22 ms·

Facebook’s war on free will

411 points by kawera 9y ago

TwoNineA 9y ago
This implies that there is such a thing as 'free will'.
- raverbashing 9y ago
  So, you making this comment has been inevitable?
  - drharby 9y ago
    It is Inevititoble
  - sigzero 9y ago
    Predestined
  - firmgently 9y ago
    Modern mainstream science does not allow for the existence of free will. Materialism (everything is physical) and Determinism (everything that ever happens is an inevitable and ultimately predictable consequence of The Big Bang) reign in contemporary thought. Free will is largely considered to be an illusion or psychological trick (see eg. Daniel C. Dennett 'Freedom Evolves') and several studies have shown that decisions happen before we become aware of them and believe ourselves to have consciously decided (see Benjamin Libet's experiments amongst many others). For free will to exist the question of what is doing the willing has to be answered. The classic (René Descartes) explanation was that of the Cartesian Theatre, the idea that somewhere inside our heads there is some kind of entity that is separate from the physical substance that makes up our bodies. As far as I can see modern science's answer to that is 'nah - neurons' (I'm oversimplifying, people go into lots of detail about electrochemical processes which happen in the brain). I'm not necessarily saying I agree with/believe all of this (although Dennett's books are quite persuasive) but I'm not aware of any 'respectable' current theories that allow for any kind of 'ghost in the machine' - and without that, there's nowhere for free will to come from (and with that all that happens is you then need to answer what is driving the free will of the ghost/spirit/agent and where it comes from - which is similar to how The Big Bang doesn't explain why something could spontaneously appear out of nothing, only that it did and what happened next. Soap Bubble Universes, Multiverses etc just push the question one step further away... one turtle further down the stack). The world has a serious problem to resolve here because if there truly is no free will then there is no justification for punishing people for their actions - they had no choice in the matter... in which case the criminal justice system is barbaric and unfounded. I realise a lot of people here will already know this stuff but it plays on my mind quite a lot so please excuse the essay :)
    - nql 9y ago
      The non-existence of free will has no direct policy implication. Since people are deterministic, the knowledge of punishments would create different behaviors.
      - funkymike 9y ago
        The non-existence of free has huge policy implications. There are many discussions of this. For example the top result on Google for me looking for "free will justice punishment" was this: https://www.orlandocriminaldefenseattorneyblog.com/2016/01/free-will-determinism-criminal-justice-system.html https://www.orlandocriminaldefenseattorneyblog.com/2016/01/f... If a criminal has no free will, then they are not responsible for their actions since responsibility is dependent on moral agency. I disagree with that author's conclusion though, that you have to let every criminal go. I think that when someone is apprehended and determined to have committed the crime the decision to be made now comes from a different perspective. What treatment of this person will produce the best (or least bad) outcome for society on the whole? In one case that could mean letting the person go if every indication is that they will not commit another crime regardless of any punishment. In another case it could be locking them up and never letting them out, even on a first offence, if it is very likely that they will commit serious crimes if freed. Of course there are still discussions to be had weighing the impact of the sentencing decision on the victim, the perpetrator, and the rest of society. There's also how much trust to place in the scientific models of likelihood for recidivism. But accepting that people have no moral agency undercuts the most basic premise of laws and the justice system.
        nql 9y ago
        The direct participants in the justice system are not the whole picture. Society is not just affected by the judgement against the defendant, but by the logical precedent of the judgement. Making fair and consistent rules has widespread impact, allowing other people to understand the consequences of their actions and respond accordingly. A deterministic universe does not mean people do not have moral agency. It just means some people are predetermined to behave immorally. That does not mean we should not do what we can to prevent that behavior.
moretai 9y ago
Just get off facebook.
- ue_ 9y ago
  I wonder if this will be seen as when people say "Just stop using drugs" to drug addicts. Facebook for those who use it can have immense real or imaginary utility; it's not as simple as telling someone not to use it, unless they are a very casual user and do not rely on it for things like organising group events.
  - ameister14 9y ago
    Stopping the use of Facebook and transitioning to another method of organizing group events does not cause physical illness or death.
    - kfrzcode 9y ago
      You're pigeonholing. Facebook is only part of the tapestry of social media poison.
      - crispyambulance 9y ago
        You're right but I still wonder what will ever become of the idea of a "true" online social network. Why do we have to hand over so much of ourselves in order to obtain social connection as a "side-effect" of the true business of social media operators like Facebook and Google? Are these companies the only way to have meaningful online social networks? I don't think it has to be that way, but I also can't fathom how a non-toxic social network can keep the lights on without selling stuff.
        kfrzcode 9y ago
        I see the big 4 as robber barons[1]. They see opportunity in millions and billions of dollars. The company doesn't care about the individual. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robber_baron_(industrialist) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robber_baron_(industrialist)
DanCarvajal 9y ago
> Mark Zuckerberg is a good boy, but he wanted to be bad, or maybe just a little bit naughty. K thanks Guardian
ameister14 9y ago
This was written so disrespectfully and dismissively of programmers, hackers and engineers that I have a hard time reading it, despite my extreme distaste for Facebook. >In the labs of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) during the 60s and 70s, they broke any rule that interfered with building the stuff of early computing, such marvels as the first video games and word processors. Also, Calling a 33 year old billionaire that has helmed the construction of one of the largest companies the world has ever seen a (paraphrasing) 'good boy that wanted to be a bit naughty' is just stupid. I understand why Foer did it - he hates Silicon Valley for ruining his life at the helm of a magazine formerly supported by more hands-off rich patrons. It makes his arguments worse, though.
- golemotron 9y ago
  Get used to it. The tech backlash is just beginning. There are two forces. One is the series of gaffs by Google, FB, and Amazon and the resultant public awareness of their power. The second is Trump's election. When he set up his initial meetings with business leaders at the beginning of his administration, the tech giants were notably not invited. He sent the signal that they were not part of the real economy. Say what you want about Trump's morals or ineffectiveness, but things like that send signals across a society whether we like it or not. "Greed is good" came from Reagan's election in the 80s. Tech is losing its shine in our culture.
  - altcognito 9y ago
    > When he set up his initial meetings with business leaders at the beginning of his administration, the tech giants were notably not invited. http://money.cnn.com/2016/12/14/technology/trump-tech-summit-silicon-valley/index.html?iid=EL http://money.cnn.com/2016/12/14/technology/trump-tech-summit...
  - mcintyre1994 9y ago
