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Facebook's Desperate Smoke Screen

278 points by mengledowl 9y ago

johnmarcus 9y ago
And violent cartoons will make your kids murderers. Yawn.
IntronExon 9y ago
Outrage-provoking political content might have been good business for Facebook, but in its absence, this company’s attention engineers can tap into any number of other distraction wells to keep users compulsively tapping the little blue icon on their phone. In other words, fixing Facebook’s negative impacts on democracy won’t necessarily hurt their bottom line, while admitting that their business relies on a foundation of addiction and exploitation definitely would. Bingo. Unfortunately they can probably keep up the shell game for a long time, until enough people recognize what FB actually “offers” the enduser. While plenty of people here understand the downsides of FB, I don’t know that most people do, yet. A “service” offering dubious rewards for the ability to try and monopolize your time and attention, track you, and actively manipulate you, is simply not fixable.
adamnemecek 9y ago
> authoritarian regimes in Eastern Europe He somehow never forgets to bring this up.
- icebraining 9y ago
  I often have my country of origin in mind as well when I think about politics, is that surprising?
cletus 9y ago
I honestly find myself scratching my head every time George Soros speaks. He almost comes across as someone desperate to be taken seriously, to be viewed as a visionary, a thought leader, a prognosticator. But what has he down to justify this? Nothing as far as I can tell. He made a bunch of money as a currency speculator, most famously breaking the British pound. Sure. Good for him. But if we're going to talk about adding value to society...
- aylmao 9y ago
  Why is this comment getting down voted? EDIT: And why did I get down voted? Genuinely curious; he didn't say anything inflammatory, polarizing or _wrong_. Replies are not even disagreeing, just "explaining".
- adamnemecek 9y ago
  I think that he thinks that his philanthropy gives him legitimacy.
  - badpun 9y ago
    I don't see how giving away money is related to being "a visionary, a thought leader" etc.
    - IntronExon 9y ago
      Success seems to be the metric by which the credulous judge “visionaries” to begin with. If you’re going to buy into the “thought leader” concept, Soros seems to qualify as much as Jobs.
- bryanrasmussen 9y ago
  I had the understanding his currency speculation and breaking of the British pound was based on some prognostication, visionary understandings of currency in the modern world? So a great level of insight was achieved leading to adding value to himself, but not to society.
  - weavie 9y ago
    I'm not sure it took a huge amount if visionary understanding of the currency markets. Fixing a currency to another and using the central bank to step in to ensure this generally goes against the concept of supply and demand that underpins these markets. It's just it took someone with enough resources to go against a central bank to carry it out.
- jstalin 9y ago
monkmartinez 9y ago
I have read most of Cal's books and they are good. His fight against social media is... I don't know, extreme. The problem to me isn't social media per se. The real problem is self-discipline/control. Cal crusades against social media, but I don't see him crusade against video games, or watching TV for example. I think a good/better metric is total screen time. My children are given an allowance in the form of screen time. I kind of do the same for myself and I have decent self-control. That is the key, I think... limits and control by taking responsibility for yourself and those you are charged to raise.
- daxorid 9y ago
  > The problem to me isn't social media per se. The real problem is self-discipline/control. I'd agree with you if it was firmly established that all people have full, conscious agency. But the very existence of compulsive behavior personalities and addiction demonstrates that agency is unequally distributed. While person A may easily be able to walk away from the dopamine bar by sheer force of will, person B may not. Person A's problem is surely with self-discipline, but person B's problem is with the dopamine bar.
  - monkmartinez 9y ago
    You are 100% right, of course. I guess we still need more evolution.
- Pigo 9y ago
  I try to give my kids alternatives, or get them interested in other things. It bothers me when I've seen parents get angry because their kid is gaming constantly, especially when they are sitting there looking at their phone all night long. If that's all that they ever do, it's probably because they've watched you waste time every night.
- toastking 9y ago
  I think the difference is it's a little easier to control other forms of "screen time". That other stuff is pure entertainment and they don't have the addictive aspect of a feed.
hawktheslayer 9y ago
I have always compared Facebook's attention engineering to fast food companies making their food increasingly more addicting. Just as I stopped eating most junk food after college, I similarly came to a point where I would rather consume more quality information for my brain's diet than what Facebook serves up.
jordigh 9y ago
I'm rather bothered that I know nothing about Soros except a bunch of vague, negative feelings about him that have pop-culturally osmosed to me through constant usage of his name in 4channish/the_donaldish media. He's some kind of evil mastermind destroying civilisation with his vast wealth. I know this is almost certainly not true, but I'm so bothered that this is my immediate thought. I feel like the alt-right has succeeded in partially hijacking some of my brain. Mayb some of you will think I'm some kind of easily-manipulated idiot and that you would never fall prey to similar thought processes. That we're all too smart to really believe Facebook and that "critical thinking" is all we need. That the things Soros is talking about in this article could never happen to us. I in turn think that this kind of intellectual arrogance is a bit dangerous and precisely leads to the kind of manipulation that social media can have on us.
- toastking 9y ago
  It's also been experimentally proven that people have issues discerning fake news online. Our news literacy is falling rapidly. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/11/23/503129818/study-finds-students-have-dismaying-inability-to-tell-fake-news-from-real https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/11/23/503129818...
  - olavk 9y ago
    Why do you think it is falling? As far as I can see, the article does not mention repeating this experiment over time.
  - bornonline1 9y ago
    I was under the assumption that our news literacy was never high enough to begin with. So to say "fall rapidly" seems misleading.
    - a_tractor 9y ago
      Yeah seems more like people are used to passively consuming knowledge and information from consolidated media, all pushing a rather narrow, barely even two-sided narrative of world events, and so are still adjusting to, and indeed inadequately prepared for, an information landscape that for the first time in a long time isn't so tightly controlled and delivered. There is also the assumption that literacy in general was ever this high...
Pigo 9y ago
This is something I have a hard time understanding because I don't get how social media appeals to people to the point that they become addicted to it. I enjoy getting on once, maybe twice, a day to look at a few things. It just doesn't do that much for me, especially in the state it has evolved into. But if something unproductive is really sapping time and attention from masses of people, that seems like a problem.
saul_pako 9y ago
