So, Mark Zuckerberg wants to repent for Facebook's sins? He can start here Ellen P. Goodman

During Yom Kippur, Zuckerberg apologized for Facebook's mistakes. True repentance requires change - and there is no better time to begin than now

Together with his Jewish counterparts, Mark Zuckerberg introspected on Yom Kippur and apologized through Facebook for "those I wounded this year ... for the ways in which my work was used to divide people rather than meet." He promised to "work to do better."

Presumably, Zuckerberg was referring to the two types of damage that Facebook has recently recognized causing: allowing Russian citizens to buy Facebook ads to help Donald Trump's 2016 campaign and allow the purchase of advertisements in terms of hateful pursuit.

He took the congressional investigations, an investigation of a special lawyer and a great report from Politico for Facebook to confess these sins. It took President Obama by pulling Mark Zuckerberg aside shortly after the election and teaching him Facebook's responsibility to distribute electoral lies.

But even so, Zuckerberg might have known these revelations by shrugging. After all, Facebook has argued that it is "simply a platform" for good and for bad. Taking at least the rhetorical responsibility for the serious illness that Facebook has done is a good step.

Facebook has committed other sins that are more ingrained and far-reaching, however. First, its algorithm wraps users in filter bubbles and reduces transverse content, thus increasing political polarization.

As Zeynep Tufekci has observed: "You are seeing less news with which you would not agree with those shared by your friends because the algorithm does not show them to you." Far from admitting this sin, Facebook continues to insist that the fault belongs to the user, not the algorithm. In fact, they are mutually dependent.
Second, Facebook structures its relationships with news providers to deprive journalism of advertising revenue and user data, while at the same time directing the news to the forms and formats that the Facebook algorithm likes.

The Tow Center for Digital Media reports how Facebook has eviscerated the economic base and editorial autonomy of the media, insisting that the platform promotes civic virtue. One hopes that when Zuckerberg hit his chest, he also named these practices.

If we take Zuckerberg's invocation of Jewish tradition seriously, what would it really mean to repent for Facebook's sins?

In Hebrew, repentance is "teshuvah". He has the feeling of returning, doing everything, not just asking for forgiveness. True teshuvah requires naming sin, repairing harm, and participating in "tzedakah," that is, doing justice, including giving to charity.

True repentance requires change. There is reason to believe that Mark Zuckerberg, as a person, wants to be good. In his opening address at Harvard in 2017, he tells his young daughter that she should make her life a blessing. However, so far, before the criticism that Facebook is betraying its affirmed values, the company has responded with lukewarmness.

By early 2016, when it was already clear that viral transmission of lies was a problem, the company took modest action. He contracted with a few dozen independent publishers to downgrade false content into Facebook's "trend themes" in favor of more reliable media sources.

That they were only contract workers and not many in that demonstrated Facebook's ambivalence about the effort. When the company was accused of favoring leftist sources (not true), it dismissed the project altogether, saying that it would simply duplicate algorithmic control.

After the 2016 election, Facebook promised to provide users with better information about misleading content. But here again it was based on user-generated indicators and the voluntary efforts of independent data inspectors who could not expect to continue with information flows. A recent study shows that fact-checking is not working to reduce the circulation of lies, and may even be counterproductive.

We can not know what could have produced a more intense effort. Facebook has said that it will deal with its advertising sins. Repentance will require just over half of the measures, only partially implemented.

Allowing the public to see what pieces of persuasion the advertisers have bought is a good first step. We need a lot more transparency on how power is being exercised on the platform.

Facebook has to deal with the fact that it makes sense in the world - it is the main creator of meaning. Through its algorithm and advertising practices, promulgate an editorial policy that is not neutral and not knowable. Facebook must begin to make editorial decisions, expose them and defend them without fleeing.

The repentance is reactive. If Zuckerberg really wants to move, he must pay. The third step in the "do better" process is to do justice. In his February "manifesto" Zuckerberg acknowledged that "a strong news industry is also critical to building an informed community ... There is more we must do to support to the news industry to make sure that this vital social function is sustainable. " Facebook, what will you do? I recommended the last year that Facebook endow a fund for local news. Google News Labs has contributed to this goal by partnering with the Groundtruth Project to launch Report for America, which aims to put 1,000 journalists in local newsrooms. The personal fortune of Mark Zuckerberg is estimated at about 60,000 million dollars and has been charitable. It should endow a fund to support local investigative journalism, totally independent of Facebook and any editorial intrusion, would not solve the problems of viral lies, polarization, hate speech and other degradations that Facebook must possess. But we can not expect to get our way out of attention markets that reward scandalous nonsense unless content providers can be paid without Facebook busking according to their algorithm. Facebook must love the news enough to release it. Let's hope Zuckerberg wants to say what this Yom Kippur said. Or he will return next year looking for forgiveness "For the sin that we have committed before Thee for swearing in vain."