    > When he set up his initial meetings with business leaders at the beginning of his administration, the tech giants were notably not invited. Hmm? https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/14/donald-trump-meets-with-tech-leaders/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/14/donald-trump-meets-with-te... "President-elect Donald Trump met with some of the most prominent executives from the tech industry today at Trump Tower, with investor Peter Thiel and Vice President-elect Mike Pence at his side. Trump opened the meeting with CEOs from Google, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon and others by thanking Thiel for his support." "Attendees included Eric Schmidt and Larry Page of Google, Tim Cook of Apple, Satya Nadella and Brad Smith of Microsoft, Jeff Bezos of Amazon (who expressed his excitement that Trump’s administration could be “the innovations administration“), Safra Catz of Oracle, Chuck Robbins of Cisco and Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook. Thiel’s business partner, Palantir CEO Alex Karp, attended as well." Seems like different sectors just had different meetings? Which meeting specifically were you thinking of?
ikeyany 9y ago
You could take a year-long class on the psychological influence (some call it social engineering) of Facebook and you'd barely scratch the surface. One example I find particularly interesting is how Facebook slowly expanded what would trigger a notification, keeping people fixated on that red box like rats to sugar water.
- trendia 9y ago
  It had the opposite effect for me -- now that everything gives me a notification, half the time I see the red dot on the corner I assune it's something stupid.
  - jbreckmckye 9y ago
    I'm not sure, but I feel that the less I engage with Facebook the more trivial the notifications become - as though the threshold were being lowered to get me back on board. So if I have no posts garnering likes / reactions, I start seeing "Susan is interested in an event near London!" and "Alan is now on Instagram!!" - until I begin posting again.
  - jasode 9y ago
    Yes. This recent thread and screenshot complained about 36 red notifications from Facebook instead of real human beings: https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/6zjzge/not_one_of_the_facebook_notifications_is_a/ https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/6zjzge/n... Facebook is diluting its red alert into meaningless nagging.
  - danmaz74 9y ago
    It's the same for me, but I'm sure they have all the analytics they need to know what increases engagement and what doesn't...
    - Bartweiss 9y ago
      I suspect it's a question of goals. Facebook talks a lot about increasing usage time and interaction count. The changes drove me away, but I was a low-time, low-activity user to begin with. Trading me for expanding the value of a 'whale' is probably a sensible move for them.
thedonkeycometh 9y ago
kudos with actually using the FBLearner source code in the graphic
zizek23 9y ago
It's the Internet that enables communication. Families and friends would be able to communicate once the Internet became possible whether Facebook exists or not. People would be able to use and get value from the Internet whether Google exists or not. These companies add value but they are not the Internet. If they didn't exist the Internet will continue being useful. What they have been able to do is inject themselves into communication pathways, provide a network effect in the case of facebook to leverage social curiosity about others which in the larger scheme of things is not important, and now sit on tons of data which has zero value to users and thus does not enhance communication in any way, but helps advertisers.
- autokad 9y ago
  whats interesting is i communicated more with my family when we only had a phone to communicate than when facebook came along. I'm not sure how or why it does it, but i believe it actually thwarts communication.
  - pc86 9y ago
    The argument I've heard in favor of this is that in 1995 if you wanted to talk to Aunt Sylvia in Indiana you had to pick up the phone and call her. More often than not, this resulted in a 20-30 minute conversation where you talked about something. This would happen, what, once every few weeks or months? Now, you see her in your news feed, and you might like it or fire off a one-sentence [fragment] comment. This mini-interaction happens on a weekly or daily basis, so you feel like you're more in touch with what Aunt Sylvia's doing now, when in reality it's much more superficial.
    - graphitezepp 9y ago
      Facebooks whole shtick is making you feel like your being social. In reality you are partaking in the most superficial 'fast food' social needs scratching imaginable. This causes people to become addicted to a constant stream of ultimately unsatisfying validation at the cost of spending time on meaningful relationships.
jknz 9y ago
Getting off facebook will not suit everyone, mostly because a lot of users will use messenger or need facebook to beventa in the loop of some social events. There is way to empty one's Facebook feed and remove all notifications that are not related to messenger. The solution is to unfollow everyone, until the facebook feed displays "no more posts to show". One can then enjoy the messaging features of facebook without the bad. One can also view some profiles or groups occasionally but this prevents the passive consumption of feeds.
- emilburzo 9y ago
  Or just install 'Kill news feed' -> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/kill-news-feed/hjobfcedfgohjkaieocljfcppjbkglfd?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/kill-news-feed/hjo... (no affiliation)
  - adamrezich 9y ago
    or just use messenger.com. I haven't checked my Facebook wall in forever, but I use messenger almost daily to communicate with friends and family.
    - emilburzo 9y ago
      Sure, but then you lose the group/event functionality (which is great, if you don't need it)
  - gaius 9y ago
    Replacing Facebook with a Google product isn't the bargain you think it is.
    - emilburzo 9y ago
      What do you mean? It's a chrome extension that hides the news feed part of facebook, leaving the chat/group/event stuff without the endless scrolling.
disease 9y ago
I feel like once someone figures out what the next big thing in social media is, facebook will go the way of myspace. Here's the next big thing: a federated, open source network that allows users to sell their own data.
- divanvisagie 9y ago
  Those sorts of things only appeal to people who know what they mean, which is a ver very small part of facebook. Does my mother or grandmother care about a social network being federated or open source? No , not even close. Only technical people care about this stuff and it adds no value for the average user.
  - gmueckl 9y ago
    Also, in my experience, no distributed competition for any service X lived up to a centralized, commercially run X in the past. Decentralization has in the past always added a layer of complexity that makes things appear slow, breaks things randomly and generally ends up in the user's way in one way or another.
- rconti 9y ago
  Myspace was a blip on the radar compared to Facebook. It was founded a year before Facebook, and its star started fading within 6mo of Facebook starting to spread like wildfire across college campuses. It was inevitable that the Myspace audience, which trended slightly younger, would abandon the platform wholesale as soon as Facebook threw open the doors to the public.
athenot 9y ago
> The problem is that when we outsource thinking to machines, we are really outsourcing thinking to the organisations that run the machines. This is the money quote of this article, and it's been on my mind quite a bit as of late. More than ever, we live in a world where there are many forces ready to take full advantage of our laziness. It takes a bit of introspection to really understand the tradeoffs that are appropriate. When it comes to Facebook, I'm really getting the feeling that my friendships have been hacked (and tainted) for someone else's profit. Fortunately, there is a way around: share important stuff in person instead of on FB—heck, I'm finding myself using email more these days—and keep Facebook usage for the few things it does well, like planning get-togethers.
- adjkant 9y ago
