5 ms·

Mark Zuckerberg explains why he just changed Facebook's mission

19 points by DLay 9y ago

agarden 9y ago
So... Facebook's new mission is to be big brother.
- beepboopbeep 9y ago
  Don't forget zuckerberg wants to run for president. Totally not spine chilling!
- MrZongle2 9y ago
  Wasn't that their old mission, too?
jokoon 9y ago
If only facebook could be used to let strangers do stuff in their neighborhood, like organize event, meals, share hobbies, etc, making things more social instead of being exclusive to the friends you have, maybe I would use it more. Of course you want to have your close friends, but meeting new people through other ways could be nice too. Why don't they have more maps or localized data? Why not do what meetup and foursquare did, but better? For now people only use facebook for photo, fun pics, but it's only shared with people you know or added or trust. What is the point? I did not use facebook for 5 years...
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > If only facebook could be used to let strangers do stuff in their neighborhood, like organize event, meals, share hobbies, etc, making things more social instead of being exclusive to the friends you have, maybe I would use it mor That's a fairly major use case of Facebook, via locality-oriented public groups. Discovery could certainly be improved, but it's already a pretty significant part of the use of Facebook by most people I know that actively use Facebook.
  - jokoon 9y ago
    There is nothing significant in my neighborhood, and I live near an university. > locality-oriented public groups There is no point to those groups. Just make a discovery function for specific activities. Or just make people chat away with people in an area, or create default groups for each square kilometer. Don't let the users take the initiative to organize a forum.
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      > just make people chat away with people in an area This was a notable distinguishing feature of Google Buzz. There's probably a reason other social networks never rushed to copy it.
      - sushid 9y ago
        It's also a notable distinguishing feature of WeChat and it's wildly popular, FWIW.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
- magic_beans 9y ago
  Facebook does have all those things in your neighborhood. Just join (or start) your neighborhood's community group. Mine is pretty active with events/garage sales/group workouts etc. I'm not saying I love Facebook, but the community aspect is DEFINITELY there.
  - jokoon 9y ago
    > Facebook does have all those things in your neighborhood. No it doesn't. Maybe it has something to do with the country I live in, which is a freedom loving country anyway. I already started a group when facebook started to be popular. It ended in a bloody ego sniping mess and I deleted the whole thing.
  - zghst 9y ago
    It’s not front and center. This kind of activity should be part of another app
- augustocallejas 9y ago
  > If only facebook could be used to let strangers do stuff in their neighborhood, like organize event, meals, share hobbies, etc, making things more social instead of being exclusive to the friends you have, maybe I would use it more. This is exactly what Nextdoor (https://nextdoor.com https://nextdoor.com) does. I wouldn't be surprised if they were acquired by Facebook at some point.
  - quadrangle 9y ago
    That's exactly the scariest thing about all of this. Proprietary independent sites like NextDoor collect additional layers of highly-personal information and are liable to sell-out and terms-changes etc. The only way to trust that any of these things are going to stay positive for society and not move toward more and more abuse and exploitation is to design them from the beginning to be controlled by the citizens and not by a few elites or stock-holders. And they should default to avoiding collecting unnecessary personal data.
  - Rapzid 9y ago
    Does nextdoor help promote involvement into community and state politics? Raise awareness of props that will affect you, town halls, etc?
woodandsteel 9y ago
What if these new communities Zuckerberg says Facebook is encouraging decide that Facebook needs to make changes, like to its data-collection policies, that would reduce Facebook's profit and power? Would Facebook agree? Or would it adjust its algorithms to stop that sort of talk? Seems to me we need internet re-decentralization, not Facebook doing even more to effect the world.
- quadrangle 9y ago
  Although I agree basically, I think centralization that is actually democratic is at least worth considering. Democracy is problematic and messy, but it has forms besides anarchy. All of this, all forms of bringing more power to regular citizens will be an improvement over Facebook's model which is the worst.

19 points by DLay 9y ago

agarden 9y ago

So... Facebook's new mission is to be big brother.

beepboopbeep 9y ago
Don't forget zuckerberg wants to run for president. Totally not spine chilling!
MrZongle2 9y ago
Wasn't that their old mission, too?

jokoon 9y ago

If only facebook could be used to let strangers do stuff in their neighborhood, like organize event, meals, share hobbies, etc, making things more social instead of being exclusive to the friends you have, maybe I would use it more. Of course you want to have your close friends, but meeting new people through other ways could be nice too. Why don't they have more maps or localized data? Why not do what meetup and foursquare did, but better? For now people only use facebook for photo, fun pics, but it's only shared with people you know or added or trust. What is the point? I did not use facebook for 5 years...

dragonwriter 9y ago
> If only facebook could be used to let strangers do stuff in their neighborhood, like organize event, meals, share hobbies, etc, making things more social instead of being exclusive to the friends you have, maybe I would use it mor That's a fairly major use case of Facebook, via locality-oriented public groups. Discovery could certainly be improved, but it's already a pretty significant part of the use of Facebook by most people I know that actively use Facebook.
- jokoon 9y ago
  There is nothing significant in my neighborhood, and I live near an university. > locality-oriented public groups There is no point to those groups. Just make a discovery function for specific activities. Or just make people chat away with people in an area, or create default groups for each square kilometer. Don't let the users take the initiative to organize a forum.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > just make people chat away with people in an area This was a notable distinguishing feature of Google Buzz. There's probably a reason other social networks never rushed to copy it.
    - sushid 9y ago
      It's also a notable distinguishing feature of WeChat and it's wildly popular, FWIW.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
magic_beans 9y ago
Facebook does have all those things in your neighborhood. Just join (or start) your neighborhood's community group. Mine is pretty active with events/garage sales/group workouts etc. I'm not saying I love Facebook, but the community aspect is DEFINITELY there.
- jokoon 9y ago
  > Facebook does have all those things in your neighborhood. No it doesn't. Maybe it has something to do with the country I live in, which is a freedom loving country anyway. I already started a group when facebook started to be popular. It ended in a bloody ego sniping mess and I deleted the whole thing.
- zghst 9y ago
  It’s not front and center. This kind of activity should be part of another app
augustocallejas 9y ago
> If only facebook could be used to let strangers do stuff in their neighborhood, like organize event, meals, share hobbies, etc, making things more social instead of being exclusive to the friends you have, maybe I would use it more. This is exactly what Nextdoor (https://nextdoor.com https://nextdoor.com) does. I wouldn't be surprised if they were acquired by Facebook at some point.
- quadrangle 9y ago
  That's exactly the scariest thing about all of this. Proprietary independent sites like NextDoor collect additional layers of highly-personal information and are liable to sell-out and terms-changes etc. The only way to trust that any of these things are going to stay positive for society and not move toward more and more abuse and exploitation is to design them from the beginning to be controlled by the citizens and not by a few elites or stock-holders. And they should default to avoiding collecting unnecessary personal data.
- Rapzid 9y ago
  Does nextdoor help promote involvement into community and state politics? Raise awareness of props that will affect you, town halls, etc?

woodandsteel 9y ago

What if these new communities Zuckerberg says Facebook is encouraging decide that Facebook needs to make changes, like to its data-collection policies, that would reduce Facebook's profit and power? Would Facebook agree? Or would it adjust its algorithms to stop that sort of talk? Seems to me we need internet re-decentralization, not Facebook doing even more to effect the world.

quadrangle 9y ago
Although I agree basically, I think centralization that is actually democratic is at least worth considering. Democracy is problematic and messy, but it has forms besides anarchy. All of this, all forms of bringing more power to regular citizens will be an improvement over Facebook's model which is the worst.