While news organizations were dancing to Facebook’s tune they neglected their biggest treasure: their own sites, and most importantly, what remained of their own social networks. Their readers. More and more advertising was crammed into busier and busier Desktop-Websites that fewer and fewer would visit. Their headlines and leads fed Facebook. Headlines and leads are what most people read, so Facebook was happy. Readers were happy too because they didn’t have to type URLs anymore to scan a couple of headlines.

He went as far as claiming that posts on Facebook were “99% authentic”… which may leave those who have spent some time on social networks asking: Does he ever use his own product? Is Zuckerberg real?

Taking a step back from news is good for PR and good for China: facebook’s decision to downgrade publishers in their newsfeed seems like a knee jerk reaction to the negative reputation the company has since Trump’s election and the scrutiny it has come under for its role in Brexit or the Catalonia crisis. And then there are reports about declining user engagement and there is the overall shift towards ‚private social‘ i.e. chat apps. But there is more to it. […] Wrapping too much journalism around your brand is a mistake for any platform hoping to still make it into China, which is one of Mark Zuckerberg’s great ambitions.

Everything that Facebook does in the near future has to be interpreted in the stark neon light of fighting antitrust laws. Zuckerberg is ready for big sacrifices to avoid the governmental beatdown. Cutting news organizations out of the main feed already cost him 3.3 Billion. He knew that beforehand. He also knew that news organizations would not love him for his big change of mind. But compared to having the government step in and break up the Facebook Kingdom, 3.3 Billion and a couple of angry journalists is a very small price.

An expert in persuasive technology, he described the techniques that tech platforms use to create addiction and the ways they exploit that addiction to increase profits. He called it “brain hacking.”

Thanks to the U.S. government’s laissez-faire approach to regulation, the internet platforms were able to pursue business strategies that would not have been allowed in prior decades. No one stopped them from using free products to centralize the internet and then replace its core functions. No one stopped them from siphoning off the profits of content creators. No one stopped them from gathering data on every aspect of every user’s internet life. No one stopped them from amassing market share not seen since the days of Standard Oil. No one stopped them from running massive social and psychological experiments on their users. No one demanded that they police their platforms. It has been a sweet deal.