Tag: René Girard

Share A month ago the novelist Jay Seliger asked “Is there an actual Facebook crisis, or media narrative about Facebook crisis?” After two years of criticism of the company, he noted, its users are still on board. Seliger remarks that an earlier New York Times story “reads a lot like a media narrative that has very little to do with users’ actual lives.” Seliger asserts that Facebook is “a Girardian scapegoat for a media ecosystem that is unable or unwilling to consider its own role” in the election of Donald Trump. (On Rene Girard see this). But Trump himself, his campaign, and those who voted for him bear responsibility for his election; to be more accurate those who voted for him in a small number of states like Michigan and Wisconsin put him in the White House. After all, Facebook might have prevented Trump’s victory by refusing to sell advertising to his campaign and by suppressing a significant part of advocacy for his election on the platform. Perhaps more than a few people believe Facebook helped elect Donald Trump not because of what it did but because of what it did not do. The bad publicity and even government investigations might go away if Facebook refuses to sell ads to Trump’s re-election campaign and suppresses at least the worst speech of his supporters. In this latter case, Republicans too might end up asking Mark Zuckerberg what he’s willing to do to make the pain end. Facebook may moderate (and suppress) content on its platform. It’s not a road we want to follow to its end.