9 ms·

"We are taking a data-driven, product-driven approach to doing good in the world." If anything - if research is to be trusted - all they've done is make a bill

by hedgew 11y ago

"We are taking a data-driven, product-driven approach to doing good in the world." If anything - if research is to be trusted - all they've done is make a billion people slightly unhappier by manipulating the way people socialize. If Facebook has done good; show me the data. So far the data seems to indicate that internet.org is comparable to releasing swarms of burrowing parasites upon the poorest of the world.

SpaghettiCat 11y ago
The good they've done is fill the demand of 1/6 of the world's population who use the site. > So far the data seems to indicate that internet.org is comparable to releasing swarms of burrowing parasites upon the poorest of the world. Haven't a clue what you mean by this analogy.
- ZenoArrow 11y ago
  > "Haven't a clue what you mean by this analogy." The analogy is used because the benefit of Facebook as a tool to improve social relations is questionable. EDIT: For those downvoting, feel free to tell me why you disagree.
  - roymurdock 11y ago
    I didn't downvote, but you failed to explain how Facebook's product could figuratively resemble a swarm of burrowing parasites. The original author is trying to hint at his perception of Facebook as a time/energy leech, and its ability to become deeply ingrained in someone's life, to the point where the person might not even realize they're carrying such a leech around. It also highlights the product's highly distributed nature. Seems a bit macabre and dramatic to me, but there you go.
    - ZenoArrow 11y ago
      > "It also highlights the product's highly distributed nature." As far as I can see, that's not why the analogy was used. Clearly my interpretation was not clear enough, so to spell it out: A mission to spread Facebook to those who haven't been connected to the Internet yet is not necessarily a noble goal. It is only a noble goal if Facebook is a net positive in people's lives. If it is a net negative then spreading Facebook further through a program like Internet.org could do more harm than good. The less problematic features of Internet.org could be seen as the sugar coating on top of a less attractive proposition, parasites that disrupt how people relate to each other. I don't use Facebook that much, and I know some that are happy to use it casually, but I also know people who appear to be practically addicted to it. It's not too much to ask that we examine whether its benefits outweigh its drawbacks.
rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
I am seeing more of this attitude towards Silicon Valley every day. I really do hope the world's leading startup and tech habitat realizes that people are starting to get creeped out by data dicks tracking their every move and the arrogance of twentysomething billionaires who see the only way to a better world being more people who buy their products. One can only hope that a society of successful nerds re-learns the consequence of not being cool.
- something123 11y ago
  I'm gunna defend the otherside here. As a recent post on HN pointed out, when Google Maps happened people were outraged that you could look into their yards. Same thing with Street-View. Zuckerburg just understands that we're moving into a post-privacy world and they're really pushing the envelope here. For example I think people were outraged by Graph Search, but I think if they were to have released it in 2 years it would have been received differently. People were at first creeped out by Google Now and Amazon Echo, but now most people don't mind. The thing they should worry about is pushing the envelope too far and too fast. I think for-instance WeChat would have totally destroy Facebook if it weren't for its Chinese-gov't tentacles. It has a much saner privacy model where you only see things from your friends ( not to mention it has a much simpler and nicer interface )
  - halflings 11y ago
    What does `post-privacy world` even mean? Who decided that that's where we're going and there's no alternative?
    - kifler 11y ago
      I think the assertion is that Joe Public doesn't really care about his/her privacy anymore provided they consent to it's initial release. It seems to me that over a billion people are fine giving their privacy over to Twitter/Facebook/Instagram/<insert other company> but not necessarily the Government (of any country).
watmough 11y ago
Facebook's editorial control of users' postings makes it feel I have no control over when/where my own updates appear, thus rendering it irrelevant to me, though I do use it to follow others. Also, the bulk of my friends on Facebook, by and large, regurgitate garbage 'viral' content I have no interest in. Links to interesting content for me, are on Twitter, Bandcamp and YC.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  Facebook's editorial control of users' posting is the natural consequence of you having way too many people in your circle of friends. Average FB user has how many - 100 friends? 500 friends? If Facebook showed you all updates from everyone, as well as the large mass of fanpages you've subscribed to, you'd drown in the noise. The point being, any usable social network will have to filter user postings.
  - chadgeidel 11y ago
    I've got fewer than 100 "friends" and there are a few whose posts don't show up in my newsfeed. I think their algorithm for showing what people post is fundamentally broken. Yes, I've gone through the "like/follow/show all posts" dance several times.
    - TeMPOraL 11y ago
      I did the dance too, initially, but quickly got used to the new model. I have > 500 friends, so the chronological show-all model would seriously degrade the utility of Facebook (though I am annoyed when I accidentally refresh the feed and lose the posts I only wanted to read). It was a long time since I had < 100 friends, so I'm willing to believe the current model is broken for small amounts of Facebook relations.
      - chadgeidel 11y ago
        "Just live with the way things are" has pretty much been my model for online services for many years now. It's the only way I can maintain some amount of sanity.
cauterize 11y ago