  Honestly, I think the right company with the right marketing could make Facebook completely irrelevant. All you'd need is a basic address book/profile functionality + basic messaging + event planning. Perhaps a use as a universal login, as many do like that. They would lose a ton of users if the network effect would catch on, which is obviously the big hurdle. It would also be a curious case of brands being left with few Facebook users, and likely no way into the disrupting service if it was funded by basic ads. That requires the disrupting company to not be greedy, but I think they could make a viable business out of it. Please, someone make this for the greater good.
  - katzgrau 9y ago
    FB's tentacles are so deeply embedded in everything that I'm not sure a classic tech death from a disruptor is possible. Only a long and slow decline over a period of 5, maybe even 10 years.
    - dabockster 9y ago
      > I'm not sure a classic tech death from a disruptor is possible Well, FB's brand itself is super toxic these days, so you could probably build something on the whole "we're not FB" premise
zackmorris 9y ago
Has anyone come up with a way of tracking what gets shared where? Perhaps with a hidden pixel or some other mechanism to track requests? Or is that impossible because Facebook is a walled garden? I'm thinking that since there is no check against Facebook's sharing algorithm going haywire (in effect censoring certain things for monetary gain) that that creates an incentive to not be fair. The public nature of the internet used to be our proof of fairness, for example with Twitter or YouTube. It occurred to me that the same 3 people that like my posts are probably the only ones seeing them, since I'm one of the only ones who likes theirs back. We're collectively hellbanned, and I can't think of a stronger incentive to quit using Facebook.
- gmueckl 9y ago
  The last monitoring attempt that I heard of used a browser plugin to scrape the user's posts. The point was to monitor political parties and their ad targeting before the upcoming elections in Germany. Generally, Facebook needs to view contents of posts that is able to access third party websites a severe bug. It is an unwelcome data leak at least and a true attack vector at worst. So, tracking by linking to a third party tracking pixel should be impossible.
dperfect 9y ago
> By the time Zuckerberg began extolling the virtues of hacking, he had stripped the name of most of its original meaning and distilled it into a managerial philosophy that contains barely a hint of rebelliousness. Hackers, he told one interviewer, were “just this group of computer scientists who were trying to quickly prototype and see what was possible." No, Zuckerberg did not somehow give the word "hacking" new meaning - those meanings have been around for a long time. > Facebook would never put it this way, but algorithms are meant to erode free will, to relieve humans of the burden of choosing, to nudge them in the right direction. Again, no. The whole article is full of grandiose statements like this that are either flat-out wrong or distorted to fit the author's narrative. Maybe if "algorithms" were replaced with "their algorithms", this argument (which seems to be the thesis) would be slightly more credible. The problems described in the article are not products of algorithms or the "engineering mindset". Those things are just manifestations of the real problem: Facebook's current strategic mission. I agree with a lot of what the article is saying, but unfortunately it comes across as blaming the use of technology and engineering. Like civil laws, those things can be helpful or detrimental to people (as most tools can), and sometimes they have unintended consequences. Ultimately, the responsibility still lies 100% with the organization creating those algorithms, not in the use of algorithms per se.
- jpetso 9y ago
  Question: If you take an organization with the goal to make money, and you execute well on social media with the help of capable engineers, will the end result have been drastically different than what Zuckerberg came up with? If the aims and initial circumstances are similar, and the methods of engineering people & data with code are known, and few errors are made to get there, how much is really left to the individual as opposed to the system itself? Would there have been any way that Facebook did not become its evil current self, without accepting that it would eventually be replaced by an equivalent organization that did decide to "listen to the data" and let algorithms decide what's most effective in getting us to be a potent tool for shareholder enrichment? It might have been Facebook's set of algorithms and engineering prowess that got us to the point we're at now, but I wouldn't refute the statement that the use of those methods would cause better long-term results in someone else's hands.
hughw 9y ago
The author mischaracterizes algorithms and ridiculously attributes their importance in computer science to a desire by programmers to polish their own images. He reveals ignorance of one of the biggest motivations for the earliest computers, which was to solve differential equations in several domains. Eigenvalue estimation algorithms existed long before Page Rank.
- crpatino 9y ago
  Humans are social primates. Being willfully unaware of how the other tribes of primates perceive your own tribe is both naive and stupid. And given the fact that the other tribes are more numerous, have bigger and hairier and angrier primates with longer and sharper sticks, this particular stupidity may turn out to be of the suicidal kind...
  - hughw 9y ago
    Baffled how you get "willfully unaware" out of my comment, and how I earned "naive and stupid" epithets from you. At least I know how to find an eigenvalue. Can't be all that stupid.
    - crpatino 9y ago
      Yeah, sorry about that. It is not really you, it is that I have had this conversation over with more people before, and my tolerance have grown thin. But other than the epithets, my point stands. Knowing what an eigenvalue is, or how to calculate it, is not the only type of intelligence there is around, and not necessarily the most important one. You can tell that is a fact and not an opinion by checking what percentage of the world leaders (both of government and of industry) are engineers or scientists. Furthermore, if you look at people like Angela Merkel, who is a trained scientist and a world leader, you will notice they did not reach that state in life by knowing lots of math and science, but by noticing conventional politicians have a different type of cunning, and by applying their very big brains to outsmart those politicians in their own game. In other words, your complain about lack of scientific awareness in the article is a red herring. It may be accurate, but it is not useful because the political purpose of the article does not depend on that. You could tell it even is a feature because the intended audience of the piece also lack scientific awareness. So, you can freely choose to feel loathing and to disregard the artice, or you can choose to acknowledge it as an attempt to shape public perception in a way that harms the interest of your industry/profession. If you put it in those terms, calling "fault, unfair!!!" in a game with no referee and no explicit rules is a strong indicator that you are loosing and cannot cope.
lvoudour 9y ago
> Data, like victims of torture, tells its interrogator what it wants to hear That is a great analogy and something that bit more than a few scientists and engineers over the years
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
fredastaire 9y ago
7 words about Facebook: No way to put pages into categories (so much about free will / organzing)
bogomipz 9y ago
Slight tangent - since the image of the 1 Hacker Way FB sign is invariably used in FB pieces, its amusing to note that the back of this sign still shows the Sun Microsystems logo that they cheaply painted over when they took the space over: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ce5VS24UAAAxxLF.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ce5VS24UAAAxxLF.jpg
- hzay 9y ago
  Actually they keep this to remind themselves every day that one day they could be dust too. There are also a few other relics from the Sun era deliberately left over in the campus for the same reason. Source: worked there
  - bogomipz 9y ago
    >"Actually they keep this to remind themselves every day that one day they could be dust too." How is it a reminder if it isn't at all visible to anyone there? The back of the sign is obscured by woods. The only way to see it is to walk around to the back of it. I'm not surprised that company propaganda would spin this into some nonsense about 'this is a reminder ..." though.
