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I admit that I haven't read the "manifesto" but it seems strange to me that the guy in charge of a platform that is arguably doing significant damage to our cul

I admit that I haven't read the "manifesto" but it seems strange to me that the guy in charge of a platform that is arguably doing significant damage to our culture and democracy, all in the name of advertising profits, could be considered as an authority on how to fix the problems in question. One preliminary solution seems fairly simple, and Zuckerberg is in a somewhat unique position in that he has the power to implement it on a large scale: stop feeding people an endless stream of ad-stuffed trash media selected by an algorithm maximizing for clickbait factor and nothing else. I genuinely believe that it's poisoning people's minds and doing significant damage to our society. Of course, it is making them money, so it will not change (in fact it will probably get worse). It is not written in stone that a profitable enterprise must be compatible with the "greater good" (for lack of a better term). Some things are inherently destructive. Facebook takes a lot and gives nothing back. The idea of handing over the reins of our society to some outgrowth of its current model is as terrifying as it is hilarious in its blind arrogance and ignorance.

blazespin 10y ago
Oh come on. If you don't like Facebook, don't log on. Lots of people chose not to. As someone who uses it a lot there is nothing on there that is required or necessary to live or work unlike other services I use (LinkedIn, MSFT, google, etc) In fact, FB is probably a detriment to my livelihood if anything.
- Shubley 10y ago
  Parent is not complaining about how FB affects him personally and directly, but about how it is affecting society. Perhaps you have the mental context and farsightedness to just not log on. But, you still have to deal with the large scale socio-political consequences of the fact that billions of others can't resist logging on, can't resist the clickbait, or don't understand why they should.
  - corndoge 10y ago
    The basic point of discussion here is really what is optimific with respect to what I'll term 'information paternalism'. Where do we draw the line between people's responsibility to educate themselves, and the responsibility of corporations (especially "the media") to feed them reliable information? Ditto "fake news", ditto Twitter disinfo hysteria, ditto any source of information, especially online. At some point the people have to take responsibility for, and validate themselves, what they read and believe.
    - Shubley 10y ago
      I used to think that way but over time I've moved much more toward the conclusion that the great mass of people really are not mentally prepared to make decisions in a modern idea marketplace. Working through the haze of media manipulation is an extremely complex task. It requires a ton of interest, time, effort education, IQ and mental discipline. Most people don't have a chance to resist society-wide campaign of lies; they're absurdly outmatched. This is the same reason we have enforced pension plans, etc. You could just say people should save their own money. That would work fine for me and you. But most people just don't have the mental context to delay gratification that long. Their brains are not adapted and not equipped for the modern world. So it's wrong to feed them socially-destructive lies, for the same reason it's wrong to feed a dog well-labeled poisonous meat.
      - wutbrodo 10y ago
        There are a lot of people who agree with you, but that's the easy part. The hard part is: how? Who is it that determines which news is "real" and which is "fake"? The scientific establishment is a truly wondrous achievement of humanity, but it's not perfect and the idea that there are facts that are 100% verifiably completely obviously definitely true is just flat wrong (and a scientist or historian would be the first to tell you that!). There are plenty of "conspiracy theories" that turned out to be absolutely true (see: the intelligence community's activities throughout the Cold War, e.g. MKUltra). There are plenty of "well-known facts" from the past that we now consider nonsense (e.g., look at the 50s-70s and take your pick from all the things we "knew" about race, gender, and sexuality). I truly don't understand how people think that giving the status quo the power to enforce itself will somehow lead to a misinformation-free utopia. You can pick examples of these theories that (probably) don't have any likely value or credibility, but that's not very helpful without a plan for how exactly this would be separated from the stuff that has societal value. (And all of that is ignoring the inevitability of the gatekeeper's selectively using this power to their advantage)
- snom380 10y ago
  "If you don't like it, don't log out" is an easy answer, but for many it's more difficult in practice, especially if your social circle uses FB Messenger or WhatsApp to communicate and plan events. Not to mention how they create shadow profiles of users even if they've never logged in and track you online even if you're logged out.
