How many million dollars does Zuckerberg pay for noise?

Just as thirty years ago there were families who supplemented their income by assembling pens at home, it seems that in Indonesia it has become popular to earn extra money by milking social networks. In the end, Facebook and Instagram gave 3 billion dollars to content creators who are capable of achieving a certain number of interactions. And, as an investigation by the Guardian revealed, the Asian country is home to a multitude of meme farms that flood political forums worldwide with junk and scandalous content. In some cases, they are the pawns who execute campaigns decided by state propaganda apparatuses: some point, others execute, and Mark Zuckerberg pays the bill, because he recovers all this toxicity in the form of advertising. The newspaper also explains that not all campaigns seem to have a genuinely political or ideological motivation. Some of these companies simply fill the ether of the networks with intoxications because virality – even if it is the virality of anger – brings them money. And this shows that the product has a fundamental design flaw, as it promotes the infoxication that damages democracies and spurs episodes of violence. 

Among the many explanations that Meta should give, one that is not at all minor is that it analyzes how many of these 3 billion euros go to the industry of contention. Furthermore, one only needs to look at a world map to see that the governments that are best exploiting toxic information ecosystems are those of the far-right. And this should make us see that, no matter how much the idea that they are neutral platforms is sold, they end up having undeniable biases. The notion that poisoning cannot be a business should have enough support (both popular and institutional) to become a legislative priority. And the EU is the only one with the capacity to lead this issue with a minimum of options.