Hyperbolic 9y ago
Despite how much I dislike Facebook, this article started off decent, but took a strange (and disrepectful) turn into hacker culture and algorithms that was completely unfounded. Facebook addiction and the centralization of the Internet has literally nothing to do with the concept of algorithms. Sure, machine learning ventures at Facebook contribute to the need to track users and invade privacy, but that's not the fault of computer scientists working on these algorithms. That's the fault of Facebook's business model.
- gggdvnkhmbgjvbn 9y ago
  Its because its an excerpt from a book, I think. I totally agree, I'm on board with the point of the article but its written like an amateur Adam Curtis.
Chardok 9y ago
“In a lot of ways Facebook is more like a government than a traditional company,” Zuckerberg has said. “We have this large community of people, and more than other technology companies we’re really setting policies.” And this is why I am arguing for a serious revamping of regulation on these companies. As they collect more and more data, build shadow profiles of non-users, conduct "experiments" on their users, attacking individualism and rights to privacy, they are operating much more like a government than a corporation. Combine this with the massive financial clout they have and we are having our actual constitutional rights violated, while being told our Bill of rights don't apply to them because they are a corporation, not the government.
root_axis 9y ago
I wish people would stop contributing to the Facebook mythos that elevates a social media platform into some kind of software based deity. It's just a website, it's not a threat to "free will" any more than a cigarette or coke addiction is a threat to "free will". People recite grand expositions regarding how "I stopped using facebook and it changed my life forever! I've never looked back!"... wonderful, but I want to suggest that it's just not that big of a deal either way, it's a website where people post selfies, memes, and uninformed political opinions, it really isn't that life-altering. If you truly despise Facebook, stop feeding its delusions of grandeur.
- bamboozled 9y ago
  It's not a website, it's a complex and sophisticated media and marketing platform with many, many different features and all of that comes with a bunch of pros and cons.
  - ryandrake 9y ago
    ...that you can choose whether or not to use.
    - Chardok 9y ago
      Thats not entirely true. Facebook will build a profile on you through like buttons and information shared from family/friends/acquaintances whether you choose to or not.
      - ryandrake 9y ago
        Why would I care about that if I don't use the product? How would anything that Facebook does affect someone who does not use it?
        root_axis 9y ago
        Well, someone could certainly take your photo and post it on Facebook without your knowledge and that could lead to serious consequences, however, one's photo could just as easily end up on reddit, imgur, HN or any other internet community. Incidentally, the photo posted on Facebook would at least not be indexed by google.
bogomipz 9y ago
I feel like both the velocity of these articles about "The Facebook corporation" and people's awareness of their shady practices are increasing overall. I guess I wonder will it manage to effect any change in people's online behavior and wholesale submission to this corporation's whims and agenda? I would like to believe yes but my anecdotal observations of people and their smart phones suggests to me there's no basis for believing that.
tastythrowaway 9y ago
at what point do we stop blaming facebook and start blaming ourselves?
- bgun 9y ago
  This is a trope and not useful for solving problems of culture, psychology, or addiction. It is the same as saying "when you ban guns, only criminals will have guns" or "everyone has a choice, so choose not to do drugs". These are vapid recitations and cannot address complex issues.
  - tastythrowaway 9y ago
    This is absolutely not the same as your gun ban argument. It is also not the same as your "choose not to use" argument. How do people think they can give away all of their information, to someone who trades in information, and somehow act surprised when that entity leverages this information?
tadufre 9y ago
These phone companies are terrible. All they want to do is make money off of their customers. I stopped using phones to communicate a couple of months ago. My real friends still send me telegrams. These telegraph companies are terrible. All they want to do is make money ...
ComodoHacker 9y ago
Very good read. Too bad, when the author talks about power of algorithms, he doesn't mention Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Animats 9y ago
The real problem with Facebook is "sharing". I want to see what my friends are doing, and have zero interest in their "sharing". Sharing is spamming.
ScottBurson 9y ago
“The days of you having a different image for your work friends or co-workers and for the other people you know are probably coming to an end pretty quickly,” Zuckerberg has said. “Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity.” Mark Zuckerberg lecturing us about integrity is quite a hoot -- particularly when his argument is completely self-serving. What's next, lessons in Gandhian pacifism from Kim Jong-un? Anyway, he's flat wrong. Having multiple identities, in the sense that we adapt our behavior and interests somewhat to the people we're interacting with, is inevitable, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. Integrity is something deeper.
kareldonk 9y ago
Fuckerberg is no hacker; he's a fraud and hypocrite.
sparkzilla 9y ago
>His company was, as we all know, a dorm-room lark, a thing he ginned up in a Red Bull–induced fit of sleeplessness. False. He stole the business from the Winklevoss twins.
megamindbrian 9y ago
I'm unable to believe that anyone running a product with over a billion active users has anything less than altruistic intentions. Who is to say any of us have free will? Who is to say any of us deserve free will after all the wars we've caused and damage to the environment? If your going to get theological don't bother, you are out of date.
DarkIye 9y ago
This article started off well but began to lose me around the time he said: "Computer scientists have an aphorism that describes how algorithms relentlessly hunt for patterns: they talk about torturing the data until it confesses." This is the first time I have seen this formulation of the nature of data. Data is almost always regarded as an input, or a resource, or a substrate, not a being of any kind. The article generally seems to be less about its title and more about Facebook's business on the whole, and it's an interesting read.
bogomipz 9y ago
>"At a White House dinner in 2015, Mr. Zuckerberg had even asked the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, whether Mr. Xi might offer a Chinese name for his soon-to-be-born first child — usually a privilege reserved for older relatives, or sometimes a fortune teller. Mr. Xi declined, according to a person briefed on the matter." Does getting FB into China mean so much to this person that he's willing to consider a name suggested by a complete stranger for his own child? The picture of Mark Zuckerberg running though Tiananmen Square is also quite telling. It's completely stage-managed so that it's taken while Mark is smiling and Chairman Mao's picture is clearly in the frame behind him. I wonder how many attempts this "spontaneous" picture required. I happened to be in Beijing that same weekend as this photo op. The local reaction to that picture wasn't one of celebrity adulation because people recognized Mark Zuckerberg founder of FB as he's not a household name there. The reaction was one of complete consternation that someone would be out jogging in such hazardous air quality. That's not an early morning fog in the background it's air pollution. It seemed like most people were donning air pollution masks that weekend because the particulate in the was so heavy. I mention this only because it seems to the same awkward and obsequious behavior as asking the President of China to offer a name for your unborn child.
wintergardner 9y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWsuVK0kJ1w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWsuVK0kJ1w