- remarkEon 10y ago
  I have genuinely, honestly been planning on doing the whole complete deletion thing for about 6 months now, since the election turned up to 11. You know what's stopping me? I signed into Spotify with my FB page years ago, and now my entire musical personae is tied to my FB account. This [1] is the closest I've come to finding directions on how to do it, and eventually I will, but right now...it's just so damn easy to stay logged in. Agreed that FB at this point in my life is a detriment, but they've locked themselves into other parts of my life that are not. They know this...that was their plan. [1]https://community.spotify.com/t5/Accounts-and-Subscriptions/Tutorial-How-to-Disconnect-Spotify-from-Facebook/td-p/247266 https://community.spotify.com/t5/Accounts-and-Subscriptions/...
  - laura2013 10y ago
    i contacted spotify and they were able to migrate my account - playlists, favs, etc - from facebook to my email (i was using the same email for fb). they provided me with a "free month" of premium since i had already paid for that month through the fb account. other than having to contact the COs for a couple of accounts my FB-free life couldn't be better.
    - remarkEon 10y ago
      sigh Sometimes I really should just ask instead of trying to do it all myself. Good to know. Facebook Free come this weekend.
- caconym_ 10y ago
  I don't log in. Haven't for a long time. I encourage others to do the same.
- dTal 10y ago
  >>Alcoholism is damaging society. Oh come on. If you don't like alcohol, don't drink it. Lots of people choose not to. As someone who drinks it a lot, it's not required or necessary to live or work, unlike other substances I consume (coffee, Archer Daniels Midland, Costco). In fact, alcohol is probably a detriment to my livelihood if anything.
WWKong 10y ago
"stop feeding people an endless stream of ad-stuffed trash media selected by an algorithm maximizing for clickbait factor and nothing else". I'm not sure if this is the core of the problem, if at all. Most of what you see on facebook are links shared by your network. If your "friends" are sharing and re-sharing clickbait fake news, you see clickbait fake news. This is evident in groups on whatsapp where there is no algorithmic intervention and it is still an endless stream of misinformation (in most diverse groups). This also mirrors real world echo chambers. If you do have have some suggestions for solving this problem, it would be great to discuss here.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- ricw 10y ago
  Disallow sharing of links. Only allow sharing of personal photos and statements of the old school type "MyName is feeling so and so...". That is how Facebook started and grew big. And it's what I signed up for, not the clickbait infested link sharing site it is now.. Curious: my photo to link ratio is probably 1-to-10. Is that the same for others?
  - baby 10y ago
    Yeah, unfortunately looking at your friends' pictures gets old pretty fast, and you're not gonna do that every hour of the day. I'd be happy if a Facebook2 came around to only do what Facebook did, but I'm pretty sure no one would sign up since everyone is already on Facebook anyway. These days I try only to connect to messenger, there I can keep in touch with friends without the "news feed" functionality.
  - manigandham 10y ago
    Use instagram then - there are other choices. FB is meant to be a full stack platform.
- caminante 10y ago
  > I'm not sure if this is the core of the problem, if at all. Most of what you see on facebook are links shared by your network. Except FB's said [0] that the four main factors for what you see are who posted, age of article, article type, and interactions. The last factor is key as FB wants articles to draw eyeballs in order to sell ads. Thus, it sounds like the algorithm doesn't produce newsfeeds that are representative of what a majority of friends are reading v. that of a select, active few. I think the parent is arguing that FB could turn this off and improve newsfeed information quality at the cost of lower revenues. [0] https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/06/ultimate-guide-to-the-news-feed/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/06/ultimate-guide-to-the-news...
unityByFreedom 10y ago
> One preliminary solution seems fairly simple, and Zuckerberg is in a somewhat unique position in that he has the power to implement it on a large scale: stop feeding people an endless stream of ad-stuffed trash media selected by an algorithm maximizing for clickbait factor and nothing else Then how would they make money? Plus I'm not convinced ads are the thing killing media. People are. Anyone is a journalist these days. I don't see how Facebook or their CEO is to blame. MySpace could've been in the same position had they continued to innovate. Networking with friends and strangers online is one thing the internet was built for. I read the manifesto, and I don't understand the outcry in response to that. I understand the outcry against the pervasiveness of Facebook. It can be annoying if you use it too much. That said, If there were a better media alternative, people would use that instead.