Interesting article. The whole smoke screen idea is in a way interesting but at the same time; isn't it exactly what is to be expected from commercial providers of social media? I'm not sure if you catch my drift, but since when do we expect for-profit companies to act in societies best interest? To protect your brand does sometimes include admitting wrong doings or sketchy behavior - if we wish to browse through social media without secrets and/or intent to get the user to return as often as possible, shouldn't we accept the state of Facebook and Friends and look in other places?
- monkmartinez 9y ago
  I agree and would like to add: What I find odd is that as a Professor of CS, Cal doesn't expect another, possibly "worse", social media company to replace Facebook if his crusade succeeds. He is trying to fix attention with brute force and it will not work.
- Slansitartop 9y ago
  > since when do we expect for-profit companies to act in societies best interest? We don't have for-profit companies because of some fundamental ideological commitment to capitalism uber alles. We have them because we judge their operation to be in society's best interest. When a particular one fails to do that, it raises a legitimate question about whether it should be allowed to continue with those actions or even be allowed to exist in its current form. If a company is not acting on society's best interest, it should be made to or abolished.
  - jnordwick 9y ago
    Companies are just a realization that absent some outside force, multiple people will band together to work and sell the fruits of their labor. Get rid of all laws and you will see companies naturally form except they would be held together by a myriad of individuals agreements. Stopping companies or getting rid of them world requires stipping people from making agreements between themselves and be against human nature.
    - 9y ago
vinceguidry 9y ago
Sorry, I'm simply not convinced that monetizing and marketing people's attention is all that much of a social ill. There is nothing about Facebook that's in any way worse than the old ways companies used to do this. Does nobody remember the 80s? TV was turning people into fricken' zombies. People would sit on the boob tube for days at a time, stopping only to go to work to mindlessly knock out chores for a shift, then get back to their vapid entertainment. People would make a game out of who could play the longest in the arcade on one quarter. With $5, a savvy gamer could spend all day staring at lights and hearing beeps. The world survived, thrived, and devised ever more devious and insidious ways to hook your mind. We weathered Everquest and the MMORPGs. Psychedelic drugs. Outrage didn't stop those from spreading long and wide. My uncle lost years to Everquest. When he came up for air he found the world just as he left it. Now he manages his gaming habits just like everyone else. Out of all the pseudo-addictive things people want to complain about, we're picking on Facebook? The thing that actually holds old friendships together and provides endless opportunities to interact with other people that you would have never done otherwise? Or is the argument that every time someone gets the urge to play Scrabble, they need to coordinate a face-to-face game instead of just loading up Words with Friends? C'mon. I guess bombastic apocalyptic bullshit will never go out of style.
- deleted 9y ago
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- tabeth 9y ago
  Do you honestly think your examples are even in the same league as Facebook? Were TV ads ever as granular in its tracking as Facebook is today?
  - jnordwick 9y ago
    tv is exactly in the same league as Facebook. Video games is pretty close too. Neither one are recognized as addictions.
    - tabeth 9y ago
      What? Does TV track what you're doing when you're not watching and change the ads when you return? You're being silly.
losvedir 9y ago
It's odd the post doesn't mention the recent changes to Facebook's algorithm to promote more friends and family content[0]. I don't use facebook so I'm not sure how meaningful the changes are from a UX perspective, but on Bloomberg radio which I listen to it's been a pretty major point. Engagement metrics are down, as expected, but analysts seem to think that's fine. This contradicts the post's point that it "would have a disastrous impact on the quarterly earnings". [0] https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/11/16881102/facebook-news-feed-changes-meaningful-interactions https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/11/16881102/facebook-news-fe...
- harlanji 9y ago
  Too little too late on the Fam thing. My exit plan was well underway when they announced it. FB stopped being for emo in 2013ish last I cared, yet I'm still going through the emotionally taxing process of extracting my friendships from FB lately. Meanwhile new contacts see no mutual friends since I don't add new ones for the most part, so I am eager to be able to hit logical delete (aka deactivate, no full delete anymore).
  - Slansitartop 9y ago
    > aka deactivate, no full delete anymore IIRC, you can still full-delete, but you have to find a the link through a help page, not your profile. I'm content to leave my profile up with a big reminder that I'm no longer using Facebook, so I'm never going to use either option. I actually get some satisfaction that my profile is basically an ad against Facebook, which worse for them than if it just vanished.
    - ramzyo 9y ago
      I feel you, but you may be helping Facebook by leaving your profile alive. I’d guess that vertices in their social graph hold value, regardless of the content present. The more vertices, the more ads served, the more revenue Facebook brings in.
      - 9y ago
workthrowaway27 9y ago
Is there any evidence that people would be more productive without Facebook? I bet they'd just watch more Netflix. Edit: Plus, it's really not that hard to not use social media once you finish school if you don't feel it's beneficial.
jnordwick 9y ago
Can we stop calling this addiction? The DSM V doesnt recognize process addictions, with the exception of Gambling Disorder, and many of the symptoms don't apply to social media use. Even Internet addiction wasn't included for lack of proof. Substance Use Disorder (the new category for chemical addictions) has specifics such as withdrawal and physical dependency that you don't get from turning off your Facebook account. Facebook is a habit that many people user too much. It isn't like a drug that has drastic and rapid physical changes in your brain. Your brain isn't literally hijacked anymore than TV or anything you like doing hijacks your brain. It reacts fairly normally actually. Optimizing for somebody to use a site a lot isn't addicting people. The abuse of terminology has gone too far and is really clouding the discussion. Besides what would it look like to not "optimize for addiction"? Give people news stories they don't want to read? The conversation has just gone off the rails when it starts to be compared to cocaine and heroin.
- Sir_Cmpwn 9y ago
  DSM was last updated in 2013. When companies are employing psychologists to analyze user behavior and employ techniques that exploit the same mental vunlerabilities that addictive drugs utilize with the goal of attaining a similar outcome, I think we can call that "optimizing for addiction".
  - jnordwick 9y ago
    These new techs do not "exploit the same mental vunlerabilities that addictive drugs utilize" in any meaningful sense. Everything positive from learning to driving to reading a book has a similar effect and it is going beyond rational discussion to try to argue FB and drugs are the same or even similar.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- dtornabene 9y ago
