Thank you for a concise, cogent and persuasive response.

I have to agree with virtually everything you’ve written, though I still have no answer, other than by implication, of my original question.

For the record, I am not ‘blaming’ a society and the many letters, probably hundreds, that I have sent directly to politicians, the visits I have made to their offices, and my online emails, posts, and participation in petitions is evidence that I do not ‘let leadership off the hook’, though I would probably have used ‘those responsible’ rather than ‘leadership’, for I rarely see anything that I would consider leadership among the majority of politicians, business executives and highest office holders.

I agree that the bulk of the population have been, in one way or another, coerced or indoctrinated or socialised to their simplistic views and adoption of a selfish and greedy and morally vacuous mentality. At the same time, I and others who were raised in and experienced the same society, have resisted that temptation and sought to identify just what is happening and, to the extent that we can, avoid being a part of it. So, I do believe that the individual has to accept some accountability but I don’t see that as blame so much as a necessity if change for the better is to be achieved. We do, after all, appoint political roles, at least in the main, on the basis of majorities.

Your analysis of what will happen to Facebook may well turn out to be true, though I think that if it is, I probably won’t be alive to see it. As I’m now 73 that doesn’t mean that it has to be a long way off but I wouldn’t expect it to happen in the next decade.

I also remain skeptical because of one of your own, very true and pertinent statements: “understanding why humans behave the way they do is as important as understanding the behavior itself.” Yes, that’s so but if your analysis of why they, (the people in society), do as they do is correct, then change can only come about if the truly responsible, their “leaders” in your words, actually change their behaviour. I see no sign of that happening. If anything I see an ever increasing tendency across nations for the adoption of ever more neoliberalist approaches to government and business.

All of that, as I read it, tends to indicate that far from Facebook facing demise, it may well even gain in strength.

I sincerely hope that, if Facebook cannot change to be a platform for honesty and truth, free from manipulation and use by those who choose to manipulate and use if for nefarious ends, that your analysis is right and it ceases to exist.

Yet again, however, (and call me stupid or thick or a simpleton, if you must), it seems to me that I am left without an answer to my question of whether it is better to quit an undesirable entity or stay within and work to change it for the better from within.

The answers I am receiving imply, certainly, that I should reinquish my membership but do so on the basis that Facebook is a harmful platform managed by people with nefarious motives and that encourages the inculcation and promotion of falsity and harmful content by those who use it.

Whilst that analysis of Facebook’s nature may be true, (and I tend to think that it is), it only offers one solution, i.e. to leave. I still have no explanation of why it wouldn’t be better for those who see the flaws to retain membership and promote the platform’s use for ‘good’ or even, of why that is a poorer option or one that wouldn’t or couldn’t work.