411 points by kawera 9y ago

TwoNineA 9y ago

This implies that there is such a thing as 'free will'.

raverbashing 9y ago
So, you making this comment has been inevitable?
- drharby 9y ago
  It is Inevititoble
- sigzero 9y ago
  Predestined
- firmgently 9y ago
  Modern mainstream science does not allow for the existence of free will. Materialism (everything is physical) and Determinism (everything that ever happens is an inevitable and ultimately predictable consequence of The Big Bang) reign in contemporary thought. Free will is largely considered to be an illusion or psychological trick (see eg. Daniel C. Dennett 'Freedom Evolves') and several studies have shown that decisions happen before we become aware of them and believe ourselves to have consciously decided (see Benjamin Libet's experiments amongst many others). For free will to exist the question of what is doing the willing has to be answered. The classic (René Descartes) explanation was that of the Cartesian Theatre, the idea that somewhere inside our heads there is some kind of entity that is separate from the physical substance that makes up our bodies. As far as I can see modern science's answer to that is 'nah - neurons' (I'm oversimplifying, people go into lots of detail about electrochemical processes which happen in the brain). I'm not necessarily saying I agree with/believe all of this (although Dennett's books are quite persuasive) but I'm not aware of any 'respectable' current theories that allow for any kind of 'ghost in the machine' - and without that, there's nowhere for free will to come from (and with that all that happens is you then need to answer what is driving the free will of the ghost/spirit/agent and where it comes from - which is similar to how The Big Bang doesn't explain why something could spontaneously appear out of nothing, only that it did and what happened next. Soap Bubble Universes, Multiverses etc just push the question one step further away... one turtle further down the stack). The world has a serious problem to resolve here because if there truly is no free will then there is no justification for punishing people for their actions - they had no choice in the matter... in which case the criminal justice system is barbaric and unfounded. I realise a lot of people here will already know this stuff but it plays on my mind quite a lot so please excuse the essay :)
  - nql 9y ago
    The non-existence of free will has no direct policy implication. Since people are deterministic, the knowledge of punishments would create different behaviors.
    - funkymike 9y ago
      The non-existence of free has huge policy implications. There are many discussions of this. For example the top result on Google for me looking for "free will justice punishment" was this: https://www.orlandocriminaldefenseattorneyblog.com/2016/01/free-will-determinism-criminal-justice-system.html https://www.orlandocriminaldefenseattorneyblog.com/2016/01/f... If a criminal has no free will, then they are not responsible for their actions since responsibility is dependent on moral agency. I disagree with that author's conclusion though, that you have to let every criminal go. I think that when someone is apprehended and determined to have committed the crime the decision to be made now comes from a different perspective. What treatment of this person will produce the best (or least bad) outcome for society on the whole? In one case that could mean letting the person go if every indication is that they will not commit another crime regardless of any punishment. In another case it could be locking them up and never letting them out, even on a first offence, if it is very likely that they will commit serious crimes if freed. Of course there are still discussions to be had weighing the impact of the sentencing decision on the victim, the perpetrator, and the rest of society. There's also how much trust to place in the scientific models of likelihood for recidivism. But accepting that people have no moral agency undercuts the most basic premise of laws and the justice system.
      - nql 9y ago
        The direct participants in the justice system are not the whole picture. Society is not just affected by the judgement against the defendant, but by the logical precedent of the judgement. Making fair and consistent rules has widespread impact, allowing other people to understand the consequences of their actions and respond accordingly. A deterministic universe does not mean people do not have moral agency. It just means some people are predetermined to behave immorally. That does not mean we should not do what we can to prevent that behavior.

moretai 9y ago

Just get off facebook.

ue_ 9y ago
I wonder if this will be seen as when people say "Just stop using drugs" to drug addicts. Facebook for those who use it can have immense real or imaginary utility; it's not as simple as telling someone not to use it, unless they are a very casual user and do not rely on it for things like organising group events.
- ameister14 9y ago
  Stopping the use of Facebook and transitioning to another method of organizing group events does not cause physical illness or death.
  - kfrzcode 9y ago
    You're pigeonholing. Facebook is only part of the tapestry of social media poison.
    - crispyambulance 9y ago
      You're right but I still wonder what will ever become of the idea of a "true" online social network. Why do we have to hand over so much of ourselves in order to obtain social connection as a "side-effect" of the true business of social media operators like Facebook and Google? Are these companies the only way to have meaningful online social networks? I don't think it has to be that way, but I also can't fathom how a non-toxic social network can keep the lights on without selling stuff.
      - kfrzcode 9y ago
        I see the big 4 as robber barons[1]. They see opportunity in millions and billions of dollars. The company doesn't care about the individual. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robber_baron_(industrialist) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robber_baron_(industrialist)

DanCarvajal 9y ago

> Mark Zuckerberg is a good boy, but he wanted to be bad, or maybe just a little bit naughty. K thanks Guardian

ameister14 9y ago

This was written so disrespectfully and dismissively of programmers, hackers and engineers that I have a hard time reading it, despite my extreme distaste for Facebook. >In the labs of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) during the 60s and 70s, they broke any rule that interfered with building the stuff of early computing, such marvels as the first video games and word processors. Also, Calling a 33 year old billionaire that has helmed the construction of one of the largest companies the world has ever seen a (paraphrasing) 'good boy that wanted to be a bit naughty' is just stupid. I understand why Foer did it - he hates Silicon Valley for ruining his life at the helm of a magazine formerly supported by more hands-off rich patrons. It makes his arguments worse, though.

golemotron 9y ago
Get used to it. The tech backlash is just beginning. There are two forces. One is the series of gaffs by Google, FB, and Amazon and the resultant public awareness of their power. The second is Trump's election. When he set up his initial meetings with business leaders at the beginning of his administration, the tech giants were notably not invited. He sent the signal that they were not part of the real economy. Say what you want about Trump's morals or ineffectiveness, but things like that send signals across a society whether we like it or not. "Greed is good" came from Reagan's election in the 80s. Tech is losing its shine in our culture.
- altcognito 9y ago
  > When he set up his initial meetings with business leaders at the beginning of his administration, the tech giants were notably not invited. http://money.cnn.com/2016/12/14/technology/trump-tech-summit-silicon-valley/index.html?iid=EL http://money.cnn.com/2016/12/14/technology/trump-tech-summit...
- mcintyre1994 9y ago
  > When he set up his initial meetings with business leaders at the beginning of his administration, the tech giants were notably not invited. Hmm? https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/14/donald-trump-meets-with-tech-leaders/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/14/donald-trump-meets-with-te... "President-elect Donald Trump met with some of the most prominent executives from the tech industry today at Trump Tower, with investor Peter Thiel and Vice President-elect Mike Pence at his side. Trump opened the meeting with CEOs from Google, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon and others by thanking Thiel for his support." "Attendees included Eric Schmidt and Larry Page of Google, Tim Cook of Apple, Satya Nadella and Brad Smith of Microsoft, Jeff Bezos of Amazon (who expressed his excitement that Trump’s administration could be “the innovations administration“), Safra Catz of Oracle, Chuck Robbins of Cisco and Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook. Thiel’s business partner, Palantir CEO Alex Karp, attended as well." Seems like different sectors just had different meetings? Which meeting specifically were you thinking of?