  Actually, yes, it does induce "drastic and rapid physical changes in your brain". This is well documented. The Shallows despite some of its faults, is excellent in this regard, with a bibliography that stretches pages. There was a CBS piece months ago detailing precisely this.
jeremynixon 9y ago
The question is actually about the counterfactual impact of Facebook's addiction machine. In the absence of social media, do people simply replace their wasted time there with leisure like video games, television, texting, and the like? If yes, the net impact of Facebook is small. Or, have the addictivity wizards actually managed to increase the amount of time spent in leisure, taking away from familial connection and deep friendships? With Facebook in particular, there's a generated sense of belonging that comes along with the quantified social proof which makes the hits of dopamine much more personal and meaningful. I see this as trading off against getting that sense of connection in reality. But much of the other 'damage' from Facebook is fungible, and people would turn to other sources of leisure and addiction soon after losing it. Perhaps one day these addictive engines will be powerful enough to make this untrue, but we're not there quite yet.
- bluntfang 9y ago
  >In the absence of social media, do people simply replace their wasted time there with leisure like video games, television, texting, and the like? If yes, the net impact of Facebook is small. You're being naive if you think it's about where people spend their time if facebook didn't exist.
  - soared 9y ago
    What else would you compare that time to then?
- Brakenshire 9y ago
  > Perhaps one day these addictive engines will be powerful enough to make this untrue, but we're not there quite yet. Interesting question to raise, but you really can't come come to a conclusion without evidence.
happyguy43 9y ago
Facebook isn’t the problem. Phones are. I don’t use Facebook or any social media, yet I’m addicted to hacker news and checking my email. But even phones are not the problem. People are responsible for their own “addiction.” It’s like blaming food companies for fat people. Widespread informed Democracy is not something we’ve ever had, and likely will never have. Democracy has always been led by the intelligentsia and the rich.
rossdavidh 9y ago
I am no great fan of Facebook, but the indignant accusations about them wanting to keep us glued to their screen seem mostly to come from people who were (and are) perfectly fine with television networks that did the same thing for decades. Even today, the typical citizen spends more time watching TV than on social media, I bet. I use Facebook once a week, and TV never, and I find that people are mostly not even willing to consider the idea that TV may be a problem, for their children or themselves, whereas their attitudes towards Facebook, while problematic, seem to be a lot more self-aware.
- djaychela 9y ago
  I don't think they're in the same league, though. Facebook (and all social media) is far more insidious than TV ever was (and I probably watch maybe 2-3 hours of TV a week). Facebook et al are personalised to each user to capture them as much as possible. That isn't the case for TV, and nor have I ever been in a situation where people I'm working with are watching TV in between fragments of their attention being paid to the task in hand. That happened this very morning with a client whose studio I was fixing for them and discussing upgrades - every time my attention was on the computer for more than about 30 seconds, the smartphone was out, and notifications were being checked. Most people I know are completely addicted to their smartphones. It's taken me about a year to stop reflexively checking mine every time I go near it, and even now I will do it if I'm not being mindful of my situation. I'm infinitely better off for it, and I can't imagine how someone who has always had one in their life will be able to imagine anything different (I'm 46, so fortunate to have lived before the current era).
  - tim333 9y ago
    >completely addicted to their smartphones For me and I think most people the smartphone is a way of connecting with other people. The need to check it is a need to see what your mates are saying in a conversation - the electronic gizmo is just a conduit. And people chatting to each other has probably been a thing for millions of years. I'm not sure what's so bad about chatting at a distance via tech.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
js8 9y ago
I do agree that social media are harmful due to unrestricted power of censorship and manipulation they can exert over their users. However, I am not a big fan of Soros, I think he is misguided (to be generous). I don't think he really wants democracy, in the sense of governance by people. And the narrative that social networks are harmful is part of that belief, that "elites" should somehow shape what "common people" think. And the absurdity of this narrative actually became apparent couple days ago, when Daily Telegraph published an article attacking George Soros, with antisemitic undertones. The reality is, most traditional media are not better.
jnbiche 9y ago
I'm less concerned with Facebook's addictive tendencies and more concerned with the existential threat they and other social media pose to our democratic institutions. Perhaps Facebook feels the same as I do, and they're addressing the more critical issue first? That said, I've seen little sign that they're taking truly significant steps to protect Americans from insidious foreign propaganda, even now. I still don't think they've even been fully truthful about the extend of what happened in the days leading up to the election. I know for a fact that Twitter is still lying about that time, and I suspect Facebook may be doing so as well, or at the very least failing to disclose all relevant data.
KhanMahGretsch 9y ago
>Making Facebook good for democracy is not entirely altruistic. (emphasis mine) This is the crux of the issue: what authority does anyone have to insist that a company should act in a manner consistent with their subjective view of what is 'good for democracy'? What fair standards could exist that would limit Facebook's appeal without also upending the gambling industry, the entertainment industry, the food industry etc.? Given that Facebook is not physically harming, stealing from, or unfairly discriminating against it's users, who use the service voluntarily, what infractions are they making that requires government intervention? Since when is it not the right and responsibility of parents to judge which activities are healthy and productive for their child? Since when does the same right and responsibility for an adult not exclusively apply to themselves, outside of criminal activity? My solution is the same as Lisa Simpson's in that Treehouse of Horror where giant corporate logos come to life and wreak havoc across Springfield: Just Don't Look!
oconnore 9y ago
This article is weird, because the "bubble effect" (or as Soros describes it: "an undue ability to influence people’s behavior by leveraging their massive data stores to precisely target messages that nudge users in specific directions") is definitely the main issue with Facebook! Without such power, Trump would not be our president, the alt-right would not capture so many followers, and our democracy would be much much healthier. It would also be easier for people to exercise self control with their time spent on Facebook (because without algorithmic warm-bath-water content, you would be jarred out of your safe zone). And if people were pushed away from Facebook, normal media, including news media, would have an easier time profiting from providing useful journalism and deeper storytelling. It seems like people (both Cal Newport, and the majority of commenters in this thread) are extremely uncomfortable admitting that Facebook wields this power over many people. It is a bit scary, and it calls into question individual rational self control (which many of you hold dear to your hearts), but there is massive evidence that this power exists, and that it is negatively affecting our society. We need to deal with it.
