Facebook's alternate reality

In Facebook’s alternate reality, a town square is a place for the free expression of views, where people and communities come together to find a sense of common purpose and belonging. Facebook’s living room, by the same logic, is a more intimate, personal version of this. In reality, Facebook’s town square is a place where people are ruthlessly surveilled, where hopes and dreams are turned into data profiles and sold to the highest bidder. It is a town square where all the white supremacists get handed free megaphones. In Facebook’s digital living room, your every utterance is used to sell you weird trousers or encourage you to join a group campaigning to “stop white genocide in Suid Afrika”.

James Temperton, Facebook’s Australia news ban is the best decision it’s ever made