ikeyany 9y ago

You could take a year-long class on the psychological influence (some call it social engineering) of Facebook and you'd barely scratch the surface. One example I find particularly interesting is how Facebook slowly expanded what would trigger a notification, keeping people fixated on that red box like rats to sugar water.

trendia 9y ago
It had the opposite effect for me -- now that everything gives me a notification, half the time I see the red dot on the corner I assune it's something stupid.
- jbreckmckye 9y ago
  I'm not sure, but I feel that the less I engage with Facebook the more trivial the notifications become - as though the threshold were being lowered to get me back on board. So if I have no posts garnering likes / reactions, I start seeing "Susan is interested in an event near London!" and "Alan is now on Instagram!!" - until I begin posting again.
- jasode 9y ago
  Yes. This recent thread and screenshot complained about 36 red notifications from Facebook instead of real human beings: https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/6zjzge/not_one_of_the_facebook_notifications_is_a/ https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/6zjzge/n... Facebook is diluting its red alert into meaningless nagging.
- danmaz74 9y ago
  It's the same for me, but I'm sure they have all the analytics they need to know what increases engagement and what doesn't...
  - Bartweiss 9y ago
    I suspect it's a question of goals. Facebook talks a lot about increasing usage time and interaction count. The changes drove me away, but I was a low-time, low-activity user to begin with. Trading me for expanding the value of a 'whale' is probably a sensible move for them.

thedonkeycometh 9y ago

kudos with actually using the FBLearner source code in the graphic

zizek23 9y ago

It's the Internet that enables communication. Families and friends would be able to communicate once the Internet became possible whether Facebook exists or not. People would be able to use and get value from the Internet whether Google exists or not. These companies add value but they are not the Internet. If they didn't exist the Internet will continue being useful. What they have been able to do is inject themselves into communication pathways, provide a network effect in the case of facebook to leverage social curiosity about others which in the larger scheme of things is not important, and now sit on tons of data which has zero value to users and thus does not enhance communication in any way, but helps advertisers.

autokad 9y ago
whats interesting is i communicated more with my family when we only had a phone to communicate than when facebook came along. I'm not sure how or why it does it, but i believe it actually thwarts communication.
- pc86 9y ago
  The argument I've heard in favor of this is that in 1995 if you wanted to talk to Aunt Sylvia in Indiana you had to pick up the phone and call her. More often than not, this resulted in a 20-30 minute conversation where you talked about something. This would happen, what, once every few weeks or months? Now, you see her in your news feed, and you might like it or fire off a one-sentence [fragment] comment. This mini-interaction happens on a weekly or daily basis, so you feel like you're more in touch with what Aunt Sylvia's doing now, when in reality it's much more superficial.
  - graphitezepp 9y ago
    Facebooks whole shtick is making you feel like your being social. In reality you are partaking in the most superficial 'fast food' social needs scratching imaginable. This causes people to become addicted to a constant stream of ultimately unsatisfying validation at the cost of spending time on meaningful relationships.

jknz 9y ago

Getting off facebook will not suit everyone, mostly because a lot of users will use messenger or need facebook to beventa in the loop of some social events. There is way to empty one's Facebook feed and remove all notifications that are not related to messenger. The solution is to unfollow everyone, until the facebook feed displays "no more posts to show". One can then enjoy the messaging features of facebook without the bad. One can also view some profiles or groups occasionally but this prevents the passive consumption of feeds.

emilburzo 9y ago
Or just install 'Kill news feed' -> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/kill-news-feed/hjobfcedfgohjkaieocljfcppjbkglfd?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/kill-news-feed/hjo... (no affiliation)
- adamrezich 9y ago
  or just use messenger.com. I haven't checked my Facebook wall in forever, but I use messenger almost daily to communicate with friends and family.
  - emilburzo 9y ago
    Sure, but then you lose the group/event functionality (which is great, if you don't need it)
- gaius 9y ago
  Replacing Facebook with a Google product isn't the bargain you think it is.
  - emilburzo 9y ago
    What do you mean? It's a chrome extension that hides the news feed part of facebook, leaving the chat/group/event stuff without the endless scrolling.

disease 9y ago

I feel like once someone figures out what the next big thing in social media is, facebook will go the way of myspace. Here's the next big thing: a federated, open source network that allows users to sell their own data.

divanvisagie 9y ago
Those sorts of things only appeal to people who know what they mean, which is a ver very small part of facebook. Does my mother or grandmother care about a social network being federated or open source? No , not even close. Only technical people care about this stuff and it adds no value for the average user.
- gmueckl 9y ago
  Also, in my experience, no distributed competition for any service X lived up to a centralized, commercially run X in the past. Decentralization has in the past always added a layer of complexity that makes things appear slow, breaks things randomly and generally ends up in the user's way in one way or another.
rconti 9y ago
Myspace was a blip on the radar compared to Facebook. It was founded a year before Facebook, and its star started fading within 6mo of Facebook starting to spread like wildfire across college campuses. It was inevitable that the Myspace audience, which trended slightly younger, would abandon the platform wholesale as soon as Facebook threw open the doors to the public.

athenot 9y ago

> The problem is that when we outsource thinking to machines, we are really outsourcing thinking to the organisations that run the machines. This is the money quote of this article, and it's been on my mind quite a bit as of late. More than ever, we live in a world where there are many forces ready to take full advantage of our laziness. It takes a bit of introspection to really understand the tradeoffs that are appropriate. When it comes to Facebook, I'm really getting the feeling that my friendships have been hacked (and tainted) for someone else's profit. Fortunately, there is a way around: share important stuff in person instead of on FB—heck, I'm finding myself using email more these days—and keep Facebook usage for the few things it does well, like planning get-togethers.