otterpro 9y ago
I agree that social media may be doing more harm than good, but vilifying Facebook is not going to help. The greater issue is the nature of addiction and what should be done to deal with this in our society. Is regulation necessary? (I hope not) If so, how far are we going to go in order to address problem with social media and addiction in general? Where do we draw the line between what is considered harmful and what is not? Which is worse - Facebook or Netflix or CNN or PUBG or HackerNews or internet in general? (I'm HN addict, I think). We need to address these problems... I've heard some suggested solutions from others, some of which are just impractical or are just crazy: * Ban sale of all mobile device to anyone under 18 years of age, like we did with cigarettes. * Illegalize usage of Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, Weebo etc to all minors. Force manufacturer to limit kids to only basic phone calling and text messaging. Children using these apps can be cited for violation by the police, similar to curfew laws for minors in some states/countries. * Force Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Video, Youtube, etc to prevent binge watching by allowing maximum of 2 hours of streamed videos per person per day. Limit consumption, similar to New York City's Soda Ban, banning large sugary drinks from stores. * Force all ISP to disconnect their residential internet access between 10pm -6am. * Add special tax on addictive products, including phone, video game consoles and game software, and social media apps (in similar manner to tobacco and alcohol) * Run a government-funded national campaign and create grass-root movements similar to anti-smoking, anti-drinking/driving, and anti-drug campaigns. "Just say no to Snapchat". * Create a law to force all companies with free products to charge fee to its users. No more free Facebook or League of Legends. Facebook will now cost $5/month, and LOL costs $20/month. * Limit distribution hardware (iPhone, XBox, PC etc) and software (PUBG, Candy Crush, Facebook apps, etc) through increased special-tax. That $300 XBox one will now cost $900. Pixel XL will cost $1500 and iPhone will cost $2000 after tax. NOTE: These sound like crazy idea, but laws like these had been implemented in real-life. For example, France is making phones illegal at school for students. Greece banned all video game consoles, citing addiction problems. In Korea, it is illegal to play online games between 12am-6am for anyone under 16. Also there is this article from 2015 about the addiction and the idea of regulating the internet: https://aeon.co/essays/if-the-internet-is-addictive-why-don-t-we-regulate-it https://aeon.co/essays/if-the-internet-is-addictive-why-don-...
yakitori 9y ago
Another day, another bullshit piece about facebook. There has been daily hitpieces on facebook for months now.
reaperducer 9y ago
You know what was a bigger Facebook engagement factor/time suck than fake political news? Pieces of flair.
lakechfoma 9y ago
Can someone explain why FB can't become a paid service that engineers itself for the good of users? I don't know anything about corporate financing but naive napkin math says if their 2 billion user base pays $1/month they would be pulling $24 billion a year. Wikipedia says their revenue is $24b/year. Now if they removed their entire advertising aspect (the human labor, infrastructure) their operating costs would go down and that $24b/year would mean more than it does now. Is that bad math? I would readily pay $1/month to use a service designed for our well being rather than advertisers. I think anyone would. Why isn't this a thing?
- wmeredith 9y ago
  The gulf between free and $1 is vast. Do not underestimate it. I'd be surprised if the could convert 10% of their current user base to paying customers at any price.
  - pawelk 9y ago
    Also $1 does not hold the same purchasing power everywhere in the world. There are places where it is a considerably larger expense than in the US.
DangBruhWtf 9y ago
George Soros is a self-appointed alchemist and currency trader. Powerful and wealthy currency traders, going back since the very invention of moneychanging, have routinely made their fortunes by either waiting and hoping they're lucky enough to have the surfboard ready for massive geopolitical tsunamis... or by being proactive and intentionally creating geopolitical volatility with social engineering, cultural destabilization, and semantic apocalypse. Pathological altruists often whine about war profiteering, but even that sordid business is downstream of and part of a brilliant and comprehensive currency traders arsenal. HackerNews is so goddamned disingenuously oblivious to the realities of currency trading and the thousands of years of misery it makes possible. Soros did break the Bank of England and is finally citing my work almost by name in this article, so... I guess I'm a forex princeling nao? :D
DangBruhWtf 9y ago
For those who don't know, George Soros is a self-appointed alchemist and currency trader. Powerful and wealthy currency traders, going back since the very invention of moneychanging, have routinely made their fortunes by either waiting and hoping they're lucky enough to have the surfboard ready for massive geopolitical tsunamis... or by being proactive and intentionally creating geopolitical volatility with social engineering, cultural destabilization, and semantic apocalypse. Pathological altruists often whine about war profiteering, but even that sordid business is downstream of and part of a brilliant and comprehensive currency traders arsenal. HackerNews is so goddamned disingenuously oblivious to the realities of currency trading and the thousands of years of misery it makes possible. Ask yourself: Why is HackerNews erasing comments revealing this 100% provable history of forex?
tomcam 9y ago
I love the idea of George Soros using the term “excessive profits” http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/2773265/Billionaire-who-broke-the-Bank-of-England.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/2773265/Billionaire-who-b...
- wmeredith 9y ago
  Yeah, that's when I reached my "oh fuck off" point and stopped reading.
cmpb 9y ago
> This is nothing less, Soros claims, than a theft of citizens’ autonomy. “People without the freedom of mind can be easily manipulated.” What autonomy? I’m usually one to shrug off the “no free will” problem and just buy into reality, but the quoted statement brings the problem front-and-center. We are all being manipulated, all the time, by everything that we interact with. So FB isn’t really stealing anything from us. And yes it manipulates the mind, but isn’t that just part of the human experience?
- sixothree 9y ago
  Pretending this just being part of human experience discounts the fact that this entity is new and has properties much different than anything that has existed in human history. I think that quote understates it. Even people with freedom of mind can be manipulated. I would love to think I am a free-thinker. But there is no way I could honestly insulate myself from persuasion.
greendestiny_re 9y ago
I find it interesting that Facebook still hasn't found a way to deal with what I call "spotlight aversion", the unwillingness to expose ourselves to the public on a regular basis, and yet its entire financial model revolves around it with sponsored content attached to what our friends are doing and likes as an engagement metric.

