8 ms·

A growing number of early Facebook employees regret the world they created

109 points by dodders 9y ago

hi5eyes 9y ago
"if the headline is a question the answer is no"
- mercer 9y ago
  "If the headline is a question some smart-ass is going to post a low-effort comment."
kelukelugames 9y ago
Can you change the title to something other than a yes/no question? The subtitle is more informative. "In Silicon Valley, a growing number of early Facebook employees regret the world they created."
QAPereo 9y ago
It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!
- throwanem 9y ago
  He's never not going to be loaded again, so maybe that gives him to feel a certain latitude of perspective which would've only hampered him in the quest for fuck-you money.
  - QAPereo 9y ago
    Or maybe he's like Nobel, and has already started to think about legacy and how he's going to be viewed? On the other hand, maybe he cares about how loaded he is, and since a lot of his wealth is wrapped up in the value of his company, he still cares. Maybe he just likes to win, and not be seen as the equivalent of this era's tobacco barons.
kown223 9y ago
Wish someone will ask Zuckerberg if he feels stupider now that he no longer very young, and why we should listen to him by his words he is getting stupider by the day.
apozem 9y ago
One of the most troubling articles I've read recently is an Atlantic piece examining Facebook's effect on kids' brains. Zuckerberg can say connection makes us happier all he wants, but Facebook can make children miserable. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/08/what-facebook-does-kids-brains/353835/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/08/what-...
jasode 9y ago
>“Studies have actually proven that the more connected we are, the happier we are, and the healthier we are,” [Zuckerberg] said this summer at Facebook’s first ever communities summit in Chicago, where he announced a new, idealistic mission statement: “To give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.” If that's what MZ believes, he's being selective in the studies he's reading. It's frightening that we have a very smart guy with a fatally flawed anthropological view of Facebook's effect. Mass media technologies like Facebook/tv/radio/newspapers actually have the opposite effect: They increase tribalism and polarization. Yes, social networks bring some people together... like distant relatives sharing more photos than the Kodak film days. Or a group that shares a hobby like anonymous unrelated guitar players talking about gear on a music forum. However, asking for communication platforms to bridge the gap of Democrats vs Republicans or Christians vs Muslims or Pro-life vs Pro-choice doesn't work. What really happens is those groups use the technology to dig in their heels even further and double-down on their entrenched positions. Tribalism amplified to the max.
- yogthos 9y ago
  There are also plenty of studies showing that Facebook makes people depressed https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/what-mentally-strong-people-dont-do/201603/science-explains-how-facebook-makes-you-sad https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/what-mentally-strong-pe... People tend to predominantly post things that make them look good, and reading that makes people feel like their own lives aren't as great as those of their friends and acquaintances.
  - mtgx 9y ago
    That's what Facebook's own studies have shown, too. You'd think Zuckerberg would read his company's own studies. Facebook is not making people feel happy. It's making them sad and envious of their friends.
    - dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago
      Of course he knows this very well. But why should he talk about it? There's nothing he can do about it anyway.
sidcool 9y ago
I think if a product like FB is allegedly ruining people's lives, it's on people not FB. It's not like the opioid crisis. People can leave FB anytime without withdrawals.
- buttcoinslol 9y ago
  If you look at the FB phone app after not using it for a week or so, you will have 1-2 notifications. A few hours after opening the app, 7-10 notifications will appear, creating a false sense of urgency to check the app so you don't miss something. Heroin dealers do the same thing when they notice customers not coming around anymore. The psychological tactics facebook and others use trigger the release of dopamine just like cocaine, heroin, amphetamines, and gambling.
- datawarrior 9y ago
  I agree with you ideologically but I've seen people addicted to just about everything from Heroin to World of Warcraft. I've seen gamers neglect their kids, drop out of college, lose their homes. I don't find it a stretch to believe Facebook could have the same effect.
- yogthos 9y ago
  Actually, a lot of research suggests that it is pretty similar to the opioid crisis https://scholar.google.ca/scholar?q=social+media+addiction+study&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjOgPLF8bbXAhVL0YMKHdQJDYwQgQMIJjAA https://scholar.google.ca/scholar?q=social+media+addiction+s...
- tpkj 9y ago
  Can they leave without withdrawals? Online Social Networking and Mental Health https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4183915/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4183915/ "Addiction to online social networking, as well as Internet addiction in general, are recent and insufficiently investigated phenomena, frequently discussed and sometimes disputed in the psychiatric literature.30–35 The addictive nature of SNS is supported primarily by the mental preoccupation of many chronic SNS users who as a result tend to neglect other aspects of their social functioning such as family and offline friends. In addition, according to our own observations, sudden cessation of online social networking (i.e., lack of Internet connection) may in some chronic users cause signs and symptoms that at least partially resemble the ones seen during drug/alcohol/nicotine abstinence syndrome." And just googling "facebook addiction nih", it looks like there is plenty more material of this sort.
ekianjo 9y ago
> where he announced a new, idealistic mission statement: “To give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.” You should read: "power to build community and bring the world together... inside our walled garden". Facebook has never been about building technologies aiming at decentralizing the web, so any power they'll give people will be on their own rules and domain.
navium 9y ago
Everyone against Facebook is just jealous. Admit it. You don't want a world that's not connected, and Facebook executed it brilliantly.
- vnchr 9y ago
  Indeed. No criticism of them has merit and can be attributed to envy.
  - navium 9y ago
    I mean like there are bigger problems out there man. And plain stupid to focus it all on Mark, he's just having fun.
    - vnchr 9y ago
      I’m glad you’re maintaining perspective in a sea of thrashing opinion.
      - navium 9y ago
        Happy to have gladdened you! btw, I'm also in a sea of thrashing downvotes.
aphextron 9y ago
Anecdotally, I told a friend last night that I had deleted my Facebook 6 months ago so they wouldn't wonder why I had de-friended them. They said they had had the exact same conversation like 3 times this month already with other people. Facebook may continue expanding around the world, but it's popularity has certainly peaked in the US.
- ctdonath 9y ago
  I've seen numerous social media juggernauts cone and go over decades. Each was seen as world dominating and unstoppable. Each disappeared into unremembered oblivion seemingly overnight. Facebook is poised to do the same.
  - madez 9y ago
    I have seen the same process unfold on multiple occasions. I wondered if Facebook would break the cycle and sustain, but my bet is it will fail, too.
  - plupf 9y ago
    Facebook is like Oracle of my generation. As their products fades out of mainstream, they just buy next big thing and keep the ball rolling.
- cm2187 9y ago
  I didn’t delete my account but removed the app on my smartphone last month which is as good as. My feed became infested with commercials posing as friends likes and posts. Also the last 18m people have been using a lot facebook to voice their political views. I am not opposed to reading views diverging from mine when they are argumented and constructive. However argumented and constructive articles isn’t what people post on facebook. The whole thing became obnoxious more than anything else. My humble opinion is that facebook could disappear as quickly as it appeared.
mrits 9y ago
I took a ride in my friend's Ferrari yesterday. It took me a few hours after lunch to recover and work on what now seemed like a very mundane project. I guess what I'm saying is that I don't need Facebook to feel left behind.
- ctdonath 9y ago
  But Facebook makes it so much easier to. Riding a friend's Ferrari is rare. Reading about the equivalent every day makes you feel like everyone has a Ferrari but you.
Kiro 9y ago
My usage of Facebook hits a sweet spot I don't know where to find otherwise. I mainly use it to follow music producers, indie game developers and other creators. That's basically what my feed is for. Apart from that I use Messenger to talk to friends and relatives. I feel like I'm the only happy Facebook user here.
- nicky0 9y ago
  I'm a bit like you. I use fb exclusively to take part in groups (such as my cycling club and some local interest groups). Zero friends, just a feed of groups and pages I follow. I find it useful.
- retailbuyout 9y ago
  Mostly it seems like a barren wasteland for socialization, and I don’t follow brands. Whats left are christmas party invitations, baby photos, and messenger. I find myself intensely disliking my neighbors if I’m on it enough. It feels dystopian.
  - tzakrajs 9y ago
    Don't forget Birthdays! Make sure you give the smallest amount of effort to everyone to recognize their birthday.
- rorykoehler 9y ago
  I use messenger and groups. It's fine. Any troll gets blocked immediately so the experience isn't too bad but I don't use it like I did at the start any more. No sharing with family (all on whatsapp) or friends (also whatsapp, signal or telegram). Sometimes I share images on instagram too and tend to keep up to date with my friends lives (in a superficial way) there.
revmoo 9y ago
What a garbage site, wow. I literally cannot even scroll on it. Does VF not have a QA department??
Analemma_ 9y ago
Is Zuckerberg actually a True Believer? I've never gotten the sense that he's an idealist or really thinks Facebook is a force for good. I think he just says these things because, as the founder and CEO, he has to publicly defend the product. When the cameras are off, he's all about the money. Don't forget that he once called people who willingly upload their data to Facebook "dumb fucks". Yes, I know, it was a long time ago and he's matured since then, whatever. It's still a smoking gun that Facebook was not created with idealism about "human connections" in mind. At best that part came later, if it came at all.
- cJ0th 9y ago
  > Is Zuckerberg actually a True Believer? I've never gotten the sense that he's an idealist or really thinks Facebook is a force for good. I think he just says these things because, as the founder and CEO, he has to publicly defend the product. When the cameras are off, he's all about the money. I don't think this is (so much) about money for him. If he weren't a 'true believer' his ego would have to come to grips with the idea that he has created sorrow for millions of people all around the world his whole adult life.
to_bpr 9y ago
There has been no shortage of studies and reports on the damage social media is doing society, especially to the young. Though I'm glad to see a movement forming against it, it's sad and somewhat pathetic that the conversation is hinging on the refusal to accept election defeat by one half of the electorate. Those involved in developing, expanding, etc. social media know what they're complicit in and it extends far beyond, and is far worse, than simply having some moron elected.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
bertil 9y ago
I think people are confusing two things: Facebook and its first and main product, the News Feed (and to an extend, the advertising network embedded into it). Facebook, or rather the Social and later, Entities Graphs are essential essential capacities. They are what really matters: who do you trust, who do you care about. Those are key, they are heavily defended from pretenders and they keep on unlocking a lot of essential value to any service leveraging it. The best illustration of what that Graph represents is Messenger: you give some people the right to notify you (and a subset, access to an overlooked secondary Inbox); that service is essential. Having institutions like your airline, payments, be allowed in there is a big step forward. If Marcus manages that well, that extension will unlock a lot of the promisses of email, structurally removing the spam. Having the News Feed inform that social and interest graph is a great way to get up-to-date information, but it comes with an indeed agressive behavioural growth hack. I do not believe that the level alarm around that is warranted, but what people see, political and social polarisation, etc. all those are real issues that Facebook Researchers have looked into. Other researchers have looked into that too, but usually with a very partial view and no access to extensive dataset. I believe it is a problem that openly critical researchers can’t access that database; I don’t think that granting them access will necessarily help, though, because most media will happily apply a big selection bias on whatever comes out of academia, as they already do. But in spite of that limit, internal researchers have enough of freedom to point out issues. There are issues: they are a small team, too US-focused, tend to have liberal-intellectual bias, etc. but they feel, and are, responsible for those issues. More importantly, they are managed by people very willing to take in detailed, informed criticism. Facebook changed their core values over what happened during the campaign. They willingly identified and explained what happened, shared details about ‘the Russian interference’ which was a lot of about weaponasing dissent than ads. They did that because, unlike “the press” they have the means, intellectual and technical, feel the responsability and see it as their mission to help democracy, not let the party of their owner win no matter what. I do not think that Facebook can’t close the News Feed, or revamp it entirely. They believe that its overall impact on democracy is still clearly positive because they measure it (quite well, actually; I have doubts about other aspects of their methodology but not that one). They have identified key ways it is being abused and they are working on fixes. The hearing in the Senate was an ignorant and populist pandering from politicians whom I otherwise admired, them insistently proving they couldn’t get the sense of the scale of the transformation, but Facebook is catching up faster than ageing politicians. Wising up, they will implement soluitons, most of them invisible. I suspect one of them is flagging aggressively partisan groups, preventing rage-baiting. I wished one of them was raising the profile of “the smartest of your opponent”. I know they will try, measure, re-think and improve their solution. And so will the people who think chaos raises their profile, but not as well -- because they can’t survive the scrutiny that Facebook willfully accepted. I remember my history class (in France) about “the Dreyfuss case”, a deeply polarising debate in the early XXth century (in abstract: Country vs. Justice; in practice: should a French officer condemned of treason, transparently because of prejudice for his Jewish heritage, be freed after evidence proved him innocent?) but I’ve been an exchange students in enough countries to know every country had gone through something similar. No one was in charge, and the only solution then was to forget; the Dreyfuss case stopped becoming an issue with WWI. Facebook is not responsible for Trump’s election, nor are they for Obama’s election; neither is Cambridge Analytica or any other single actor. But both those, and probably a couple more institution have the means to understand what happened, and provide some resolution -- the resolution pro- and anti-Dreyfuss never got. Well-intended actors will offer and implement solutions. Transparency in advertising (what Facebook suggested first) is little, but it will give people a sense of what is happening. Don’t confuse Facebook, a project to make social trust something computer can process, with the News Feed, an implementation of it. The former is being defended; it stumbled by allowing fake profiles in, but learned from that; the other relies on behavioural hacks that are being analysed in detail, for the first time. A new threat on the later emerged last year and it is being patched. But if the issue is impulse control and cannot be leveraged for good, getting rid of the News Feed is not out of the question. As far as I can tell, it would simply make things worst.
chiefalchemist 9y ago
> "Facebook’s vertiginous rise from “Hot or Not” knockoff to extra-governmental digital nation-state has alarmed a growing number of its original architects. “They look at the role Facebook now plays in society, and how Russia used it during the election to elect Trump, and they have this sort of ‘Oh my God, what have I done’ moment,” one early employee told my colleague Nick Bilton last month." I read no further. First, yes someone ran some ads, but to what end? Where they actually effective? Of the people who we fed said ads how many noticed them? Where of age to vote? Where real people not bots? AND changed their vote? Where is the data that supports Russia elected Trump? Where? Do I believe FB (and all - tech - companies) should be aware of the unintended of its products? Of course. Shiney and new is not a free pass on - moral, ethical and/or social - responsibility. I'm not a Trump supporter. He'll be gone soon enough. However the incompetence and Orwellian habits of the mainstream media will remain. That should be a major concern for everyone.
relics443 9y ago
"and how Russia used it during the election to elect Trump" Stopped reading right about there.
eighthnate 9y ago
It's relentless. I've never seen anything like this. Everyday the media has an attack piece on social media and tech companies. Just a few hours before this story, we had one titled "Is it time to stop trusting Google search?". It's as if someone gave a command and all the media is acting in unison. Lets see what stories tomorrow brings. Honestly, there hasn't been a day in a few months without an attack on social media and tech companies.

109 points by dodders 9y ago

hi5eyes 9y ago

"if the headline is a question the answer is no"

mercer 9y ago
"If the headline is a question some smart-ass is going to post a low-effort comment."

kelukelugames 9y ago

Can you change the title to something other than a yes/no question? The subtitle is more informative. "In Silicon Valley, a growing number of early Facebook employees regret the world they created."

QAPereo 9y ago

It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!

throwanem 9y ago
He's never not going to be loaded again, so maybe that gives him to feel a certain latitude of perspective which would've only hampered him in the quest for fuck-you money.
- QAPereo 9y ago
  Or maybe he's like Nobel, and has already started to think about legacy and how he's going to be viewed? On the other hand, maybe he cares about how loaded he is, and since a lot of his wealth is wrapped up in the value of his company, he still cares. Maybe he just likes to win, and not be seen as the equivalent of this era's tobacco barons.

kown223 9y ago

Wish someone will ask Zuckerberg if he feels stupider now that he no longer very young, and why we should listen to him by his words he is getting stupider by the day.

apozem 9y ago

One of the most troubling articles I've read recently is an Atlantic piece examining Facebook's effect on kids' brains. Zuckerberg can say connection makes us happier all he wants, but Facebook can make children miserable. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/08/what-facebook-does-kids-brains/353835/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/08/what-...

jasode 9y ago

>“Studies have actually proven that the more connected we are, the happier we are, and the healthier we are,” [Zuckerberg] said this summer at Facebook’s first ever communities summit in Chicago, where he announced a new, idealistic mission statement: “To give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.” If that's what MZ believes, he's being selective in the studies he's reading. It's frightening that we have a very smart guy with a fatally flawed anthropological view of Facebook's effect. Mass media technologies like Facebook/tv/radio/newspapers actually have the opposite effect: They increase tribalism and polarization. Yes, social networks bring some people together... like distant relatives sharing more photos than the Kodak film days. Or a group that shares a hobby like anonymous unrelated guitar players talking about gear on a music forum. However, asking for communication platforms to bridge the gap of Democrats vs Republicans or Christians vs Muslims or Pro-life vs Pro-choice doesn't work. What really happens is those groups use the technology to dig in their heels even further and double-down on their entrenched positions. Tribalism amplified to the max.

yogthos 9y ago
There are also plenty of studies showing that Facebook makes people depressed https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/what-mentally-strong-people-dont-do/201603/science-explains-how-facebook-makes-you-sad https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/what-mentally-strong-pe... People tend to predominantly post things that make them look good, and reading that makes people feel like their own lives aren't as great as those of their friends and acquaintances.
- mtgx 9y ago
  That's what Facebook's own studies have shown, too. You'd think Zuckerberg would read his company's own studies. Facebook is not making people feel happy. It's making them sad and envious of their friends.
  - dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago
    Of course he knows this very well. But why should he talk about it? There's nothing he can do about it anyway.

sidcool 9y ago

I think if a product like FB is allegedly ruining people's lives, it's on people not FB. It's not like the opioid crisis. People can leave FB anytime without withdrawals.

buttcoinslol 9y ago
If you look at the FB phone app after not using it for a week or so, you will have 1-2 notifications. A few hours after opening the app, 7-10 notifications will appear, creating a false sense of urgency to check the app so you don't miss something. Heroin dealers do the same thing when they notice customers not coming around anymore. The psychological tactics facebook and others use trigger the release of dopamine just like cocaine, heroin, amphetamines, and gambling.
datawarrior 9y ago
I agree with you ideologically but I've seen people addicted to just about everything from Heroin to World of Warcraft. I've seen gamers neglect their kids, drop out of college, lose their homes. I don't find it a stretch to believe Facebook could have the same effect.
yogthos 9y ago
Actually, a lot of research suggests that it is pretty similar to the opioid crisis https://scholar.google.ca/scholar?q=social+media+addiction+study&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjOgPLF8bbXAhVL0YMKHdQJDYwQgQMIJjAA https://scholar.google.ca/scholar?q=social+media+addiction+s...
tpkj 9y ago
Can they leave without withdrawals? Online Social Networking and Mental Health https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4183915/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4183915/ "Addiction to online social networking, as well as Internet addiction in general, are recent and insufficiently investigated phenomena, frequently discussed and sometimes disputed in the psychiatric literature.30–35 The addictive nature of SNS is supported primarily by the mental preoccupation of many chronic SNS users who as a result tend to neglect other aspects of their social functioning such as family and offline friends. In addition, according to our own observations, sudden cessation of online social networking (i.e., lack of Internet connection) may in some chronic users cause signs and symptoms that at least partially resemble the ones seen during drug/alcohol/nicotine abstinence syndrome." And just googling "facebook addiction nih", it looks like there is plenty more material of this sort.

ekianjo 9y ago

> where he announced a new, idealistic mission statement: “To give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.” You should read: "power to build community and bring the world together... inside our walled garden". Facebook has never been about building technologies aiming at decentralizing the web, so any power they'll give people will be on their own rules and domain.

navium 9y ago

Everyone against Facebook is just jealous. Admit it. You don't want a world that's not connected, and Facebook executed it brilliantly.

vnchr 9y ago
Indeed. No criticism of them has merit and can be attributed to envy.
- navium 9y ago
  I mean like there are bigger problems out there man. And plain stupid to focus it all on Mark, he's just having fun.
  - vnchr 9y ago
    I’m glad you’re maintaining perspective in a sea of thrashing opinion.
    - navium 9y ago
      Happy to have gladdened you! btw, I'm also in a sea of thrashing downvotes.

aphextron 9y ago

Anecdotally, I told a friend last night that I had deleted my Facebook 6 months ago so they wouldn't wonder why I had de-friended them. They said they had had the exact same conversation like 3 times this month already with other people. Facebook may continue expanding around the world, but it's popularity has certainly peaked in the US.

ctdonath 9y ago
I've seen numerous social media juggernauts cone and go over decades. Each was seen as world dominating and unstoppable. Each disappeared into unremembered oblivion seemingly overnight. Facebook is poised to do the same.
- madez 9y ago
  I have seen the same process unfold on multiple occasions. I wondered if Facebook would break the cycle and sustain, but my bet is it will fail, too.
- plupf 9y ago
  Facebook is like Oracle of my generation. As their products fades out of mainstream, they just buy next big thing and keep the ball rolling.
cm2187 9y ago
I didn’t delete my account but removed the app on my smartphone last month which is as good as. My feed became infested with commercials posing as friends likes and posts. Also the last 18m people have been using a lot facebook to voice their political views. I am not opposed to reading views diverging from mine when they are argumented and constructive. However argumented and constructive articles isn’t what people post on facebook. The whole thing became obnoxious more than anything else. My humble opinion is that facebook could disappear as quickly as it appeared.

mrits 9y ago

I took a ride in my friend's Ferrari yesterday. It took me a few hours after lunch to recover and work on what now seemed like a very mundane project. I guess what I'm saying is that I don't need Facebook to feel left behind.

ctdonath 9y ago
But Facebook makes it so much easier to. Riding a friend's Ferrari is rare. Reading about the equivalent every day makes you feel like everyone has a Ferrari but you.

Kiro 9y ago

My usage of Facebook hits a sweet spot I don't know where to find otherwise. I mainly use it to follow music producers, indie game developers and other creators. That's basically what my feed is for. Apart from that I use Messenger to talk to friends and relatives. I feel like I'm the only happy Facebook user here.

nicky0 9y ago
I'm a bit like you. I use fb exclusively to take part in groups (such as my cycling club and some local interest groups). Zero friends, just a feed of groups and pages I follow. I find it useful.
retailbuyout 9y ago
Mostly it seems like a barren wasteland for socialization, and I don’t follow brands. Whats left are christmas party invitations, baby photos, and messenger. I find myself intensely disliking my neighbors if I’m on it enough. It feels dystopian.
- tzakrajs 9y ago
  Don't forget Birthdays! Make sure you give the smallest amount of effort to everyone to recognize their birthday.
rorykoehler 9y ago
I use messenger and groups. It's fine. Any troll gets blocked immediately so the experience isn't too bad but I don't use it like I did at the start any more. No sharing with family (all on whatsapp) or friends (also whatsapp, signal or telegram). Sometimes I share images on instagram too and tend to keep up to date with my friends lives (in a superficial way) there.

revmoo 9y ago

What a garbage site, wow. I literally cannot even scroll on it. Does VF not have a QA department??

Analemma_ 9y ago

Is Zuckerberg actually a True Believer? I've never gotten the sense that he's an idealist or really thinks Facebook is a force for good. I think he just says these things because, as the founder and CEO, he has to publicly defend the product. When the cameras are off, he's all about the money. Don't forget that he once called people who willingly upload their data to Facebook "dumb fucks". Yes, I know, it was a long time ago and he's matured since then, whatever. It's still a smoking gun that Facebook was not created with idealism about "human connections" in mind. At best that part came later, if it came at all.

cJ0th 9y ago
> Is Zuckerberg actually a True Believer? I've never gotten the sense that he's an idealist or really thinks Facebook is a force for good. I think he just says these things because, as the founder and CEO, he has to publicly defend the product. When the cameras are off, he's all about the money. I don't think this is (so much) about money for him. If he weren't a 'true believer' his ego would have to come to grips with the idea that he has created sorrow for millions of people all around the world his whole adult life.

to_bpr 9y ago

There has been no shortage of studies and reports on the damage social media is doing society, especially to the young. Though I'm glad to see a movement forming against it, it's sad and somewhat pathetic that the conversation is hinging on the refusal to accept election defeat by one half of the electorate. Those involved in developing, expanding, etc. social media know what they're complicit in and it extends far beyond, and is far worse, than simply having some moron elected.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

bertil 9y ago

I think people are confusing two things: Facebook and its first and main product, the News Feed (and to an extend, the advertising network embedded into it). Facebook, or rather the Social and later, Entities Graphs are essential essential capacities. They are what really matters: who do you trust, who do you care about. Those are key, they are heavily defended from pretenders and they keep on unlocking a lot of essential value to any service leveraging it. The best illustration of what that Graph represents is Messenger: you give some people the right to notify you (and a subset, access to an overlooked secondary Inbox); that service is essential. Having institutions like your airline, payments, be allowed in there is a big step forward. If Marcus manages that well, that extension will unlock a lot of the promisses of email, structurally removing the spam. Having the News Feed inform that social and interest graph is a great way to get up-to-date information, but it comes with an indeed agressive behavioural growth hack. I do not believe that the level alarm around that is warranted, but what people see, political and social polarisation, etc. all those are real issues that Facebook Researchers have looked into. Other researchers have looked into that too, but usually with a very partial view and no access to extensive dataset. I believe it is a problem that openly critical researchers can’t access that database; I don’t think that granting them access will necessarily help, though, because most media will happily apply a big selection bias on whatever comes out of academia, as they already do. But in spite of that limit, internal researchers have enough of freedom to point out issues. There are issues: they are a small team, too US-focused, tend to have liberal-intellectual bias, etc. but they feel, and are, responsible for those issues. More importantly, they are managed by people very willing to take in detailed, informed criticism. Facebook changed their core values over what happened during the campaign. They willingly identified and explained what happened, shared details about ‘the Russian interference’ which was a lot of about weaponasing dissent than ads. They did that because, unlike “the press” they have the means, intellectual and technical, feel the responsability and see it as their mission to help democracy, not let the party of their owner win no matter what. I do not think that Facebook can’t close the News Feed, or revamp it entirely. They believe that its overall impact on democracy is still clearly positive because they measure it (quite well, actually; I have doubts about other aspects of their methodology but not that one). They have identified key ways it is being abused and they are working on fixes. The hearing in the Senate was an ignorant and populist pandering from politicians whom I otherwise admired, them insistently proving they couldn’t get the sense of the scale of the transformation, but Facebook is catching up faster than ageing politicians. Wising up, they will implement soluitons, most of them invisible. I suspect one of them is flagging aggressively partisan groups, preventing rage-baiting. I wished one of them was raising the profile of “the smartest of your opponent”. I know they will try, measure, re-think and improve their solution. And so will the people who think chaos raises their profile, but not as well -- because they can’t survive the scrutiny that Facebook willfully accepted. I remember my history class (in France) about “the Dreyfuss case”, a deeply polarising debate in the early XXth century (in abstract: Country vs. Justice; in practice: should a French officer condemned of treason, transparently because of prejudice for his Jewish heritage, be freed after evidence proved him innocent?) but I’ve been an exchange students in enough countries to know every country had gone through something similar. No one was in charge, and the only solution then was to forget; the Dreyfuss case stopped becoming an issue with WWI. Facebook is not responsible for Trump’s election, nor are they for Obama’s election; neither is Cambridge Analytica or any other single actor. But both those, and probably a couple more institution have the means to understand what happened, and provide some resolution -- the resolution pro- and anti-Dreyfuss never got. Well-intended actors will offer and implement solutions. Transparency in advertising (what Facebook suggested first) is little, but it will give people a sense of what is happening. Don’t confuse Facebook, a project to make social trust something computer can process, with the News Feed, an implementation of it. The former is being defended; it stumbled by allowing fake profiles in, but learned from that; the other relies on behavioural hacks that are being analysed in detail, for the first time. A new threat on the later emerged last year and it is being patched. But if the issue is impulse control and cannot be leveraged for good, getting rid of the News Feed is not out of the question. As far as I can tell, it would simply make things worst.

chiefalchemist 9y ago

> "Facebook’s vertiginous rise from “Hot or Not” knockoff to extra-governmental digital nation-state has alarmed a growing number of its original architects. “They look at the role Facebook now plays in society, and how Russia used it during the election to elect Trump, and they have this sort of ‘Oh my God, what have I done’ moment,” one early employee told my colleague Nick Bilton last month." I read no further. First, yes someone ran some ads, but to what end? Where they actually effective? Of the people who we fed said ads how many noticed them? Where of age to vote? Where real people not bots? AND changed their vote? Where is the data that supports Russia elected Trump? Where? Do I believe FB (and all - tech - companies) should be aware of the unintended of its products? Of course. Shiney and new is not a free pass on - moral, ethical and/or social - responsibility. I'm not a Trump supporter. He'll be gone soon enough. However the incompetence and Orwellian habits of the mainstream media will remain. That should be a major concern for everyone.

relics443 9y ago

"and how Russia used it during the election to elect Trump" Stopped reading right about there.

eighthnate 9y ago

It's relentless. I've never seen anything like this. Everyday the media has an attack piece on social media and tech companies. Just a few hours before this story, we had one titled "Is it time to stop trusting Google search?". It's as if someone gave a command and all the media is acting in unison. Lets see what stories tomorrow brings. Honestly, there hasn't been a day in a few months without an attack on social media and tech companies.