- pikzen 10y ago
  >Plus I'm not convinced ads are the thing killing media. People are. Anyone is a journalist these days. People become "journalists" because there's money in it, through ads. Ads pay the same whether your article is worth reading or terrible blogspam. Said people realize that, and go with the least effort/profit maximizing strategy which is buzzfeed level articles, partly because ad providers will pay anyways, and partly because deontology isn't a matter to themAds keep paying the same, and other people see "journalists" make money this way. It's a vicious cycle. Journalists from reputable sources are salaried, and usually don't have to resort to this tactic. Facebook is one hundred percent to blame. By reaching so many users and being so prominent in all those users' lives, they are directly responsible if they choose to stuff trash quality articles, which directly influence opinions, in there because it's the more profitable option. People are dumb, and faillible. It's incredibly easy to sway their opinion one way or the other. You are, I am, we all are easily influencable. All that's different is the amount of fact checking that's done after.
  - unityByFreedom 10y ago
    > People become "journalists" because there's money in it, through ads So what? Most of the internet runs on ads. > Facebook is one hundred percent to blame. By reaching so many users and being so prominent in all those users' lives, they are directly responsible if they choose to stuff trash quality articles, which directly influence opinions, in there because it's the more profitable option. I think you underestimate how difficult it is to define "trash". Once you begin censoring "garbage", you introduce bias. This is the reason our country has free speech. It's the only practical way to keep us from revolting. Imagine if Facebook were owned by Trump or Bannon and they were removing "fake news". You would be even more upset, right? > People are dumb, and faillible. It's incredibly easy to sway their opinion one way or the other. You are, I am, we all are easily influencable. All that's different is the amount of fact checking that's done after. I agree. Do you learn better through your own experience or when someone tells you what to do all the time?
pier25 10y ago
> a platform that is arguably doing significant damage to our culture and democracy Ignorance and the lack of critical thinking are probably more responsible here than Facebook.
anigbrowl 10y ago
I think you overstate the centrality of Facebook. Yes, FB feeds people a lot of nonsense int he name of commerce. But extremist people with odious political views were and are forming their own social networks without FB and have been for years (not least because quite a lot of them think Zuckerberg is part of an international Jewish conspiracy). I'm not a big fan of FB and don't have any ownership interest in it. However I think it's largely politically neutral and that Zuckerberg is just a bit out of his depth with the manifesto as opposed to being wickedly cynical - even though most people would peg me as a radical leftist. the phenomenon that Facebook exemplifies is a real problem, and it's why I've been arguing in general terms for the destructiveness as capitalism as the only driving force in development and the superiority of protocols to platforms, so as to preserve a truly open and inclusive internet rather than one built around the extraction of economic rents. But I regard FB as a symptom rather than a cause, and try to save my anger for the people who are actively working to strip people of their rights and liberties as opposed to those who merely profit from applying technology to the existing but often unethical way of doing business.
- ricw 10y ago
  You probably don't realise how influential it is. Americans spend on average 50 minutes per day on Facebook [1]! That is a lot. It's probably the prime source of news in the western world. This is not to be underestimated. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/06/business/facebook-bends-the-rules-of-audience-engagement-to-its-advantage.html?_r=0 https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/06/business/facebook-bends-t...
  - flootch 10y ago
    Thank god for now that you are in error about that: > That’s the average amount of time, the company said, that users spend each day on its Facebook, Instagram and Messenger platforms (and that’s not counting the popular messaging app WhatsApp). So that's not Americans it's users, and it's not FB, but I am hopeful that it's Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram, which I perceive for now are "task" based communications and sharing apps, not the "spam my friends and family with my political beliefs" stuff I don't want in nearly the amount that FB shovels at me. You had me scared there for a moment, but I bet you are more right than wrong in your basic point It's probably the prime source of news in the western world. This is not to be underestimated.
rosalinekarr 10y ago
