Time to unfriend Facebook?

For the past 18 months, communicating the findings of science to the world has hit what sometimes seems like an all-time low. Never mind the years of failure in convincing much of the public about climate change; the pandemic has revealed shocking ineptness(拙劣)by the scientific establishment at conveying messages about masks, vaccination, or the dangers of consuming horse drugs and aquarium cleaners—even in the face of a rising death toll from COVID-19. One puzzling element of this crisis is how social media has been skillfully exploited by antiscience forces. Given all of this, what is the right move for science communication as it relates to social media? Unfriend Facebook or beat it at its own game?

A few months ago, New York Times reporters Cecilia Kang and Sheera Frenkel published An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook’s Battle for Domination, in which they explored how the world’s largest social network, Facebook, fills its coffers by exploiting the viral spread of misinformation while trying to convince everyone of its noble mission to connect the world. Kang told me that she believes the algorithms and business practices of Facebook and other social media companies that encourage misinformation erect huge barriers, keeping people from paying attention to authoritative scientific information. Her ideas for combating this begin with understanding two kinds of misinformation that propagate through these powerful social networks. One is the news that is blatantly wrong. These posts are sometimes taken down but mostly flagged by Facebook’s algorithms with a disclaimer, which most people ignore. This has only a minor effect on stopping their spread. Kang sees an even bigger problem: the misinformation that arises from conversational posts among individuals. This kind of informal misinformation is frustrating because it’s not easy to police the people you know from saying crazy things on Facebook. The result is that both kinds of misinformation tend to rise to the top of Facebook’s news feeds because they get more engagement than posts about recent research findings reported in scholarly scientific articles or even in the mainstream press.

Communicating about research in real time is hard because science is always a work in progress, with caveats and answers that are not always definitive. That doesn’t translate well to social media or Facebook’s algorithms that determine which posts to promote. “Oftentimes that kind of content just does not work well in terms of engagement,” Kang said, “because it’s not the kind of stuff that people will immediately try to share.” The antiscience opposition doesn’t care about the caveats. Kang pointed out that “super figures” on social media, such as Ben Shapiro and Dan Bongino, have built up a loyal following of people who will believe them no matter what.

As tempting as it may be for frustrated scientists to simply delete their Facebook accounts and avoid this dreck, Kang believes that a better approach for them is to engage more aggressively by being “out there,” competing for people’s attention by the same rules. Refusing to play hardball on the social media field is not serving science or society well. The pandemic has seen the rise of numerous scientists on Twitter who have amassed relatively large followings, but their presence on Facebook is much smaller. Although Twitter is a powerful platform for political messages that get liked and retweeted, people tend to trust individuals they know on Facebook, making it powerful for changing hearts and minds. To do battle in this arena, science will need to find its own super figures who can compete directly with the Shapiros and Bonginos of the antiscience world. Some of these new figures might be practicing scientists, and some might be science communicators. What is crucial is a knack for cutting through the caveats and conditions and forcefully conveying the bottom line. Like their opponents, they need to be adept at strategically exploiting the algorithms that can push a post to the forefront or bury it in the never-ending racket.

Since the end of World War II, scientists have stick to the idea that if they stay objective and state the science, then the rest of the world will follow. As the pandemic cycles on, it’s time to face the fact that this old notion is naive.

【小题1】Correct science information can’t convey to the public because             .

A．The scientists are incapable.

B．The government doesn’t want to alarm the public.

C．The organization which against science is too strong.

D．The public are not willing to receive the information.

【小题2】What’s the real meaning of the title “Time to unfriend Facebook” according to the passage?

A．We shouldn’t use Facebook.

B．Most information released on Facebook is unreal.

C．Scientists on Facebook are frequently banned to post their thoughts.

D．Facebook is becoming a tool of scientists.

【小题3】How do Facebook block so many authority science information?

A．By using misleading algorithms.

B．By deleting the posts of some scientists’.

C．By stopping their services.

D．By setting obstacles caused by information asymmetry(信息不对称).

【小题4】What does the writer want to express to the government or the society?

A．The government should not intervene the activities of netizens.

B．Facebook should relax their control towards the information about the pandemic.

C．It is ridiculous for the society to ban the useful and trustworthy messages.

D．The government should publish things about pandemic to comfort the public.