278 points by mengledowl 9y ago

And violent cartoons will make your kids murderers. Yawn.

Outrage-provoking political content might have been good business for Facebook, but in its absence, this company’s attention engineers can tap into any number of other distraction wells to keep users compulsively tapping the little blue icon on their phone. In other words, fixing Facebook’s negative impacts on democracy won’t necessarily hurt their bottom line, while admitting that their business relies on a foundation of addiction and exploitation definitely would. Bingo. Unfortunately they can probably keep up the shell game for a long time, until enough people recognize what FB actually “offers” the enduser. While plenty of people here understand the downsides of FB, I don’t know that most people do, yet. A “service” offering dubious rewards for the ability to try and monopolize your time and attention, track you, and actively manipulate you, is simply not fixable.

adamnemecek 9y ago

> authoritarian regimes in Eastern Europe He somehow never forgets to bring this up.

icebraining 9y ago
I often have my country of origin in mind as well when I think about politics, is that surprising?

cletus 9y ago

I honestly find myself scratching my head every time George Soros speaks. He almost comes across as someone desperate to be taken seriously, to be viewed as a visionary, a thought leader, a prognosticator. But what has he down to justify this? Nothing as far as I can tell. He made a bunch of money as a currency speculator, most famously breaking the British pound. Sure. Good for him. But if we're going to talk about adding value to society...

aylmao 9y ago
Why is this comment getting down voted? EDIT: And why did I get down voted? Genuinely curious; he didn't say anything inflammatory, polarizing or _wrong_. Replies are not even disagreeing, just "explaining".
adamnemecek 9y ago
I think that he thinks that his philanthropy gives him legitimacy.
- badpun 9y ago
  I don't see how giving away money is related to being "a visionary, a thought leader" etc.
  - IntronExon 9y ago
    Success seems to be the metric by which the credulous judge “visionaries” to begin with. If you’re going to buy into the “thought leader” concept, Soros seems to qualify as much as Jobs.
bryanrasmussen 9y ago
I had the understanding his currency speculation and breaking of the British pound was based on some prognostication, visionary understandings of currency in the modern world? So a great level of insight was achieved leading to adding value to himself, but not to society.
- weavie 9y ago
  I'm not sure it took a huge amount if visionary understanding of the currency markets. Fixing a currency to another and using the central bank to step in to ensure this generally goes against the concept of supply and demand that underpins these markets. It's just it took someone with enough resources to go against a central bank to carry it out.
jstalin 9y ago

monkmartinez 9y ago

I have read most of Cal's books and they are good. His fight against social media is... I don't know, extreme. The problem to me isn't social media per se. The real problem is self-discipline/control. Cal crusades against social media, but I don't see him crusade against video games, or watching TV for example. I think a good/better metric is total screen time. My children are given an allowance in the form of screen time. I kind of do the same for myself and I have decent self-control. That is the key, I think... limits and control by taking responsibility for yourself and those you are charged to raise.

daxorid 9y ago
> The problem to me isn't social media per se. The real problem is self-discipline/control. I'd agree with you if it was firmly established that all people have full, conscious agency. But the very existence of compulsive behavior personalities and addiction demonstrates that agency is unequally distributed. While person A may easily be able to walk away from the dopamine bar by sheer force of will, person B may not. Person A's problem is surely with self-discipline, but person B's problem is with the dopamine bar.
- monkmartinez 9y ago
  You are 100% right, of course. I guess we still need more evolution.
Pigo 9y ago
I try to give my kids alternatives, or get them interested in other things. It bothers me when I've seen parents get angry because their kid is gaming constantly, especially when they are sitting there looking at their phone all night long. If that's all that they ever do, it's probably because they've watched you waste time every night.
toastking 9y ago
I think the difference is it's a little easier to control other forms of "screen time". That other stuff is pure entertainment and they don't have the addictive aspect of a feed.

hawktheslayer 9y ago

I have always compared Facebook's attention engineering to fast food companies making their food increasingly more addicting. Just as I stopped eating most junk food after college, I similarly came to a point where I would rather consume more quality information for my brain's diet than what Facebook serves up.

jordigh 9y ago

I'm rather bothered that I know nothing about Soros except a bunch of vague, negative feelings about him that have pop-culturally osmosed to me through constant usage of his name in 4channish/the_donaldish media. He's some kind of evil mastermind destroying civilisation with his vast wealth. I know this is almost certainly not true, but I'm so bothered that this is my immediate thought. I feel like the alt-right has succeeded in partially hijacking some of my brain. Mayb some of you will think I'm some kind of easily-manipulated idiot and that you would never fall prey to similar thought processes. That we're all too smart to really believe Facebook and that "critical thinking" is all we need. That the things Soros is talking about in this article could never happen to us. I in turn think that this kind of intellectual arrogance is a bit dangerous and precisely leads to the kind of manipulation that social media can have on us.

toastking 9y ago
It's also been experimentally proven that people have issues discerning fake news online. Our news literacy is falling rapidly. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/11/23/503129818/study-finds-students-have-dismaying-inability-to-tell-fake-news-from-real https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/11/23/503129818...
- olavk 9y ago
  Why do you think it is falling? As far as I can see, the article does not mention repeating this experiment over time.
- bornonline1 9y ago
  I was under the assumption that our news literacy was never high enough to begin with. So to say "fall rapidly" seems misleading.
  - a_tractor 9y ago
    Yeah seems more like people are used to passively consuming knowledge and information from consolidated media, all pushing a rather narrow, barely even two-sided narrative of world events, and so are still adjusting to, and indeed inadequately prepared for, an information landscape that for the first time in a long time isn't so tightly controlled and delivered. There is also the assumption that literacy in general was ever this high...