If Facebook hadn't existed (nor any other high profile social network) I wouldn't have been invited to half the social events I've attended. Thus, I have a lot more friends than I did. Some data.
- pmlnr 11y ago
  And instead, you'd still have time to sleep, for hobbies; you could attend to less events for a longer time, or have meaningful conversations with fewer people. But true, a lot of friends with the ability to press a button or to select and emoji to communicate is way better.
  - soylentcola 11y ago
    I'm picking up your cynicism and I've got plenty of complaints about Facebook myself (mostly related to how it's a closed-off system that requires you to use their service to communicate with people, unlike email where you can choose your provider/host and still communicate with people who prefer others). That said, the idea that you automatically use such services for shallow, mass communication with large numbers of fleeting friends is sort of disingenuous. I keep an account there because like many people, it's a fairly effective way to coordinate with friends and family without creating long email chains or massive group texts. Not everyone is trying to be a social butterfly, resigning themselves to quantity over quality or neglecting sleep and hobbies. Plenty of us have people we'd like to keep in touch with and a place to announce events (cookouts or parties we're holding, concerts or camping trips we're attending, etc) so our other friends and acquaintances can find out about them and join us in person. I've currently got a closed group on there where 4 or 5 of us have been sharing our progress on some neat electronic art projects we're working on. It's not something we use at the expense of hobbies and interests but rather a common tool for us to casually collaborate and share the things we're interested in and working on. So yeah, I'd love if I could use Google+ or some other service where I like the interface and features better and I'd love if that didn't require everyone to "jump ship" at the same time. A common protocol between social forums (again, like email) would go a long way toward addressing the complaints I have with them. But since that's not likely to happen, I'll take occasionally checking my Facebook accounts for things people have shared with me over missing out on those conversations due to distance or personal time constraints. I don't live on Facebook but I stop by a few times a week when I feel like looking at Facebook. Haven't lost any sleep over it yet and I've developed quite a few hobbies around the communication that FB and other services foster.
forrestthewoods 11y ago
For me Facebook has generated approximately 70 happy points but only 15 unhappy points so it's a net positive. #Data More seriously, there is no way to respond to "show me the data". The data for Facebook being a net negative is weak as well. Despite living in the age of big data not everything can be quantified.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  For me it's like 150 / 20. I guess it's just that the vast majority of people who are satisfied with Facebook don't have anything to whine about, so we don't notice them. (And yes, they're there - you can hear them whining for a month every time Facebook does a significant UI change - a month it takes to get used to it.)
wslh 11y ago
>... by manipulating the way people socialize. I realized this not receiving some of my wife updates in my stream!
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  Mark her as "close friend" / tick "Get Notifications", and you'll get every update along with a handy notification for each. Hover over the " Friends" button on her profile to enable that.
marchenko 11y ago
Is there good data on how Facebook use affects mood (outside of experiments to manipulate it directly)? It certainly increases the costs of being a sociable non-facebook-user.
edanm 11y ago
I really don't get the argument here. If you don't like Facebook, don't use it. No one is forcing you. Many people choose to use Facebook, and in fact use it a lot more than almost any other site/application. Who are you to decide for someone else whether Facebook is good or not? Who are you to decide that these people aren't really getting something out of Facebook? Who are you to decide that they're all "manipulated", forced to do something they don't want to? Seriously, at what point is it considered arrogant to just assume that so many people are "wrong"? 1 billion people choosing to use Facebook sure sounds like a pretty compelling argument that Facebook provides them with at least some value.
- dev1n 11y ago
  There was a full blown study released stating Facebook actively manipulated users news feeds for something like 6 months [1]. That's one way to manipulate their emotions and such. [1]: https://www.google.com/search?q=facebook+study+manipulating+news+feeds&oq=facebook+study+manipulating+news+feeds https://www.google.com/search?q=facebook+study+manipulating+...
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    Oh, "manipulated". In no worse way than I'm manipulating you now by writing a hasty, little aggressively-toned response. Reading this comment will probably shift your mood a tiny percent down. Should I call my university's ethics board to ask if I can post this comment? The whole "Facebook manipulating emotions" fiasco is one of the most ridiculous things I've seen happening in the field of social sciences in front of my own eyes. And it illustrates a very dangerous thing about science reporting - hyperbolizing. Almost nobody reads the primary sources (like actual papers), so when a journalist starts using strong words like "manipulated", it colors people's interpretations of the issue, leading them to severly overestimating the meaning of the issue - lo and behold, you can create a shitstorm out of thin air. The way press was describing Facebook's "manipulating users' emotions" is akin to describing sneezing as an act of biological warfare. Scope matters.
    - dev1n 11y ago

by hedgew 11y ago

SpaghettiCat 11y ago

The good they've done is fill the demand of 1/6 of the world's population who use the site. > So far the data seems to indicate that internet.org is comparable to releasing swarms of burrowing parasites upon the poorest of the world. Haven't a clue what you mean by this analogy.

