The Communities Trapped on Facebook

The utility of Facebook Groups has at times extended beyond interpersonal connection: During the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic, medical professionals used the feature to share important information and resources about COVID-19. And groups like “Infantile Spasms” that focus on rare medical conditions can be indispensable to those desperat... See more

“These [groups] are pockets of democratic self-governance within a largely antidemocratic space,” Beth Simone Noveck, one of the report’s authors, told me over the phone. In fact, the Groups feature was promoted, in part, to rehabilitate the company’s “antidemocratic” reputation.

Even though the group, which plans real-life and virtual events for plant lovers, has an Instagram account and an email listserv, Duvall finds that the community it cultivates on Facebook is ultimately more active. Nurturing that rare level of connection can feel more important than other concerns people may have about Facebook’s ethics.

Several Facebook-group administrators and members described to me the conundrum of relying on an imperfect platform to create strong, and for many people invaluable, communities. They understand that their groups exist on a controversial site, but they also say that not many alternatives have the capacity to build fellowship the way that Facebook d... See more