> stop feeding people an endless stream of ad-stuffed trash media selected by an algorithm maximizing for clickbait factor and nothing else. I genuinely believe that it's poisoning people's minds and doing significant damage to our society. I've been hearing this from a lot of people lately, but every time I do, I can't help but think we've got it backwards. People aren't becoming worse because of clickbait and fake news. Clickbait and fake news are becoming worse because of people. Long before there was Facebook, plenty of people bought and read magazines and newspapers like the National Enquirer and the Daily Mail. The only difference now is that those people, just like everyone else, have access to much more of that content thanks to the internet. Taking that content away from those people isn't going to make them smarter. It's just going to make them angrier and more determined to seek that stuff out. In my opinion, the only real solution is improving education, but no one wants to talk about that because that's the hard way. It's much easier to demand that certain news sources be censored or that certain news aggregators impose a bias against them, but that's a very dangerous road to travel down. Today, people are talking about sources like banning Breitbart and The Daily Caller, which is well-meaning, but how long will it be before people start talking about banning sources like The Intercept or The Guardian? There are certainly plenty of people in both political parties that would gladly slap the labels of "clickbait" and "fake news" on them as well.
- DougWebb 10y ago
  I think the situation today is different because the "bad" content can spread much more rapidly and broadly than it could before. Back in the day, you could judge the authority and value of the content you were getting because you knew the source, and sources that produced content which most people judged poorly couldn't spread their content much beyond a small group of core believers. But today this content spreads without clear links back to its source, which makes it hard to judge, and it spreads so widely and rapidly that there's no opportunity to discredit it before the next bit of content comes zooming by. This "bad" content is coming from everywhere, too. Recently, most of the factually-inaccurate content has been coming from, or has been in support of, the alt-right. But in the past a lot came from the far-left as well, and there's always inflammatory agenda-driven propagandist content come from extremist groups of all types. Every group with an agenda to push can easily slide from fact-based content to exaggerated content to outright false content in an attempt to be heard, and that's much easier today than it ever used to be. Education would help, but only if the sources of the content people are seeing can be identified and judged by them. I have an even more difficult solution: integrity, self-control, and professional restraint on the part of the content producers. I think we lost that when news became entertainment, and I have little hope that we'll ever get it back.
thomasahle 10y ago
> I admit that I haven't read the "manifesto" but it seems strange to me that the guy in charge of a platform that is arguably doing significant damage to our culture and democracy, all in the name of advertising profits, could be considered as an authority on how to fix the problems in question. You should read it then. Naturally facebook is the best bet at fixing the problems facebook are having. The manifesto seems like a quite well thought through vision for how to do that. It exactly points out all the things people dislike about Facebook, filter bubbles, censorship etc., discusses the various approaches, pros and cons, and how they plan to proceed. I don't really get how people are so upset about it. Maybe it's because it's so long that no one reads it, and thus have much stronger opinions.
perseusprime11 10y ago
Facebook and in general Zuck scare me. They have way too much power at this point to use it towards their business model. We need to mandate Facebook to open up their social graph as a prerequisite to running their business. They also should not be allowed to acquire any other social networks going forward like Twitter. If possible, we should undo their WhatsApp and Instagram acquisitions.
perseusprime11 10y ago
If you did not read his manifesto, these two quotes from it are the most scary according to me. "In times like these, the most important thing we at Facebook can do is develop the social infrastructure to give people the power to build a global community that works for all of us. For the past decade, Facebook has focused on connecting friends and families. With that foundation, our next focus will be developing the social infrastructure for community — for supporting us, for keeping us safe, for informing us, for civic engagement, and for inclusion of all." "Our greatest opportunities are now global — like spreading prosperity and freedom, promoting peace and understanding, lifting people out of poverty, and accelerating science. Our greatest challenges also need global responses — like ending terrorism, fighting climate change, and preventing pandemics. Progress now requires humanity coming together not just as cities or nations, but also as a global community." Can anybody translate these to their real intentions?

