Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now

by Jaron Lanier

Don’t forget that Facebook had already noisily published research proving it can change voter turnout.19 In the published research, Facebook used the cheerful example of boosting voter turnout. But since Facebook is all about targeting and can calculate your political affiliation, among many other things,20 and since it has also proven it can make people sad,21 it is likely that social networks can also be used to suppress voters who have been targeted because of how they are likely to vote. None of this means that Facebook prefers one kind of voter to another. That’s up to Facebook’s customers, who are not you, the users. Facebook doesn’t necessarily know what’s going on. A social media company is in a better position if it doesn’t know what’s going on, because then it makes just as much money, but with less culpability.