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> I’ve often wanted to sit down with Mark Zuckerberg and argue with him about Facebook. It is premised on the notion that "connecting everyone" is an unmitigate

> I’ve often wanted to sit down with Mark Zuckerberg and argue with him about Facebook. It is premised on the notion that "connecting everyone" is an unmitigated good. This isn't the author's major point. But worth noting Zuckerberg changed FB's mission recently to "Give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together." Said Mark: "Connecting friends and family has been pretty positive, but I think there is just this collective feeling that we have a responsibility to do more than that and also help build communities and help people get exposed to new perspectives and meet new people -- not just give people a voice, but also help build common ground so people can actually move forward together."

jasonkostempski 9y ago
That doesn't sound different, just rephrased PRBS.
erikpukinskis 9y ago
I think most techno-optimists wouldn't say it is an unmitigated good, but a net good.
- throwanem 9y ago
  I think most techno-optimists would probably find in Koster's article much more to which to object than this characterization of Facebook.
davidivadavid 9y ago
Wow, that's really interesting. Hadn't noticed the change in the mission statement. For reference, it used to be: "Give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected." They changed from making the world more "open" to making it "closer", which are antonyms in a certain way. They changed from the idea of having Facebook be this sort of universal community of people getting together to searching for more intimacy, getting people closer, etc. but they keep talking about "the world." I've always thought there was room for an "anti-Facebook" that would be the opposite of their original vision statement. Its goal is not to "share things", i.e. to make things public, but to create more private communities that are tighter; not to make the world "more connected" (everyone having 5000 friends) but better connected (i.e. the value of relationships is higher). It seems like FB may be trying to go in that direction after all, but who knows what they really meant.
- tsunamifury 9y ago
  It seems to be facebook acknowledging that close-ties networks are of significantly more long term transactional value than the loose-ties network who's value is almost entirely advertorial.
  - davidivadavid 9y ago
    Yeah. But what does that mean for their business model?
    - dasil003 9y ago
      Not much. If they can still be the place where all the small communities gather then they still have all the data. It's clearly in Facebook's best interest to provide maximum value to their users; whether that is small or large groups doesn't matter to them.
    - tsunamifury 9y ago
      They are in a great position with WhatsApp and Messenger to take advantage of the close-ties transactional behavior of the future. In short -- they are extremely well positioned for the next 10 years.
- lyra_comms 9y ago
  We are building the anti-Facebook: Lyra. www.hellolyra.com
- qb45 9y ago
  > who knows what they really meant. They meant that several EU countries are pushing them to "do something" about terrorism and nationalism spreading on social networks so they are preemptively increasing moderation under slogans of unity, community and understanding before politicians come up with some byzantine hate speech enforcement which would bring them serious costs or kick them out of this market altogether.

jasonkostempski 9y ago

That doesn't sound different, just rephrased PRBS.

erikpukinskis 9y ago

I think most techno-optimists wouldn't say it is an unmitigated good, but a net good.

throwanem 9y ago
I think most techno-optimists would probably find in Koster's article much more to which to object than this characterization of Facebook.

davidivadavid 9y ago

Wow, that's really interesting. Hadn't noticed the change in the mission statement. For reference, it used to be: "Give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected." They changed from making the world more "open" to making it "closer", which are antonyms in a certain way. They changed from the idea of having Facebook be this sort of universal community of people getting together to searching for more intimacy, getting people closer, etc. but they keep talking about "the world." I've always thought there was room for an "anti-Facebook" that would be the opposite of their original vision statement. Its goal is not to "share things", i.e. to make things public, but to create more private communities that are tighter; not to make the world "more connected" (everyone having 5000 friends) but better connected (i.e. the value of relationships is higher). It seems like FB may be trying to go in that direction after all, but who knows what they really meant.

tsunamifury 9y ago
It seems to be facebook acknowledging that close-ties networks are of significantly more long term transactional value than the loose-ties network who's value is almost entirely advertorial.
- davidivadavid 9y ago
  Yeah. But what does that mean for their business model?
  - dasil003 9y ago
    Not much. If they can still be the place where all the small communities gather then they still have all the data. It's clearly in Facebook's best interest to provide maximum value to their users; whether that is small or large groups doesn't matter to them.
  - tsunamifury 9y ago
    They are in a great position with WhatsApp and Messenger to take advantage of the close-ties transactional behavior of the future. In short -- they are extremely well positioned for the next 10 years.
lyra_comms 9y ago
We are building the anti-Facebook: Lyra. www.hellolyra.com
qb45 9y ago
> who knows what they really meant. They meant that several EU countries are pushing them to "do something" about terrorism and nationalism spreading on social networks so they are preemptively increasing moderation under slogans of unity, community and understanding before politicians come up with some byzantine hate speech enforcement which would bring them serious costs or kick them out of this market altogether.