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It's interesting to see how Facebook is taking increasing control of news and publicity on its service. In a sense, we're long past the point of questioning whe

It's interesting to see how Facebook is taking increasing control of news and publicity on its service. In a sense, we're long past the point of questioning whether it's ethical, since they've obviously been influencing content for a long while, but this is one of the strongest arguments for FOSS alternatives like Mastodon. Hopefully, if this continues, big businesses will push the shift to open instances for a more level playing field, and the users will follow.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
ganfortran 10y ago
Big business loves censorship, they go straight demands it if not offered, look at the Youtube boycott that is happening right now. They are surely not fan of FOSS or freedom of speech.
- chatmasta 10y ago
  They love it until it causes them to lose control over distribution or user retention/acquisition. See: "native articles" and how poorly received they were by news publishers.
  - rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
    Business likes anything that helps profits, and hates anything that hurts profits. The threat of communist takeover permeated most of the 20th century as the ultimate threat for private enterprise, but the military-industrial-complex had a wonderful time.
jpalomaki 10y ago
Facebook is likely trying to maximize the time people spend on browsing their feed. Surface too many "boring" news articles in a row and user might go away. Put a nice mixture of news, goofy stuff, updates from friends, some fake news to provoke action and user remains. Hundreds of millions of people stare the news feed on weekly basis and interact with it. This creates a spectacular opportunity for employing machine learning to optimize things. Facebook has huge amount of data and it is easy to run various tests automatically to see what works in practice. If this is the case, then it may be difficult for the others to compete. Facebook might be doing exactly what customers want - even if they don't know it themselves. My thoughts were influenced by this article posted on HN some weeks ago: http://www.truthhawk.com/is-facebook-a-structural-threat-to-free-society/ http://www.truthhawk.com/is-facebook-a-structural-threat-to-...
- nerdponx 10y ago
  Agreed. They want to sell ads on Facebook.com, and they can't do that if you aren't glued to Facebook.com all day.
- kalleboo 10y ago
  Exactly, I remember when the main complaint was "there's too much irrelevant spam on my timeline". Now I only hear the opposite "I missed this and this important announcement"
  - baking 10y ago
    I don't see how these are not the same things. I see lots of posts from people I don't know that are liked by some of my friends, but often never see original posts by other friends. And I only have about two dozen friends that I follow.
- marcosdumay 10y ago
  Assuming they aren't selling this "boring" evaluation (or submitting to any other kind of pressure for making suboptimal decisions), keeping users reading their feed is still not necessarily what users want. Facebook is doing what maximizes revenue, but there's no evidence that is the same thing that will encourage users to keep using it in the long term.
  - jpalomaki 10y ago
    That's a very good point that I did not think about. Even if they would be able to hit the right buttons in my mind to keep me browsing, I might find the overall experience dissatisfying and quit the whole thing. Like does anybody really feel "good" after spending one hour browsing Facebook or imgur?
criley2 10y ago
I think your model is completely reversed. Content follows users, not the other way around. You can't beat Facebook by getting good content into some user-less alternative. Users don't follow content. Content follows users.
- ivanbakel 10y ago
  I don't think it's exclusively one that follows the other. Users push for content migration, and content encourages user migration. However, there's not much draw for users right now to move away from Facebook, so we're more reliant on content to make the shift.
- snowwrestler 10y ago
  If content follows users then how did Facebook develop such a big user base? Every single Facebook user chose to create an account there. Why? Because of the content they knew they would find there. "Follow the users" is a good way to decide where to do some content marketing next week, but it's incomplete if you're looking at how the overall information ecosystem evolves. You have to account for how new services attract users, in order to understand what established services are doing to try to keep users.
dickbasedregex 10y ago
I left FB ~4 years ago. One of the straws that broke the camel for me was that it was obvious FB was "curating" my feed for me. Without notifying or consulting me. Posts from friends wouldn't show in my feed and vice versa. The privacy issues were bad enough but when I couldn't trust the platform to fulfill the only need I had for it, I walked. I'm far better for it.
- logicallee 10y ago
  Given that you were frustrated by not seeing all of your friends' posts and their not seeing all of yours, how are you better for it now that you see 0.0% of your friends' posts of any kind and now that you can now share your own content with only 0.5% of them (personally or through email etc)?
  - germinalphrase 10y ago
    Depends on how he reacted to the change. I started talking to my friends on the phone more often. I probably also reduced the overall number of friends I have - but then are they really friends if you won't make the effort to contact them? Maybe I'm just old enough to feel comfortable letting past friends, colleagues, etc. fade into the past in favor of focusing on the people right in front of me.
  - adrian1973 10y ago
    Perhaps those 0.5% are the ones who matter. There are friends and then there facebook friends.
  - twelvedogs 10y ago
    i'm in this situation as well, i've moved to a slack group with my work friends and direct messaging with others, facebook was just a shitty way to talk to people i don't really care about where my posts were spirited away almost immediately 0.5% is being generous, i had almost no interaction with people i cared about while i was on there and i'm glad i've switched to other platforms where they aren't as interested in feeding me their stuff and just letting people talk
ams6110 10y ago
The perils of depending on someone else's service, especially when you have no contract with them that defines what they are supposed to be doing for you.
makomk 10y ago
The other reason why we're long past the point of questioning whether it's ethical is because pretty much the entire press insisted that it was a moral imperative for Facebook to take control of news on their service because of people sharing "fake news". There weren't really any dissenting voices on this point from what I recall.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

ganfortran 10y ago

Big business loves censorship, they go straight demands it if not offered, look at the Youtube boycott that is happening right now. They are surely not fan of FOSS or freedom of speech.

