Will 'Facebook papers' be final nudge for social media regulations?

All that we suspected about social media – that it advances hate-filled content and induces anxiety and depression among youngsters – seems to be increasingly coming in the glare and drawing regulators’ serious attention.

The Facebook papers, the social media giant’s internal research documents leaked by former employee-turned-whistleblower Frances Haugen, suggest that Facebook was acutely aware that its platform was being used to spread misinformation and propagate hate and violence in many countries.

Haugen has also accused the company of harming children and weakening democracy.

The Facebooks papers, among other things, suggest that Facebook’s algorithm favours hateful content and that Instagram might be worsening body image issues among teenage audiences.

The importance of these findings cannot be fully appreciated unless one grasps the size of the Facebook universe.

With an active monthly user base of 2.74 billion, Facebook has a 59% share of the world’s social networking population.

In India, which is its largest market by user base, Facebook has 410 million users. Add to that the user base of the company’s other platforms – WhatsApp has 530 million users and Instagram 210 million. As much as 75% of the country’s social networking population uses Facebook.

If we undertake a deeper examination of the allegation against Facebook — that it is promoting hate-filled content on users’ news feeds — then we need to delve into what could be the possible incentive for doing such a thing.

The answer might lie in Facebook's business model, which is advertising-driven.

Advertisers want more visibility and want to reach more and more users.

And according to Facebook's own research – as revealed by Haugen to CBS' 60 Minutes – Facebook users stay hooked to the app when they see content that plays to their prejudices and inspires an angry reaction in them.

She said: "Facebook has realised that if they change the algorithm to be safer, people will spend less time on the site, they'll click on less ads, they'll make less money.”

Facebook, meanwhile, has countered these allegations. Its CEO Mark Zuckerberg said: “The argument that we deliberately push content that makes people angry for profit is deeply illogical. We make money from ads, and advertisers consistently tell us they don’t want their ads next to harmful or angry content.”

The clamour for regulations for big tech social media companies is growing. But is it possible to rein in these big tech players who’ve grown bigger in financial muscle than most countries even?

Recently, there were reports that India was considering revoking the ‘safe harbour’ provision, which allows social media platforms to avoid liability in case ‘illegal content’ is circulated on their platforms.