blazespin 10y ago

Oh come on. If you don't like Facebook, don't log on. Lots of people chose not to. As someone who uses it a lot there is nothing on there that is required or necessary to live or work unlike other services I use (LinkedIn, MSFT, google, etc) In fact, FB is probably a detriment to my livelihood if anything.

Shubley 10y ago
Parent is not complaining about how FB affects him personally and directly, but about how it is affecting society. Perhaps you have the mental context and farsightedness to just not log on. But, you still have to deal with the large scale socio-political consequences of the fact that billions of others can't resist logging on, can't resist the clickbait, or don't understand why they should.
- corndoge 10y ago
  The basic point of discussion here is really what is optimific with respect to what I'll term 'information paternalism'. Where do we draw the line between people's responsibility to educate themselves, and the responsibility of corporations (especially "the media") to feed them reliable information? Ditto "fake news", ditto Twitter disinfo hysteria, ditto any source of information, especially online. At some point the people have to take responsibility for, and validate themselves, what they read and believe.
  - Shubley 10y ago
    I used to think that way but over time I've moved much more toward the conclusion that the great mass of people really are not mentally prepared to make decisions in a modern idea marketplace. Working through the haze of media manipulation is an extremely complex task. It requires a ton of interest, time, effort education, IQ and mental discipline. Most people don't have a chance to resist society-wide campaign of lies; they're absurdly outmatched. This is the same reason we have enforced pension plans, etc. You could just say people should save their own money. That would work fine for me and you. But most people just don't have the mental context to delay gratification that long. Their brains are not adapted and not equipped for the modern world. So it's wrong to feed them socially-destructive lies, for the same reason it's wrong to feed a dog well-labeled poisonous meat.
    - wutbrodo 10y ago
      There are a lot of people who agree with you, but that's the easy part. The hard part is: how? Who is it that determines which news is "real" and which is "fake"? The scientific establishment is a truly wondrous achievement of humanity, but it's not perfect and the idea that there are facts that are 100% verifiably completely obviously definitely true is just flat wrong (and a scientist or historian would be the first to tell you that!). There are plenty of "conspiracy theories" that turned out to be absolutely true (see: the intelligence community's activities throughout the Cold War, e.g. MKUltra). There are plenty of "well-known facts" from the past that we now consider nonsense (e.g., look at the 50s-70s and take your pick from all the things we "knew" about race, gender, and sexuality). I truly don't understand how people think that giving the status quo the power to enforce itself will somehow lead to a misinformation-free utopia. You can pick examples of these theories that (probably) don't have any likely value or credibility, but that's not very helpful without a plan for how exactly this would be separated from the stuff that has societal value. (And all of that is ignoring the inevitability of the gatekeeper's selectively using this power to their advantage)
snom380 10y ago
"If you don't like it, don't log out" is an easy answer, but for many it's more difficult in practice, especially if your social circle uses FB Messenger or WhatsApp to communicate and plan events. Not to mention how they create shadow profiles of users even if they've never logged in and track you online even if you're logged out.
remarkEon 10y ago
I have genuinely, honestly been planning on doing the whole complete deletion thing for about 6 months now, since the election turned up to 11. You know what's stopping me? I signed into Spotify with my FB page years ago, and now my entire musical personae is tied to my FB account. This [1] is the closest I've come to finding directions on how to do it, and eventually I will, but right now...it's just so damn easy to stay logged in. Agreed that FB at this point in my life is a detriment, but they've locked themselves into other parts of my life that are not. They know this...that was their plan. [1]https://community.spotify.com/t5/Accounts-and-Subscriptions/Tutorial-How-to-Disconnect-Spotify-from-Facebook/td-p/247266 https://community.spotify.com/t5/Accounts-and-Subscriptions/...
- laura2013 10y ago
  i contacted spotify and they were able to migrate my account - playlists, favs, etc - from facebook to my email (i was using the same email for fb). they provided me with a "free month" of premium since i had already paid for that month through the fb account. other than having to contact the COs for a couple of accounts my FB-free life couldn't be better.
  - remarkEon 10y ago
    sigh Sometimes I really should just ask instead of trying to do it all myself. Good to know. Facebook Free come this weekend.
caconym_ 10y ago
I don't log in. Haven't for a long time. I encourage others to do the same.
dTal 10y ago
>>Alcoholism is damaging society. Oh come on. If you don't like alcohol, don't drink it. Lots of people choose not to. As someone who drinks it a lot, it's not required or necessary to live or work, unlike other substances I consume (coffee, Archer Daniels Midland, Costco). In fact, alcohol is probably a detriment to my livelihood if anything.