ZenoArrow 11y ago
> "Haven't a clue what you mean by this analogy." The analogy is used because the benefit of Facebook as a tool to improve social relations is questionable. EDIT: For those downvoting, feel free to tell me why you disagree.
- roymurdock 11y ago
  I didn't downvote, but you failed to explain how Facebook's product could figuratively resemble a swarm of burrowing parasites. The original author is trying to hint at his perception of Facebook as a time/energy leech, and its ability to become deeply ingrained in someone's life, to the point where the person might not even realize they're carrying such a leech around. It also highlights the product's highly distributed nature. Seems a bit macabre and dramatic to me, but there you go.
  - ZenoArrow 11y ago
    > "It also highlights the product's highly distributed nature." As far as I can see, that's not why the analogy was used. Clearly my interpretation was not clear enough, so to spell it out: A mission to spread Facebook to those who haven't been connected to the Internet yet is not necessarily a noble goal. It is only a noble goal if Facebook is a net positive in people's lives. If it is a net negative then spreading Facebook further through a program like Internet.org could do more harm than good. The less problematic features of Internet.org could be seen as the sugar coating on top of a less attractive proposition, parasites that disrupt how people relate to each other. I don't use Facebook that much, and I know some that are happy to use it casually, but I also know people who appear to be practically addicted to it. It's not too much to ask that we examine whether its benefits outweigh its drawbacks.

rm_-rf_slash 11y ago

I am seeing more of this attitude towards Silicon Valley every day. I really do hope the world's leading startup and tech habitat realizes that people are starting to get creeped out by data dicks tracking their every move and the arrogance of twentysomething billionaires who see the only way to a better world being more people who buy their products. One can only hope that a society of successful nerds re-learns the consequence of not being cool.

something123 11y ago
I'm gunna defend the otherside here. As a recent post on HN pointed out, when Google Maps happened people were outraged that you could look into their yards. Same thing with Street-View. Zuckerburg just understands that we're moving into a post-privacy world and they're really pushing the envelope here. For example I think people were outraged by Graph Search, but I think if they were to have released it in 2 years it would have been received differently. People were at first creeped out by Google Now and Amazon Echo, but now most people don't mind. The thing they should worry about is pushing the envelope too far and too fast. I think for-instance WeChat would have totally destroy Facebook if it weren't for its Chinese-gov't tentacles. It has a much saner privacy model where you only see things from your friends ( not to mention it has a much simpler and nicer interface )
- halflings 11y ago
  What does `post-privacy world` even mean? Who decided that that's where we're going and there's no alternative?
  - kifler 11y ago
    I think the assertion is that Joe Public doesn't really care about his/her privacy anymore provided they consent to it's initial release. It seems to me that over a billion people are fine giving their privacy over to Twitter/Facebook/Instagram/<insert other company> but not necessarily the Government (of any country).

watmough 11y ago

Facebook's editorial control of users' postings makes it feel I have no control over when/where my own updates appear, thus rendering it irrelevant to me, though I do use it to follow others. Also, the bulk of my friends on Facebook, by and large, regurgitate garbage 'viral' content I have no interest in. Links to interesting content for me, are on Twitter, Bandcamp and YC.

TeMPOraL 11y ago
Facebook's editorial control of users' posting is the natural consequence of you having way too many people in your circle of friends. Average FB user has how many - 100 friends? 500 friends? If Facebook showed you all updates from everyone, as well as the large mass of fanpages you've subscribed to, you'd drown in the noise. The point being, any usable social network will have to filter user postings.
- chadgeidel 11y ago
  I've got fewer than 100 "friends" and there are a few whose posts don't show up in my newsfeed. I think their algorithm for showing what people post is fundamentally broken. Yes, I've gone through the "like/follow/show all posts" dance several times.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    I did the dance too, initially, but quickly got used to the new model. I have > 500 friends, so the chronological show-all model would seriously degrade the utility of Facebook (though I am annoyed when I accidentally refresh the feed and lose the posts I only wanted to read). It was a long time since I had < 100 friends, so I'm willing to believe the current model is broken for small amounts of Facebook relations.
    - chadgeidel 11y ago
      "Just live with the way things are" has pretty much been my model for online services for many years now. It's the only way I can maintain some amount of sanity.