Pigo 9y ago

This is something I have a hard time understanding because I don't get how social media appeals to people to the point that they become addicted to it. I enjoy getting on once, maybe twice, a day to look at a few things. It just doesn't do that much for me, especially in the state it has evolved into. But if something unproductive is really sapping time and attention from masses of people, that seems like a problem.

saul_pako 9y ago

Interesting article. The whole smoke screen idea is in a way interesting but at the same time; isn't it exactly what is to be expected from commercial providers of social media? I'm not sure if you catch my drift, but since when do we expect for-profit companies to act in societies best interest? To protect your brand does sometimes include admitting wrong doings or sketchy behavior - if we wish to browse through social media without secrets and/or intent to get the user to return as often as possible, shouldn't we accept the state of Facebook and Friends and look in other places?

monkmartinez 9y ago
I agree and would like to add: What I find odd is that as a Professor of CS, Cal doesn't expect another, possibly "worse", social media company to replace Facebook if his crusade succeeds. He is trying to fix attention with brute force and it will not work.
Slansitartop 9y ago
> since when do we expect for-profit companies to act in societies best interest? We don't have for-profit companies because of some fundamental ideological commitment to capitalism uber alles. We have them because we judge their operation to be in society's best interest. When a particular one fails to do that, it raises a legitimate question about whether it should be allowed to continue with those actions or even be allowed to exist in its current form. If a company is not acting on society's best interest, it should be made to or abolished.
- jnordwick 9y ago
  Companies are just a realization that absent some outside force, multiple people will band together to work and sell the fruits of their labor. Get rid of all laws and you will see companies naturally form except they would be held together by a myriad of individuals agreements. Stopping companies or getting rid of them world requires stipping people from making agreements between themselves and be against human nature.
  - 9y ago

vinceguidry 9y ago

Sorry, I'm simply not convinced that monetizing and marketing people's attention is all that much of a social ill. There is nothing about Facebook that's in any way worse than the old ways companies used to do this. Does nobody remember the 80s? TV was turning people into fricken' zombies. People would sit on the boob tube for days at a time, stopping only to go to work to mindlessly knock out chores for a shift, then get back to their vapid entertainment. People would make a game out of who could play the longest in the arcade on one quarter. With $5, a savvy gamer could spend all day staring at lights and hearing beeps. The world survived, thrived, and devised ever more devious and insidious ways to hook your mind. We weathered Everquest and the MMORPGs. Psychedelic drugs. Outrage didn't stop those from spreading long and wide. My uncle lost years to Everquest. When he came up for air he found the world just as he left it. Now he manages his gaming habits just like everyone else. Out of all the pseudo-addictive things people want to complain about, we're picking on Facebook? The thing that actually holds old friendships together and provides endless opportunities to interact with other people that you would have never done otherwise? Or is the argument that every time someone gets the urge to play Scrabble, they need to coordinate a face-to-face game instead of just loading up Words with Friends? C'mon. I guess bombastic apocalyptic bullshit will never go out of style.

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tabeth 9y ago
Do you honestly think your examples are even in the same league as Facebook? Were TV ads ever as granular in its tracking as Facebook is today?
- jnordwick 9y ago
  tv is exactly in the same league as Facebook. Video games is pretty close too. Neither one are recognized as addictions.
  - tabeth 9y ago
    What? Does TV track what you're doing when you're not watching and change the ads when you return? You're being silly.

losvedir 9y ago

It's odd the post doesn't mention the recent changes to Facebook's algorithm to promote more friends and family content[0]. I don't use facebook so I'm not sure how meaningful the changes are from a UX perspective, but on Bloomberg radio which I listen to it's been a pretty major point. Engagement metrics are down, as expected, but analysts seem to think that's fine. This contradicts the post's point that it "would have a disastrous impact on the quarterly earnings". [0] https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/11/16881102/facebook-news-feed-changes-meaningful-interactions https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/11/16881102/facebook-news-fe...

harlanji 9y ago
Too little too late on the Fam thing. My exit plan was well underway when they announced it. FB stopped being for emo in 2013ish last I cared, yet I'm still going through the emotionally taxing process of extracting my friendships from FB lately. Meanwhile new contacts see no mutual friends since I don't add new ones for the most part, so I am eager to be able to hit logical delete (aka deactivate, no full delete anymore).
- Slansitartop 9y ago
  > aka deactivate, no full delete anymore IIRC, you can still full-delete, but you have to find a the link through a help page, not your profile. I'm content to leave my profile up with a big reminder that I'm no longer using Facebook, so I'm never going to use either option. I actually get some satisfaction that my profile is basically an ad against Facebook, which worse for them than if it just vanished.
  - ramzyo 9y ago
    I feel you, but you may be helping Facebook by leaving your profile alive. I’d guess that vertices in their social graph hold value, regardless of the content present. The more vertices, the more ads served, the more revenue Facebook brings in.
    - 9y ago

workthrowaway27 9y ago

Is there any evidence that people would be more productive without Facebook? I bet they'd just watch more Netflix. Edit: Plus, it's really not that hard to not use social media once you finish school if you don't feel it's beneficial.

jnordwick 9y ago

Can we stop calling this addiction? The DSM V doesnt recognize process addictions, with the exception of Gambling Disorder, and many of the symptoms don't apply to social media use. Even Internet addiction wasn't included for lack of proof. Substance Use Disorder (the new category for chemical addictions) has specifics such as withdrawal and physical dependency that you don't get from turning off your Facebook account. Facebook is a habit that many people user too much. It isn't like a drug that has drastic and rapid physical changes in your brain. Your brain isn't literally hijacked anymore than TV or anything you like doing hijacks your brain. It reacts fairly normally actually. Optimizing for somebody to use a site a lot isn't addicting people. The abuse of terminology has gone too far and is really clouding the discussion. Besides what would it look like to not "optimize for addiction"? Give people news stories they don't want to read? The conversation has just gone off the rails when it starts to be compared to cocaine and heroin.

