Why Zuckerberg's testimony has me thinking about the kind of world we want to live in

I had conflicting emotions watching Mark Zuckerberg testify before Congress this week. In many ways, it felt like a significant milestone for Facebook and our whole industry—a delayed rite of passage into something resembling adulthood. Adulthood is confusing.

Naturally, my first instinct was to take to social media with a stream-of-consciousness hot take. Fortunately, my phone battery died, and by the time I got to a charger, I had untangled my thoughts and feelings into seven more or less coherent points:

1. Overall, I'm glad that Facebook exists. For all its flaws, I think the world is a significantly better place because Facebook is in it. Facebook has succeeded in connecting a vast segment of the world's population in ways that are mostly benign and occasionally important. There are real problems, but the good outweighs the bad. For now.

2. Despite the rampant Twitter memes, I think Mark Zuckerberg presented himself well, or at least as well as possible given the situation. He seemed reasonably well informed, prepared, and authentic. There were a few awkward and evasive moments, but Mark was mostly unflappable. The politicians he was facing had much more experience, much less to lose, and every incentive to play a zero-sum game. I don't think I could have done as well.

I hope this performance means that the “shy and painfully awkward smart kid that can’t talk publicly” meme gets buried for good. It hasn’t been true for years, and it's been unfair to Mark while also letting him off the hook. Mark Zuckerberg is a mature, competent, and impressive CEO of an important public company. He is fully capable of facing public scrutiny and morally required to do so. 

3. The fundamental long-term problem for Facebook is that its business model—selling micro-targeted ads for third-party products—has almost nothing to do with its core mission of connecting people. This model also has nothing to do with the product as most people experience it. This fundamental incompatibility will continue to cause problems as Facebook matures and revenue growth becomes more important than adherence to their mission as a real-time measure of success.

Core misalignment between product and revenue model is not an inevitable fate of large tech companies. Apple has alignment: It makes money when people buy iPhones, so its top priority is to make desirable new iPhones. Amazon has alignment: It makes money when people buy things, so its top priority is to offer a great store. What do Facebook users want? How many steps does it take for Facebook to make money from that? Each additional step is an opportunity for conflict of interest.

4. It’s genuinely impressive that Facebook has moved to solve some of the problems identified since the 2016 elections. Not everything is fixed, and many things aren't fixed as well as they could be, but the service is significantly better on security, privacy, and user control than it was a few months ago. 

Facebook became the top social network by beating their competitors on speed and execution, and they still have solid technical chops when the pressure is on. 

Let's hope that Facebook's top priority continues to be solving these problems.

5. I’m in favor of regulation in our industry. I also worry that some obvious rules, like outlawing the sale of customer data to third parties, might unintentionally entrench Facebook’s data monopoly without affecting their business. As Mark Zuckerberg pointed out, Facebook doesn't sell customer data directly to advertisers; rather, they sell an advertising service and use customer data to target those ads on their platform. 

It’s a fine distinction, but if we make it illegal to pass customer data between companies, then the only ads that work will be on Facebook. 

Our industry and government need to come up with effective regulations that minimize unintended consequences. I’m glad to see Facebook embrace that mandate rather than retreating to the typical industry response of fighting all regulation, but let's make sure smaller companies join the conversation. 

6. The good news for Facebook: The bad actors—scammers, criminals, fraudsters, foreign agents—probably represent an infinitesimal percentage of their overall ad revenue. They can hopefully identify and excise them, through a combination of AI and customer validation, without touching the rest of their business. 

The bad news: It's hard to tell who'll win the arms race, the bad actors or the cops Facebook puts up in their way. “A few bad apples,” sure, but if Facebook doesn't get rid of them quickly and aggressively, those bad apples will ruin the whole $40-billion-a-year barrel.

7. The most insidious problem for society is that we've built an attention economy optimized for clicks. Facebook is the most visible manifestation of that attention economy. People pay more attention—and they click more—when they’re angry. Knowing this, we’ve designed a world that keeps the maximum number of people angry about the maximum number of things for the maximum amount of time. 

The attention economy sucks. It’s infected our media, culture, and politics. It’s not sustainable. We’re all at fault, and we should all shoulder the responsibility of fixing it.

We need to imagine a world where the easiest way to make money is not to rile people up. Then we need to show up, act like grown-ups, and create that world.

[We talk about these issues on the All Turtles Podcast. Tune in and join us.]