adjkant 9y ago
Honestly, I think the right company with the right marketing could make Facebook completely irrelevant. All you'd need is a basic address book/profile functionality + basic messaging + event planning. Perhaps a use as a universal login, as many do like that. They would lose a ton of users if the network effect would catch on, which is obviously the big hurdle. It would also be a curious case of brands being left with few Facebook users, and likely no way into the disrupting service if it was funded by basic ads. That requires the disrupting company to not be greedy, but I think they could make a viable business out of it. Please, someone make this for the greater good.
- katzgrau 9y ago
  FB's tentacles are so deeply embedded in everything that I'm not sure a classic tech death from a disruptor is possible. Only a long and slow decline over a period of 5, maybe even 10 years.
  - dabockster 9y ago
    > I'm not sure a classic tech death from a disruptor is possible Well, FB's brand itself is super toxic these days, so you could probably build something on the whole "we're not FB" premise

zackmorris 9y ago

Has anyone come up with a way of tracking what gets shared where? Perhaps with a hidden pixel or some other mechanism to track requests? Or is that impossible because Facebook is a walled garden? I'm thinking that since there is no check against Facebook's sharing algorithm going haywire (in effect censoring certain things for monetary gain) that that creates an incentive to not be fair. The public nature of the internet used to be our proof of fairness, for example with Twitter or YouTube. It occurred to me that the same 3 people that like my posts are probably the only ones seeing them, since I'm one of the only ones who likes theirs back. We're collectively hellbanned, and I can't think of a stronger incentive to quit using Facebook.

gmueckl 9y ago
The last monitoring attempt that I heard of used a browser plugin to scrape the user's posts. The point was to monitor political parties and their ad targeting before the upcoming elections in Germany. Generally, Facebook needs to view contents of posts that is able to access third party websites a severe bug. It is an unwelcome data leak at least and a true attack vector at worst. So, tracking by linking to a third party tracking pixel should be impossible.

dperfect 9y ago

> By the time Zuckerberg began extolling the virtues of hacking, he had stripped the name of most of its original meaning and distilled it into a managerial philosophy that contains barely a hint of rebelliousness. Hackers, he told one interviewer, were “just this group of computer scientists who were trying to quickly prototype and see what was possible." No, Zuckerberg did not somehow give the word "hacking" new meaning - those meanings have been around for a long time. > Facebook would never put it this way, but algorithms are meant to erode free will, to relieve humans of the burden of choosing, to nudge them in the right direction. Again, no. The whole article is full of grandiose statements like this that are either flat-out wrong or distorted to fit the author's narrative. Maybe if "algorithms" were replaced with "their algorithms", this argument (which seems to be the thesis) would be slightly more credible. The problems described in the article are not products of algorithms or the "engineering mindset". Those things are just manifestations of the real problem: Facebook's current strategic mission. I agree with a lot of what the article is saying, but unfortunately it comes across as blaming the use of technology and engineering. Like civil laws, those things can be helpful or detrimental to people (as most tools can), and sometimes they have unintended consequences. Ultimately, the responsibility still lies 100% with the organization creating those algorithms, not in the use of algorithms per se.

jpetso 9y ago
Question: If you take an organization with the goal to make money, and you execute well on social media with the help of capable engineers, will the end result have been drastically different than what Zuckerberg came up with? If the aims and initial circumstances are similar, and the methods of engineering people & data with code are known, and few errors are made to get there, how much is really left to the individual as opposed to the system itself? Would there have been any way that Facebook did not become its evil current self, without accepting that it would eventually be replaced by an equivalent organization that did decide to "listen to the data" and let algorithms decide what's most effective in getting us to be a potent tool for shareholder enrichment? It might have been Facebook's set of algorithms and engineering prowess that got us to the point we're at now, but I wouldn't refute the statement that the use of those methods would cause better long-term results in someone else's hands.

hughw 9y ago

The author mischaracterizes algorithms and ridiculously attributes their importance in computer science to a desire by programmers to polish their own images. He reveals ignorance of one of the biggest motivations for the earliest computers, which was to solve differential equations in several domains. Eigenvalue estimation algorithms existed long before Page Rank.

crpatino 9y ago
Humans are social primates. Being willfully unaware of how the other tribes of primates perceive your own tribe is both naive and stupid. And given the fact that the other tribes are more numerous, have bigger and hairier and angrier primates with longer and sharper sticks, this particular stupidity may turn out to be of the suicidal kind...
- hughw 9y ago
  Baffled how you get "willfully unaware" out of my comment, and how I earned "naive and stupid" epithets from you. At least I know how to find an eigenvalue. Can't be all that stupid.
  - crpatino 9y ago
    Yeah, sorry about that. It is not really you, it is that I have had this conversation over with more people before, and my tolerance have grown thin. But other than the epithets, my point stands. Knowing what an eigenvalue is, or how to calculate it, is not the only type of intelligence there is around, and not necessarily the most important one. You can tell that is a fact and not an opinion by checking what percentage of the world leaders (both of government and of industry) are engineers or scientists. Furthermore, if you look at people like Angela Merkel, who is a trained scientist and a world leader, you will notice they did not reach that state in life by knowing lots of math and science, but by noticing conventional politicians have a different type of cunning, and by applying their very big brains to outsmart those politicians in their own game. In other words, your complain about lack of scientific awareness in the article is a red herring. It may be accurate, but it is not useful because the political purpose of the article does not depend on that. You could tell it even is a feature because the intended audience of the piece also lack scientific awareness. So, you can freely choose to feel loathing and to disregard the artice, or you can choose to acknowledge it as an attempt to shape public perception in a way that harms the interest of your industry/profession. If you put it in those terms, calling "fault, unfair!!!" in a game with no referee and no explicit rules is a strong indicator that you are loosing and cannot cope.

lvoudour 9y ago

> Data, like victims of torture, tells its interrogator what it wants to hear That is a great analogy and something that bit more than a few scientists and engineers over the years

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

fredastaire 9y ago

7 words about Facebook: No way to put pages into categories (so much about free will / organzing)

bogomipz 9y ago

Slight tangent - since the image of the 1 Hacker Way FB sign is invariably used in FB pieces, its amusing to note that the back of this sign still shows the Sun Microsystems logo that they cheaply painted over when they took the space over: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ce5VS24UAAAxxLF.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ce5VS24UAAAxxLF.jpg

hzay 9y ago
Actually they keep this to remind themselves every day that one day they could be dust too. There are also a few other relics from the Sun era deliberately left over in the campus for the same reason. Source: worked there
- bogomipz 9y ago
  >"Actually they keep this to remind themselves every day that one day they could be dust too." How is it a reminder if it isn't at all visible to anyone there? The back of the sign is obscured by woods. The only way to see it is to walk around to the back of it. I'm not surprised that company propaganda would spin this into some nonsense about 'this is a reminder ..." though.

