire to reach.
Leaked Facebook documents show the image of a large and powerful company that is on its way to death (The New York Times)
The Facebook documents contain evidence of both forms. For example, one portion of the files looked at the company's failed attempts to stop criminal activity and human rights abuses in developing countries, a problem exacerbated by Facebook's habit of expanding into countries with few employees and local expertise. limited.
But this kind of problem can be fixed, or at least improved, with adequate resources and focus.
The second type of problem is when taste leaders give up your platforms en masse, that's what kills you.
It appears that Facebook executives are most concerned about it.
Take the third article in the paper's series, which revealed how Facebook's 2018 decision to change its News Feed algorithm for users to emphasize "meaningful social interactions" has in turn fueled anger and discontent.
At the time, changing the algorithm was portrayed as a noble push for healthier conversations.
But internal reports revealed that it was an attempt to reverse a years-long decline in user interaction.
Likes, shares and comments on the platform have been declining, as has the so-called “original posts” metric.
The executives tried to reverse that backtracking by reorganizing the page's updates algorithm to promote content that got a lot of comments and feedback, which turned out to be roughly equivalent to "content that makes people so angry".
"Protecting our community is more important than maximizing our profits," said Joe Osborne, a Facebook spokesperson.
"Saying that we're turning a blind eye to the comments ignores these investments, including the 40,000 people working on safety and security at Facebook, and our $13 billion investment since 2016."
It's too early to say Facebook is dead, as the company's stock price has risen nearly 30% in the past year, buoyed by strong ad revenue and a sharp rise in use of some of its products during the pandemic.
Facebook is still growing in countries outside the United States, and it can thrive there even if it stumbles locally in America.
The company has invested heavily in newer initiatives, such as augmented and virtual reality products, which, if successful, could turn the tide.
Facebook can be in decline, and at the same time it is true that it remains one of the most influential companies in history, with its ability to shape politics and culture around the world.
But Facebook's research tells an obvious story, and it's not a happy one, with younger users flocking to Snapchat and TikTok, and older users posting "photo montages" against vaccines and arguing about politics.
Some Facebook products are shrinking rapidly, while others are making their users angry or ashamed about themselves.
None of this means that Facebook is not strong, that it should not be regulated, or that its actions do not warrant scrutiny.
Facebook can be in decline, and at the same time it is true that it remains one of the most influential companies in history, with its ability to shape politics and culture around the world.
But we should not mistake this state of justification as a health obsession, or get confused and think that desperate podium flops are a show of strength.
In the end, Godzilla died, and as the leaked company documents show, so too will Facebook.
© New York Times Foundation 2021
Moved to Arabic by "Al Jazeera's Leadership" page