WWKong 10y ago

"stop feeding people an endless stream of ad-stuffed trash media selected by an algorithm maximizing for clickbait factor and nothing else". I'm not sure if this is the core of the problem, if at all. Most of what you see on facebook are links shared by your network. If your "friends" are sharing and re-sharing clickbait fake news, you see clickbait fake news. This is evident in groups on whatsapp where there is no algorithmic intervention and it is still an endless stream of misinformation (in most diverse groups). This also mirrors real world echo chambers. If you do have have some suggestions for solving this problem, it would be great to discuss here.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
ricw 10y ago
Disallow sharing of links. Only allow sharing of personal photos and statements of the old school type "MyName is feeling so and so...". That is how Facebook started and grew big. And it's what I signed up for, not the clickbait infested link sharing site it is now.. Curious: my photo to link ratio is probably 1-to-10. Is that the same for others?
- baby 10y ago
  Yeah, unfortunately looking at your friends' pictures gets old pretty fast, and you're not gonna do that every hour of the day. I'd be happy if a Facebook2 came around to only do what Facebook did, but I'm pretty sure no one would sign up since everyone is already on Facebook anyway. These days I try only to connect to messenger, there I can keep in touch with friends without the "news feed" functionality.
- manigandham 10y ago
  Use instagram then - there are other choices. FB is meant to be a full stack platform.
caminante 10y ago
> I'm not sure if this is the core of the problem, if at all. Most of what you see on facebook are links shared by your network. Except FB's said [0] that the four main factors for what you see are who posted, age of article, article type, and interactions. The last factor is key as FB wants articles to draw eyeballs in order to sell ads. Thus, it sounds like the algorithm doesn't produce newsfeeds that are representative of what a majority of friends are reading v. that of a select, active few. I think the parent is arguing that FB could turn this off and improve newsfeed information quality at the cost of lower revenues. [0] https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/06/ultimate-guide-to-the-news-feed/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/06/ultimate-guide-to-the-news...

unityByFreedom 10y ago

> One preliminary solution seems fairly simple, and Zuckerberg is in a somewhat unique position in that he has the power to implement it on a large scale: stop feeding people an endless stream of ad-stuffed trash media selected by an algorithm maximizing for clickbait factor and nothing else Then how would they make money? Plus I'm not convinced ads are the thing killing media. People are. Anyone is a journalist these days. I don't see how Facebook or their CEO is to blame. MySpace could've been in the same position had they continued to innovate. Networking with friends and strangers online is one thing the internet was built for. I read the manifesto, and I don't understand the outcry in response to that. I understand the outcry against the pervasiveness of Facebook. It can be annoying if you use it too much. That said, If there were a better media alternative, people would use that instead.

