On Monday Facebook and the two other apps it owns, Whatsapp and Instagram went down for 6 hours prompting many users to freak out while other brands had a field day on another social media platform, Twitter.
The outage was caused by a faulty configuration change and resulted in founder and chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg losing around $7bn (R105bn) of his wealth.
This all while news broke last week of Frances Haugen, a former Facebook employee who blew the whistle on the social media behemoth saying the company had prioritised profits over safety and mental health.
Yesterday, Haugen testified before the United States Congress about documents she took away from the company showing that Facebook “knowingly prioritised profits over the wellbeing of its users”
Many have cited the benefit to their mental health of deleting Facebook while the consensus from yesterday’s Senate committee hearing is that self-regulation of social media companies no longer works.
A view shared by US President Joe Biden.
It will be interesting to see whether this is indeed the massive cultural reset that has been coming for some time and whether governments will now see fit to intervene and regulate for profit social media companies like Facebook, who tightly cling to the protections freedom of speech laws afford them.
Here’s what else is making news today:
South African’s have long held the belief that former public protector Thuli Madonsela would make an excellent state president. Well, Melanie Verwoerd agrees and she’s penned a column in News24 stating her support for Madonsela and a mostly female cabinet too. (For subscribers)
And speaking of Thuli Madonsela, she has written a piece for Daily Maverick outline the critical necessity for the pursuit of social justice.
In the Sunday Times Daily, Caiphus Kgosana writes about the Democratic Alliance’s controversial new election campaign posters, which are causing a stir in Phoenix, KwaZulu-Natal. (Register to read)
Justice Malala writes in the Financial Mail about three very important issues that political parties have neglected or aren’t talking about in their local government elections rhetoric. (For subscribers)
Is economic growth causing more harm than good to the planet? Michael Kwet and Tshiamo Malatji say it is in their joint effort in the Mail & Guardian.