cauterize 11y ago

If Facebook hadn't existed (nor any other high profile social network) I wouldn't have been invited to half the social events I've attended. Thus, I have a lot more friends than I did. Some data.

pmlnr 11y ago
And instead, you'd still have time to sleep, for hobbies; you could attend to less events for a longer time, or have meaningful conversations with fewer people. But true, a lot of friends with the ability to press a button or to select and emoji to communicate is way better.
- soylentcola 11y ago
  I'm picking up your cynicism and I've got plenty of complaints about Facebook myself (mostly related to how it's a closed-off system that requires you to use their service to communicate with people, unlike email where you can choose your provider/host and still communicate with people who prefer others). That said, the idea that you automatically use such services for shallow, mass communication with large numbers of fleeting friends is sort of disingenuous. I keep an account there because like many people, it's a fairly effective way to coordinate with friends and family without creating long email chains or massive group texts. Not everyone is trying to be a social butterfly, resigning themselves to quantity over quality or neglecting sleep and hobbies. Plenty of us have people we'd like to keep in touch with and a place to announce events (cookouts or parties we're holding, concerts or camping trips we're attending, etc) so our other friends and acquaintances can find out about them and join us in person. I've currently got a closed group on there where 4 or 5 of us have been sharing our progress on some neat electronic art projects we're working on. It's not something we use at the expense of hobbies and interests but rather a common tool for us to casually collaborate and share the things we're interested in and working on. So yeah, I'd love if I could use Google+ or some other service where I like the interface and features better and I'd love if that didn't require everyone to "jump ship" at the same time. A common protocol between social forums (again, like email) would go a long way toward addressing the complaints I have with them. But since that's not likely to happen, I'll take occasionally checking my Facebook accounts for things people have shared with me over missing out on those conversations due to distance or personal time constraints. I don't live on Facebook but I stop by a few times a week when I feel like looking at Facebook. Haven't lost any sleep over it yet and I've developed quite a few hobbies around the communication that FB and other services foster.

forrestthewoods 11y ago

For me Facebook has generated approximately 70 happy points but only 15 unhappy points so it's a net positive. #Data More seriously, there is no way to respond to "show me the data". The data for Facebook being a net negative is weak as well. Despite living in the age of big data not everything can be quantified.

TeMPOraL 11y ago
For me it's like 150 / 20. I guess it's just that the vast majority of people who are satisfied with Facebook don't have anything to whine about, so we don't notice them. (And yes, they're there - you can hear them whining for a month every time Facebook does a significant UI change - a month it takes to get used to it.)

wslh 11y ago

>... by manipulating the way people socialize. I realized this not receiving some of my wife updates in my stream!

TeMPOraL 11y ago
Mark her as "close friend" / tick "Get Notifications", and you'll get every update along with a handy notification for each. Hover over the " Friends" button on her profile to enable that.

marchenko 11y ago

Is there good data on how Facebook use affects mood (outside of experiments to manipulate it directly)? It certainly increases the costs of being a sociable non-facebook-user.

edanm 11y ago

I really don't get the argument here. If you don't like Facebook, don't use it. No one is forcing you. Many people choose to use Facebook, and in fact use it a lot more than almost any other site/application. Who are you to decide for someone else whether Facebook is good or not? Who are you to decide that these people aren't really getting something out of Facebook? Who are you to decide that they're all "manipulated", forced to do something they don't want to? Seriously, at what point is it considered arrogant to just assume that so many people are "wrong"? 1 billion people choosing to use Facebook sure sounds like a pretty compelling argument that Facebook provides them with at least some value.

dev1n 11y ago
There was a full blown study released stating Facebook actively manipulated users news feeds for something like 6 months [1]. That's one way to manipulate their emotions and such. [1]: https://www.google.com/search?q=facebook+study+manipulating+news+feeds&oq=facebook+study+manipulating+news+feeds https://www.google.com/search?q=facebook+study+manipulating+...
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  Oh, "manipulated". In no worse way than I'm manipulating you now by writing a hasty, little aggressively-toned response. Reading this comment will probably shift your mood a tiny percent down. Should I call my university's ethics board to ask if I can post this comment? The whole "Facebook manipulating emotions" fiasco is one of the most ridiculous things I've seen happening in the field of social sciences in front of my own eyes. And it illustrates a very dangerous thing about science reporting - hyperbolizing. Almost nobody reads the primary sources (like actual papers), so when a journalist starts using strong words like "manipulated", it colors people's interpretations of the issue, leading them to severly overestimating the meaning of the issue - lo and behold, you can create a shitstorm out of thin air. The way press was describing Facebook's "manipulating users' emotions" is akin to describing sneezing as an act of biological warfare. Scope matters.
  - dev1n 11y ago