pikzen 10y ago
>Plus I'm not convinced ads are the thing killing media. People are. Anyone is a journalist these days. People become "journalists" because there's money in it, through ads. Ads pay the same whether your article is worth reading or terrible blogspam. Said people realize that, and go with the least effort/profit maximizing strategy which is buzzfeed level articles, partly because ad providers will pay anyways, and partly because deontology isn't a matter to themAds keep paying the same, and other people see "journalists" make money this way. It's a vicious cycle. Journalists from reputable sources are salaried, and usually don't have to resort to this tactic. Facebook is one hundred percent to blame. By reaching so many users and being so prominent in all those users' lives, they are directly responsible if they choose to stuff trash quality articles, which directly influence opinions, in there because it's the more profitable option. People are dumb, and faillible. It's incredibly easy to sway their opinion one way or the other. You are, I am, we all are easily influencable. All that's different is the amount of fact checking that's done after.
- unityByFreedom 10y ago
  > People become "journalists" because there's money in it, through ads So what? Most of the internet runs on ads. > Facebook is one hundred percent to blame. By reaching so many users and being so prominent in all those users' lives, they are directly responsible if they choose to stuff trash quality articles, which directly influence opinions, in there because it's the more profitable option. I think you underestimate how difficult it is to define "trash". Once you begin censoring "garbage", you introduce bias. This is the reason our country has free speech. It's the only practical way to keep us from revolting. Imagine if Facebook were owned by Trump or Bannon and they were removing "fake news". You would be even more upset, right? > People are dumb, and faillible. It's incredibly easy to sway their opinion one way or the other. You are, I am, we all are easily influencable. All that's different is the amount of fact checking that's done after. I agree. Do you learn better through your own experience or when someone tells you what to do all the time?

pier25 10y ago

> a platform that is arguably doing significant damage to our culture and democracy Ignorance and the lack of critical thinking are probably more responsible here than Facebook.

anigbrowl 10y ago

I think you overstate the centrality of Facebook. Yes, FB feeds people a lot of nonsense int he name of commerce. But extremist people with odious political views were and are forming their own social networks without FB and have been for years (not least because quite a lot of them think Zuckerberg is part of an international Jewish conspiracy). I'm not a big fan of FB and don't have any ownership interest in it. However I think it's largely politically neutral and that Zuckerberg is just a bit out of his depth with the manifesto as opposed to being wickedly cynical - even though most people would peg me as a radical leftist. the phenomenon that Facebook exemplifies is a real problem, and it's why I've been arguing in general terms for the destructiveness as capitalism as the only driving force in development and the superiority of protocols to platforms, so as to preserve a truly open and inclusive internet rather than one built around the extraction of economic rents. But I regard FB as a symptom rather than a cause, and try to save my anger for the people who are actively working to strip people of their rights and liberties as opposed to those who merely profit from applying technology to the existing but often unethical way of doing business.

ricw 10y ago
You probably don't realise how influential it is. Americans spend on average 50 minutes per day on Facebook [1]! That is a lot. It's probably the prime source of news in the western world. This is not to be underestimated. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/06/business/facebook-bends-the-rules-of-audience-engagement-to-its-advantage.html?_r=0 https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/06/business/facebook-bends-t...
- flootch 10y ago
  Thank god for now that you are in error about that: > That’s the average amount of time, the company said, that users spend each day on its Facebook, Instagram and Messenger platforms (and that’s not counting the popular messaging app WhatsApp). So that's not Americans it's users, and it's not FB, but I am hopeful that it's Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram, which I perceive for now are "task" based communications and sharing apps, not the "spam my friends and family with my political beliefs" stuff I don't want in nearly the amount that FB shovels at me. You had me scared there for a moment, but I bet you are more right than wrong in your basic point It's probably the prime source of news in the western world. This is not to be underestimated.