Sir_Cmpwn 9y ago
DSM was last updated in 2013. When companies are employing psychologists to analyze user behavior and employ techniques that exploit the same mental vunlerabilities that addictive drugs utilize with the goal of attaining a similar outcome, I think we can call that "optimizing for addiction".
- jnordwick 9y ago
  These new techs do not "exploit the same mental vunlerabilities that addictive drugs utilize" in any meaningful sense. Everything positive from learning to driving to reading a book has a similar effect and it is going beyond rational discussion to try to argue FB and drugs are the same or even similar.
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dtornabene 9y ago
Actually, yes, it does induce "drastic and rapid physical changes in your brain". This is well documented. The Shallows despite some of its faults, is excellent in this regard, with a bibliography that stretches pages. There was a CBS piece months ago detailing precisely this.

jeremynixon 9y ago

The question is actually about the counterfactual impact of Facebook's addiction machine. In the absence of social media, do people simply replace their wasted time there with leisure like video games, television, texting, and the like? If yes, the net impact of Facebook is small. Or, have the addictivity wizards actually managed to increase the amount of time spent in leisure, taking away from familial connection and deep friendships? With Facebook in particular, there's a generated sense of belonging that comes along with the quantified social proof which makes the hits of dopamine much more personal and meaningful. I see this as trading off against getting that sense of connection in reality. But much of the other 'damage' from Facebook is fungible, and people would turn to other sources of leisure and addiction soon after losing it. Perhaps one day these addictive engines will be powerful enough to make this untrue, but we're not there quite yet.

bluntfang 9y ago
>In the absence of social media, do people simply replace their wasted time there with leisure like video games, television, texting, and the like? If yes, the net impact of Facebook is small. You're being naive if you think it's about where people spend their time if facebook didn't exist.
- soared 9y ago
  What else would you compare that time to then?
Brakenshire 9y ago
> Perhaps one day these addictive engines will be powerful enough to make this untrue, but we're not there quite yet. Interesting question to raise, but you really can't come come to a conclusion without evidence.

happyguy43 9y ago

Facebook isn’t the problem. Phones are. I don’t use Facebook or any social media, yet I’m addicted to hacker news and checking my email. But even phones are not the problem. People are responsible for their own “addiction.” It’s like blaming food companies for fat people. Widespread informed Democracy is not something we’ve ever had, and likely will never have. Democracy has always been led by the intelligentsia and the rich.

rossdavidh 9y ago

I am no great fan of Facebook, but the indignant accusations about them wanting to keep us glued to their screen seem mostly to come from people who were (and are) perfectly fine with television networks that did the same thing for decades. Even today, the typical citizen spends more time watching TV than on social media, I bet. I use Facebook once a week, and TV never, and I find that people are mostly not even willing to consider the idea that TV may be a problem, for their children or themselves, whereas their attitudes towards Facebook, while problematic, seem to be a lot more self-aware.

djaychela 9y ago
I don't think they're in the same league, though. Facebook (and all social media) is far more insidious than TV ever was (and I probably watch maybe 2-3 hours of TV a week). Facebook et al are personalised to each user to capture them as much as possible. That isn't the case for TV, and nor have I ever been in a situation where people I'm working with are watching TV in between fragments of their attention being paid to the task in hand. That happened this very morning with a client whose studio I was fixing for them and discussing upgrades - every time my attention was on the computer for more than about 30 seconds, the smartphone was out, and notifications were being checked. Most people I know are completely addicted to their smartphones. It's taken me about a year to stop reflexively checking mine every time I go near it, and even now I will do it if I'm not being mindful of my situation. I'm infinitely better off for it, and I can't imagine how someone who has always had one in their life will be able to imagine anything different (I'm 46, so fortunate to have lived before the current era).
- tim333 9y ago
  >completely addicted to their smartphones For me and I think most people the smartphone is a way of connecting with other people. The need to check it is a need to see what your mates are saying in a conversation - the electronic gizmo is just a conduit. And people chatting to each other has probably been a thing for millions of years. I'm not sure what's so bad about chatting at a distance via tech.

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js8 9y ago

I do agree that social media are harmful due to unrestricted power of censorship and manipulation they can exert over their users. However, I am not a big fan of Soros, I think he is misguided (to be generous). I don't think he really wants democracy, in the sense of governance by people. And the narrative that social networks are harmful is part of that belief, that "elites" should somehow shape what "common people" think. And the absurdity of this narrative actually became apparent couple days ago, when Daily Telegraph published an article attacking George Soros, with antisemitic undertones. The reality is, most traditional media are not better.

jnbiche 9y ago

I'm less concerned with Facebook's addictive tendencies and more concerned with the existential threat they and other social media pose to our democratic institutions. Perhaps Facebook feels the same as I do, and they're addressing the more critical issue first? That said, I've seen little sign that they're taking truly significant steps to protect Americans from insidious foreign propaganda, even now. I still don't think they've even been fully truthful about the extend of what happened in the days leading up to the election. I know for a fact that Twitter is still lying about that time, and I suspect Facebook may be doing so as well, or at the very least failing to disclose all relevant data.

KhanMahGretsch 9y ago

>Making Facebook good for democracy is not entirely altruistic. (emphasis mine) This is the crux of the issue: what authority does anyone have to insist that a company should act in a manner consistent with their subjective view of what is 'good for democracy'? What fair standards could exist that would limit Facebook's appeal without also upending the gambling industry, the entertainment industry, the food industry etc.? Given that Facebook is not physically harming, stealing from, or unfairly discriminating against it's users, who use the service voluntarily, what infractions are they making that requires government intervention? Since when is it not the right and responsibility of parents to judge which activities are healthy and productive for their child? Since when does the same right and responsibility for an adult not exclusively apply to themselves, outside of criminal activity? My solution is the same as Lisa Simpson's in that Treehouse of Horror where giant corporate logos come to life and wreak havoc across Springfield: Just Don't Look!

oconnore 9y ago

This article is weird, because the "bubble effect" (or as Soros describes it: "an undue ability to influence people’s behavior by leveraging their massive data stores to precisely target messages that nudge users in specific directions") is definitely the main issue with Facebook! Without such power, Trump would not be our president, the alt-right would not capture so many followers, and our democracy would be much much healthier. It would also be easier for people to exercise self control with their time spent on Facebook (because without algorithmic warm-bath-water content, you would be jarred out of your safe zone). And if people were pushed away from Facebook, normal media, including news media, would have an easier time profiting from providing useful journalism and deeper storytelling. It seems like people (both Cal Newport, and the majority of commenters in this thread) are extremely uncomfortable admitting that Facebook wields this power over many people. It is a bit scary, and it calls into question individual rational self control (which many of you hold dear to your hearts), but there is massive evidence that this power exists, and that it is negatively affecting our society. We need to deal with it.

