Dylan, German, and Dara talk about Facebook and the controversy surrounding it in recent weeks. They cover just how much — and how little — we know about Facebook’s impact on the world and talk about whether there are good policy solutions to Facebook’s problems. For the white paper of the week, they break down a study on free school lunch programs.

References:

• The Wall Street Journal’s reporting on how Facebook’s efforts to improve the platform backfired 
• The Washington Post’s reporting on how Facebook prioritized “angry” over “like”
• The Washington Post’s reporting on Facebook picking engagement over fighting misinformation
• Section 230 basics, explained 
• Vox’s Recode Daily podcast
• What happened when experimenters paid people to deactivate Facebook before the 2018 midterms
• Max Fisher and Amanda Taub on Facebook-inspired anti-Muslim violence in Sri Lanka
• Facebook did enable the Arab Spring
• Farhad Manjoo on how bad regulations could make Facebook worse
• A child psychologist on what we don’t know about Instagram’s effect on teen girls 
• Kevin Drum’s counter-takes on Facebook
• NBER study on school lunch programs reducing grocery costs

Hosts:

Dylan Matthews (@dylanmatt), senior correspondent, Vox

German Lopez (@germanrlopez), senior correspondent, Vox

Dara Lind (@dlind), immigration reporter, ProPublica

Credits:

Sofi LaLonde, producer & engineer

Libby Nelson, editorial advisor

Amber Hall, deputy editorial director of talk podcasts

Sign up for The Weeds newsletter each Friday: vox.com/weedsletter 

Want to support The Weeds? Please consider making a donation to Vox: bit.ly/givepodcasts

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices