5 ms·

Mark Zuckerberg’s personal challenge is all about fixing FB before it implodes

17 points by rblion 9y ago

rblion 9y ago
"Every year I take on a personal challenge to learn something new. I've visited every US state, run 365 miles, built an AI for my home, read 25 books, and learned Mandarin. I started doing these challenges in 2009. That first year the economy was in a deep recession and Facebook was not yet profitable. We needed to get serious about making sure Facebook had a sustainable business model. It was a serious year, and I wore a tie every day as a reminder. Today feels a lot like that first year. The world feels anxious and divided, and Facebook has a lot of work to do -- whether it's protecting our community from abuse and hate, defending against interference by nation states, or making sure that time spent on Facebook is time well spent. My personal challenge for 2018 is to focus on fixing these important issues. We won't prevent all mistakes or abuse, but we currently make too many errors enforcing our policies and preventing misuse of our tools. If we're successful this year then we'll end 2018 on a much better trajectory. This may not seem like a personal challenge on its face, but I think I'll learn more by focusing intensely on these issues than I would by doing something completely separate. These issues touch on questions of history, civics, political philosophy, media, government, and of course technology. I'm looking forward to bringing groups of experts together to discuss and help work through these topics. For example, one of the most interesting questions in technology right now is about centralization vs decentralization. A lot of us got into technology because we believe it can be a decentralizing force that puts more power in people's hands. (The first four words of Facebook's mission have always been "give people the power".) Back in the 1990s and 2000s, most people believed technology would be a decentralizing force. But today, many people have lost faith in that promise. With the rise of a small number of big tech companies — and governments using technology to watch their citizens — many people now believe technology only centralizes power rather than decentralizes it. There are important counter-trends to this --like encryption and cryptocurrency -- that take power from centralized systems and put it back into people's hands. But they come with the risk of being harder to control. I'm interested to go deeper and study the positive and negative aspects of these technologies, and how best to use them in our services. This will be a serious year of self-improvement and I'm looking forward to learning from working to fix our issues together." --- Mark Zuckerberg Are there any viable platforms that people would rather use?
- dionian 9y ago
  Zuck's mandarin is terrible, and reading 25 books is hardly difficult. Maybe he's signalling that he's getting back into actually doing real work as the CEO? I personally don't care as long as he doesnt have a chance of holding any political office. I don't have any stock in Facebook.
- fao_ 9y ago
  > Are there any viable platforms that people would rather use? Email, Slack, Twitter, Secure Scuttlebutt, Rotonde, GNU Social
  - rblion 9y ago
    Do any really connect you to your friends from school, from work, from hobbies, to family, an to interests like Facebook does?
    - fao_ 9y ago
      Twitter connects me to my peers better than Facebook does, to be quite honest. Rotonde gives me more interesting artistic input than Facebook does, as well.
pascalxus 9y ago
Seriously? People are blaming facebook for not "making sure that time spent on Facebook is time well spent." That should be an individual's own responsibility, not facebook.
- fao_ 9y ago
  Normally I'd agree but: 1) Facebook goes out of it's way to show you what it wants to show you, and not what you actually want[1]. 2) Facebook deliberately exploits techniques for you to spend more time on the service, and for you to put more data on the service. At this point I'd liken it to gambling. Is it the gambler's responsibility to ensure their time is "well spent", or is it the state's / organization's? What about when gambler's fallacy (or one of the numerous related cognitive problems) takes hold? What then? [2][3] [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15956811 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15956811 [2]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/06/28/facebook-manipulated-689003-users-emotions-for-science/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/06/28/facebook... [3]: https://www.courier-journal.com/story/opinion/contributors/2017/08/08/monsters-google-and-facebook-like-heroin-gambling-roger-mcnamee/548867001/ https://www.courier-journal.com/story/opinion/contributors/2...
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
oliv__ 9y ago
God his entire post just sounds so tone deaf. Really? "> lot of us got into technology because we believe it can be a decentralizing force that puts more power in people’s hands" [...] But today, many people have lost faith in that promise. With the rise of a small number of big tech companies..." Is this satire? That's you! Hello. He's talking about this as if he wasn't the CEO of arguably the most powerful, controlling and closed off of those "big tech" companies he mentions. I don't even know where to start. Every word in his letter just sounds backwards, like I'm listening to the Ministry of Truth here. Mark Zuckerberg is either a cynical hypocrite or lives in a wonderful wonderful bubble.
tehlike 9y ago
Coming from one of the most centralized and closed platforms on the planet, i am cautiously interested in how this will turn out
acjohnson55 9y ago
This (obviously) could just be a cynical PR ploy, but I'm hopeful that he's being sincere and that his leadership drives major changes. It would be foolish to expect any for-profit corporation to put the social good in the front seat. But that doesn't mean it's not possible.
Sohcahtoa82 9y ago
Want to fix Facebook? Stop trying to decide what I want to see in my news feed. Stop switching my feed from "Most Recent" to "Top Stories" every time I click the Home link. Keep my feed in Chronological order. Stop showing me the same post a friend made 3 days ago that hasn't even had any activity.

17 points by rblion 9y ago

"Every year I take on a personal challenge to learn something new. I've visited every US state, run 365 miles, built an AI for my home, read 25 books, and learned Mandarin. I started doing these challenges in 2009. That first year the economy was in a deep recession and Facebook was not yet profitable. We needed to get serious about making sure Facebook had a sustainable business model. It was a serious year, and I wore a tie every day as a reminder. Today feels a lot like that first year. The world feels anxious and divided, and Facebook has a lot of work to do -- whether it's protecting our community from abuse and hate, defending against interference by nation states, or making sure that time spent on Facebook is time well spent. My personal challenge for 2018 is to focus on fixing these important issues. We won't prevent all mistakes or abuse, but we currently make too many errors enforcing our policies and preventing misuse of our tools. If we're successful this year then we'll end 2018 on a much better trajectory. This may not seem like a personal challenge on its face, but I think I'll learn more by focusing intensely on these issues than I would by doing something completely separate. These issues touch on questions of history, civics, political philosophy, media, government, and of course technology. I'm looking forward to bringing groups of experts together to discuss and help work through these topics. For example, one of the most interesting questions in technology right now is about centralization vs decentralization. A lot of us got into technology because we believe it can be a decentralizing force that puts more power in people's hands. (The first four words of Facebook's mission have always been "give people the power".) Back in the 1990s and 2000s, most people believed technology would be a decentralizing force. But today, many people have lost faith in that promise. With the rise of a small number of big tech companies — and governments using technology to watch their citizens — many people now believe technology only centralizes power rather than decentralizes it. There are important counter-trends to this --like encryption and cryptocurrency -- that take power from centralized systems and put it back into people's hands. But they come with the risk of being harder to control. I'm interested to go deeper and study the positive and negative aspects of these technologies, and how best to use them in our services. This will be a serious year of self-improvement and I'm looking forward to learning from working to fix our issues together." --- Mark Zuckerberg Are there any viable platforms that people would rather use?

dionian 9y ago
Zuck's mandarin is terrible, and reading 25 books is hardly difficult. Maybe he's signalling that he's getting back into actually doing real work as the CEO? I personally don't care as long as he doesnt have a chance of holding any political office. I don't have any stock in Facebook.
fao_ 9y ago
> Are there any viable platforms that people would rather use? Email, Slack, Twitter, Secure Scuttlebutt, Rotonde, GNU Social
- rblion 9y ago
  Do any really connect you to your friends from school, from work, from hobbies, to family, an to interests like Facebook does?
  - fao_ 9y ago
    Twitter connects me to my peers better than Facebook does, to be quite honest. Rotonde gives me more interesting artistic input than Facebook does, as well.

pascalxus 9y ago

Seriously? People are blaming facebook for not "making sure that time spent on Facebook is time well spent." That should be an individual's own responsibility, not facebook.

fao_ 9y ago
Normally I'd agree but: 1) Facebook goes out of it's way to show you what it wants to show you, and not what you actually want[1]. 2) Facebook deliberately exploits techniques for you to spend more time on the service, and for you to put more data on the service. At this point I'd liken it to gambling. Is it the gambler's responsibility to ensure their time is "well spent", or is it the state's / organization's? What about when gambler's fallacy (or one of the numerous related cognitive problems) takes hold? What then? [2][3] [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15956811 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15956811 [2]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/06/28/facebook-manipulated-689003-users-emotions-for-science/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/06/28/facebook... [3]: https://www.courier-journal.com/story/opinion/contributors/2017/08/08/monsters-google-and-facebook-like-heroin-gambling-roger-mcnamee/548867001/ https://www.courier-journal.com/story/opinion/contributors/2...
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

oliv__ 9y ago

God his entire post just sounds so tone deaf. Really? "> lot of us got into technology because we believe it can be a decentralizing force that puts more power in people’s hands" [...] But today, many people have lost faith in that promise. With the rise of a small number of big tech companies..." Is this satire? That's you! Hello. He's talking about this as if he wasn't the CEO of arguably the most powerful, controlling and closed off of those "big tech" companies he mentions. I don't even know where to start. Every word in his letter just sounds backwards, like I'm listening to the Ministry of Truth here. Mark Zuckerberg is either a cynical hypocrite or lives in a wonderful wonderful bubble.

tehlike 9y ago

Coming from one of the most centralized and closed platforms on the planet, i am cautiously interested in how this will turn out

acjohnson55 9y ago

This (obviously) could just be a cynical PR ploy, but I'm hopeful that he's being sincere and that his leadership drives major changes. It would be foolish to expect any for-profit corporation to put the social good in the front seat. But that doesn't mean it's not possible.

Sohcahtoa82 9y ago

Want to fix Facebook? Stop trying to decide what I want to see in my news feed. Stop switching my feed from "Most Recent" to "Top Stories" every time I click the Home link. Keep my feed in Chronological order. Stop showing me the same post a friend made 3 days ago that hasn't even had any activity.