Hyperbolic 9y ago

Despite how much I dislike Facebook, this article started off decent, but took a strange (and disrepectful) turn into hacker culture and algorithms that was completely unfounded. Facebook addiction and the centralization of the Internet has literally nothing to do with the concept of algorithms. Sure, machine learning ventures at Facebook contribute to the need to track users and invade privacy, but that's not the fault of computer scientists working on these algorithms. That's the fault of Facebook's business model.

gggdvnkhmbgjvbn 9y ago
Its because its an excerpt from a book, I think. I totally agree, I'm on board with the point of the article but its written like an amateur Adam Curtis.

Chardok 9y ago

“In a lot of ways Facebook is more like a government than a traditional company,” Zuckerberg has said. “We have this large community of people, and more than other technology companies we’re really setting policies.” And this is why I am arguing for a serious revamping of regulation on these companies. As they collect more and more data, build shadow profiles of non-users, conduct "experiments" on their users, attacking individualism and rights to privacy, they are operating much more like a government than a corporation. Combine this with the massive financial clout they have and we are having our actual constitutional rights violated, while being told our Bill of rights don't apply to them because they are a corporation, not the government.

root_axis 9y ago

I wish people would stop contributing to the Facebook mythos that elevates a social media platform into some kind of software based deity. It's just a website, it's not a threat to "free will" any more than a cigarette or coke addiction is a threat to "free will". People recite grand expositions regarding how "I stopped using facebook and it changed my life forever! I've never looked back!"... wonderful, but I want to suggest that it's just not that big of a deal either way, it's a website where people post selfies, memes, and uninformed political opinions, it really isn't that life-altering. If you truly despise Facebook, stop feeding its delusions of grandeur.

bamboozled 9y ago
It's not a website, it's a complex and sophisticated media and marketing platform with many, many different features and all of that comes with a bunch of pros and cons.
- ryandrake 9y ago
  ...that you can choose whether or not to use.
  - Chardok 9y ago
    Thats not entirely true. Facebook will build a profile on you through like buttons and information shared from family/friends/acquaintances whether you choose to or not.
    - ryandrake 9y ago
      Why would I care about that if I don't use the product? How would anything that Facebook does affect someone who does not use it?
      - root_axis 9y ago
        Well, someone could certainly take your photo and post it on Facebook without your knowledge and that could lead to serious consequences, however, one's photo could just as easily end up on reddit, imgur, HN or any other internet community. Incidentally, the photo posted on Facebook would at least not be indexed by google.

bogomipz 9y ago

I feel like both the velocity of these articles about "The Facebook corporation" and people's awareness of their shady practices are increasing overall. I guess I wonder will it manage to effect any change in people's online behavior and wholesale submission to this corporation's whims and agenda? I would like to believe yes but my anecdotal observations of people and their smart phones suggests to me there's no basis for believing that.

tastythrowaway 9y ago

at what point do we stop blaming facebook and start blaming ourselves?

bgun 9y ago
This is a trope and not useful for solving problems of culture, psychology, or addiction. It is the same as saying "when you ban guns, only criminals will have guns" or "everyone has a choice, so choose not to do drugs". These are vapid recitations and cannot address complex issues.
- tastythrowaway 9y ago
  This is absolutely not the same as your gun ban argument. It is also not the same as your "choose not to use" argument. How do people think they can give away all of their information, to someone who trades in information, and somehow act surprised when that entity leverages this information?

tadufre 9y ago

These phone companies are terrible. All they want to do is make money off of their customers. I stopped using phones to communicate a couple of months ago. My real friends still send me telegrams. These telegraph companies are terrible. All they want to do is make money ...

ComodoHacker 9y ago

Very good read. Too bad, when the author talks about power of algorithms, he doesn't mention Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Animats 9y ago

The real problem with Facebook is "sharing". I want to see what my friends are doing, and have zero interest in their "sharing". Sharing is spamming.

ScottBurson 9y ago

“The days of you having a different image for your work friends or co-workers and for the other people you know are probably coming to an end pretty quickly,” Zuckerberg has said. “Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity.” Mark Zuckerberg lecturing us about integrity is quite a hoot -- particularly when his argument is completely self-serving. What's next, lessons in Gandhian pacifism from Kim Jong-un? Anyway, he's flat wrong. Having multiple identities, in the sense that we adapt our behavior and interests somewhat to the people we're interacting with, is inevitable, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. Integrity is something deeper.

kareldonk 9y ago

Fuckerberg is no hacker; he's a fraud and hypocrite.

sparkzilla 9y ago

>His company was, as we all know, a dorm-room lark, a thing he ginned up in a Red Bull–induced fit of sleeplessness. False. He stole the business from the Winklevoss twins.

megamindbrian 9y ago

I'm unable to believe that anyone running a product with over a billion active users has anything less than altruistic intentions. Who is to say any of us have free will? Who is to say any of us deserve free will after all the wars we've caused and damage to the environment? If your going to get theological don't bother, you are out of date.

DarkIye 9y ago

This article started off well but began to lose me around the time he said: "Computer scientists have an aphorism that describes how algorithms relentlessly hunt for patterns: they talk about torturing the data until it confesses." This is the first time I have seen this formulation of the nature of data. Data is almost always regarded as an input, or a resource, or a substrate, not a being of any kind. The article generally seems to be less about its title and more about Facebook's business on the whole, and it's an interesting read.

bogomipz 9y ago

>"At a White House dinner in 2015, Mr. Zuckerberg had even asked the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, whether Mr. Xi might offer a Chinese name for his soon-to-be-born first child — usually a privilege reserved for older relatives, or sometimes a fortune teller. Mr. Xi declined, according to a person briefed on the matter." Does getting FB into China mean so much to this person that he's willing to consider a name suggested by a complete stranger for his own child? The picture of Mark Zuckerberg running though Tiananmen Square is also quite telling. It's completely stage-managed so that it's taken while Mark is smiling and Chairman Mao's picture is clearly in the frame behind him. I wonder how many attempts this "spontaneous" picture required. I happened to be in Beijing that same weekend as this photo op. The local reaction to that picture wasn't one of celebrity adulation because people recognized Mark Zuckerberg founder of FB as he's not a household name there. The reaction was one of complete consternation that someone would be out jogging in such hazardous air quality. That's not an early morning fog in the background it's air pollution. It seemed like most people were donning air pollution masks that weekend because the particulate in the was so heavy. I mention this only because it seems to the same awkward and obsequious behavior as asking the President of China to offer a name for your unborn child.

wintergardner 9y ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWsuVK0kJ1w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWsuVK0kJ1w