rosalinekarr 10y ago

> stop feeding people an endless stream of ad-stuffed trash media selected by an algorithm maximizing for clickbait factor and nothing else. I genuinely believe that it's poisoning people's minds and doing significant damage to our society. I've been hearing this from a lot of people lately, but every time I do, I can't help but think we've got it backwards. People aren't becoming worse because of clickbait and fake news. Clickbait and fake news are becoming worse because of people. Long before there was Facebook, plenty of people bought and read magazines and newspapers like the National Enquirer and the Daily Mail. The only difference now is that those people, just like everyone else, have access to much more of that content thanks to the internet. Taking that content away from those people isn't going to make them smarter. It's just going to make them angrier and more determined to seek that stuff out. In my opinion, the only real solution is improving education, but no one wants to talk about that because that's the hard way. It's much easier to demand that certain news sources be censored or that certain news aggregators impose a bias against them, but that's a very dangerous road to travel down. Today, people are talking about sources like banning Breitbart and The Daily Caller, which is well-meaning, but how long will it be before people start talking about banning sources like The Intercept or The Guardian? There are certainly plenty of people in both political parties that would gladly slap the labels of "clickbait" and "fake news" on them as well.

DougWebb 10y ago
I think the situation today is different because the "bad" content can spread much more rapidly and broadly than it could before. Back in the day, you could judge the authority and value of the content you were getting because you knew the source, and sources that produced content which most people judged poorly couldn't spread their content much beyond a small group of core believers. But today this content spreads without clear links back to its source, which makes it hard to judge, and it spreads so widely and rapidly that there's no opportunity to discredit it before the next bit of content comes zooming by. This "bad" content is coming from everywhere, too. Recently, most of the factually-inaccurate content has been coming from, or has been in support of, the alt-right. But in the past a lot came from the far-left as well, and there's always inflammatory agenda-driven propagandist content come from extremist groups of all types. Every group with an agenda to push can easily slide from fact-based content to exaggerated content to outright false content in an attempt to be heard, and that's much easier today than it ever used to be. Education would help, but only if the sources of the content people are seeing can be identified and judged by them. I have an even more difficult solution: integrity, self-control, and professional restraint on the part of the content producers. I think we lost that when news became entertainment, and I have little hope that we'll ever get it back.

thomasahle 10y ago

> I admit that I haven't read the "manifesto" but it seems strange to me that the guy in charge of a platform that is arguably doing significant damage to our culture and democracy, all in the name of advertising profits, could be considered as an authority on how to fix the problems in question. You should read it then. Naturally facebook is the best bet at fixing the problems facebook are having. The manifesto seems like a quite well thought through vision for how to do that. It exactly points out all the things people dislike about Facebook, filter bubbles, censorship etc., discusses the various approaches, pros and cons, and how they plan to proceed. I don't really get how people are so upset about it. Maybe it's because it's so long that no one reads it, and thus have much stronger opinions.

perseusprime11 10y ago

Facebook and in general Zuck scare me. They have way too much power at this point to use it towards their business model. We need to mandate Facebook to open up their social graph as a prerequisite to running their business. They also should not be allowed to acquire any other social networks going forward like Twitter. If possible, we should undo their WhatsApp and Instagram acquisitions.

perseusprime11 10y ago

If you did not read his manifesto, these two quotes from it are the most scary according to me. "In times like these, the most important thing we at Facebook can do is develop the social infrastructure to give people the power to build a global community that works for all of us. For the past decade, Facebook has focused on connecting friends and families. With that foundation, our next focus will be developing the social infrastructure for community — for supporting us, for keeping us safe, for informing us, for civic engagement, and for inclusion of all." "Our greatest opportunities are now global — like spreading prosperity and freedom, promoting peace and understanding, lifting people out of poverty, and accelerating science. Our greatest challenges also need global responses — like ending terrorism, fighting climate change, and preventing pandemics. Progress now requires humanity coming together not just as cities or nations, but also as a global community." Can anybody translate these to their real intentions?