chatmasta 10y ago
They love it until it causes them to lose control over distribution or user retention/acquisition. See: "native articles" and how poorly received they were by news publishers.
- rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
  Business likes anything that helps profits, and hates anything that hurts profits. The threat of communist takeover permeated most of the 20th century as the ultimate threat for private enterprise, but the military-industrial-complex had a wonderful time.

jpalomaki 10y ago

Facebook is likely trying to maximize the time people spend on browsing their feed. Surface too many "boring" news articles in a row and user might go away. Put a nice mixture of news, goofy stuff, updates from friends, some fake news to provoke action and user remains. Hundreds of millions of people stare the news feed on weekly basis and interact with it. This creates a spectacular opportunity for employing machine learning to optimize things. Facebook has huge amount of data and it is easy to run various tests automatically to see what works in practice. If this is the case, then it may be difficult for the others to compete. Facebook might be doing exactly what customers want - even if they don't know it themselves. My thoughts were influenced by this article posted on HN some weeks ago: http://www.truthhawk.com/is-facebook-a-structural-threat-to-free-society/ http://www.truthhawk.com/is-facebook-a-structural-threat-to-...

nerdponx 10y ago
Agreed. They want to sell ads on Facebook.com, and they can't do that if you aren't glued to Facebook.com all day.
kalleboo 10y ago
Exactly, I remember when the main complaint was "there's too much irrelevant spam on my timeline". Now I only hear the opposite "I missed this and this important announcement"
- baking 10y ago
  I don't see how these are not the same things. I see lots of posts from people I don't know that are liked by some of my friends, but often never see original posts by other friends. And I only have about two dozen friends that I follow.
marcosdumay 10y ago
Assuming they aren't selling this "boring" evaluation (or submitting to any other kind of pressure for making suboptimal decisions), keeping users reading their feed is still not necessarily what users want. Facebook is doing what maximizes revenue, but there's no evidence that is the same thing that will encourage users to keep using it in the long term.
- jpalomaki 10y ago
  That's a very good point that I did not think about. Even if they would be able to hit the right buttons in my mind to keep me browsing, I might find the overall experience dissatisfying and quit the whole thing. Like does anybody really feel "good" after spending one hour browsing Facebook or imgur?

criley2 10y ago

I think your model is completely reversed. Content follows users, not the other way around. You can't beat Facebook by getting good content into some user-less alternative. Users don't follow content. Content follows users.

ivanbakel 10y ago
I don't think it's exclusively one that follows the other. Users push for content migration, and content encourages user migration. However, there's not much draw for users right now to move away from Facebook, so we're more reliant on content to make the shift.
snowwrestler 10y ago
If content follows users then how did Facebook develop such a big user base? Every single Facebook user chose to create an account there. Why? Because of the content they knew they would find there. "Follow the users" is a good way to decide where to do some content marketing next week, but it's incomplete if you're looking at how the overall information ecosystem evolves. You have to account for how new services attract users, in order to understand what established services are doing to try to keep users.

dickbasedregex 10y ago

I left FB ~4 years ago. One of the straws that broke the camel for me was that it was obvious FB was "curating" my feed for me. Without notifying or consulting me. Posts from friends wouldn't show in my feed and vice versa. The privacy issues were bad enough but when I couldn't trust the platform to fulfill the only need I had for it, I walked. I'm far better for it.

logicallee 10y ago
Given that you were frustrated by not seeing all of your friends' posts and their not seeing all of yours, how are you better for it now that you see 0.0% of your friends' posts of any kind and now that you can now share your own content with only 0.5% of them (personally or through email etc)?
- germinalphrase 10y ago
  Depends on how he reacted to the change. I started talking to my friends on the phone more often. I probably also reduced the overall number of friends I have - but then are they really friends if you won't make the effort to contact them? Maybe I'm just old enough to feel comfortable letting past friends, colleagues, etc. fade into the past in favor of focusing on the people right in front of me.
- adrian1973 10y ago
  Perhaps those 0.5% are the ones who matter. There are friends and then there facebook friends.
- twelvedogs 10y ago
  i'm in this situation as well, i've moved to a slack group with my work friends and direct messaging with others, facebook was just a shitty way to talk to people i don't really care about where my posts were spirited away almost immediately 0.5% is being generous, i had almost no interaction with people i cared about while i was on there and i'm glad i've switched to other platforms where they aren't as interested in feeding me their stuff and just letting people talk

ams6110 10y ago

The perils of depending on someone else's service, especially when you have no contract with them that defines what they are supposed to be doing for you.

makomk 10y ago

The other reason why we're long past the point of questioning whether it's ethical is because pretty much the entire press insisted that it was a moral imperative for Facebook to take control of news on their service because of people sharing "fake news". There weren't really any dissenting voices on this point from what I recall.