According to some critics, Facebook is responsible for almost every evil ever invented. The social media platform, under the corporate parent Meta, violates our privacy, sells our personal information to the highest bidders, monopolizes the media, earns undeserved billions in profit all but hourly, single-handedly killed print journalism, manipulates our minds with sinister algorithms, spreads inflammatory political disinformation, cultivates an epidemic of manic selfie narcissism, forces us to adopt bogus personas and induces loneliness, envy, anxiety, depression and suicidal tendencies.
And that’s just on a slow day.
I happen to feel largely otherwise. Speak out all you want against Facebook — and I know you will — but I’ve long seen it mainly as a force for good, especially around holidays such as Christmas. Thanks to Facebook, I accomplish a feat possible only 50 years ago mostly through phone calls and letters sent by mail: I stay current with almost all the people I know.