otterpro 9y ago

I agree that social media may be doing more harm than good, but vilifying Facebook is not going to help. The greater issue is the nature of addiction and what should be done to deal with this in our society. Is regulation necessary? (I hope not) If so, how far are we going to go in order to address problem with social media and addiction in general? Where do we draw the line between what is considered harmful and what is not? Which is worse - Facebook or Netflix or CNN or PUBG or HackerNews or internet in general? (I'm HN addict, I think). We need to address these problems... I've heard some suggested solutions from others, some of which are just impractical or are just crazy: * Ban sale of all mobile device to anyone under 18 years of age, like we did with cigarettes. * Illegalize usage of Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, Weebo etc to all minors. Force manufacturer to limit kids to only basic phone calling and text messaging. Children using these apps can be cited for violation by the police, similar to curfew laws for minors in some states/countries. * Force Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Video, Youtube, etc to prevent binge watching by allowing maximum of 2 hours of streamed videos per person per day. Limit consumption, similar to New York City's Soda Ban, banning large sugary drinks from stores. * Force all ISP to disconnect their residential internet access between 10pm -6am. * Add special tax on addictive products, including phone, video game consoles and game software, and social media apps (in similar manner to tobacco and alcohol) * Run a government-funded national campaign and create grass-root movements similar to anti-smoking, anti-drinking/driving, and anti-drug campaigns. "Just say no to Snapchat". * Create a law to force all companies with free products to charge fee to its users. No more free Facebook or League of Legends. Facebook will now cost $5/month, and LOL costs $20/month. * Limit distribution hardware (iPhone, XBox, PC etc) and software (PUBG, Candy Crush, Facebook apps, etc) through increased special-tax. That $300 XBox one will now cost $900. Pixel XL will cost $1500 and iPhone will cost $2000 after tax. NOTE: These sound like crazy idea, but laws like these had been implemented in real-life. For example, France is making phones illegal at school for students. Greece banned all video game consoles, citing addiction problems. In Korea, it is illegal to play online games between 12am-6am for anyone under 16. Also there is this article from 2015 about the addiction and the idea of regulating the internet: https://aeon.co/essays/if-the-internet-is-addictive-why-don-t-we-regulate-it https://aeon.co/essays/if-the-internet-is-addictive-why-don-...

yakitori 9y ago

Another day, another bullshit piece about facebook. There has been daily hitpieces on facebook for months now.

reaperducer 9y ago

You know what was a bigger Facebook engagement factor/time suck than fake political news? Pieces of flair.

lakechfoma 9y ago

Can someone explain why FB can't become a paid service that engineers itself for the good of users? I don't know anything about corporate financing but naive napkin math says if their 2 billion user base pays $1/month they would be pulling $24 billion a year. Wikipedia says their revenue is $24b/year. Now if they removed their entire advertising aspect (the human labor, infrastructure) their operating costs would go down and that $24b/year would mean more than it does now. Is that bad math? I would readily pay $1/month to use a service designed for our well being rather than advertisers. I think anyone would. Why isn't this a thing?

wmeredith 9y ago
The gulf between free and $1 is vast. Do not underestimate it. I'd be surprised if the could convert 10% of their current user base to paying customers at any price.
- pawelk 9y ago
  Also $1 does not hold the same purchasing power everywhere in the world. There are places where it is a considerably larger expense than in the US.

DangBruhWtf 9y ago

George Soros is a self-appointed alchemist and currency trader. Powerful and wealthy currency traders, going back since the very invention of moneychanging, have routinely made their fortunes by either waiting and hoping they're lucky enough to have the surfboard ready for massive geopolitical tsunamis... or by being proactive and intentionally creating geopolitical volatility with social engineering, cultural destabilization, and semantic apocalypse. Pathological altruists often whine about war profiteering, but even that sordid business is downstream of and part of a brilliant and comprehensive currency traders arsenal. HackerNews is so goddamned disingenuously oblivious to the realities of currency trading and the thousands of years of misery it makes possible. Soros did break the Bank of England and is finally citing my work almost by name in this article, so... I guess I'm a forex princeling nao? :D

DangBruhWtf 9y ago

For those who don't know, George Soros is a self-appointed alchemist and currency trader. Powerful and wealthy currency traders, going back since the very invention of moneychanging, have routinely made their fortunes by either waiting and hoping they're lucky enough to have the surfboard ready for massive geopolitical tsunamis... or by being proactive and intentionally creating geopolitical volatility with social engineering, cultural destabilization, and semantic apocalypse. Pathological altruists often whine about war profiteering, but even that sordid business is downstream of and part of a brilliant and comprehensive currency traders arsenal. HackerNews is so goddamned disingenuously oblivious to the realities of currency trading and the thousands of years of misery it makes possible. Ask yourself: Why is HackerNews erasing comments revealing this 100% provable history of forex?

tomcam 9y ago

I love the idea of George Soros using the term “excessive profits” http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/2773265/Billionaire-who-broke-the-Bank-of-England.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/2773265/Billionaire-who-b...

wmeredith 9y ago
Yeah, that's when I reached my "oh fuck off" point and stopped reading.

cmpb 9y ago

> This is nothing less, Soros claims, than a theft of citizens’ autonomy. “People without the freedom of mind can be easily manipulated.” What autonomy? I’m usually one to shrug off the “no free will” problem and just buy into reality, but the quoted statement brings the problem front-and-center. We are all being manipulated, all the time, by everything that we interact with. So FB isn’t really stealing anything from us. And yes it manipulates the mind, but isn’t that just part of the human experience?

sixothree 9y ago
Pretending this just being part of human experience discounts the fact that this entity is new and has properties much different than anything that has existed in human history. I think that quote understates it. Even people with freedom of mind can be manipulated. I would love to think I am a free-thinker. But there is no way I could honestly insulate myself from persuasion.

greendestiny_re 9y ago

I find it interesting that Facebook still hasn't found a way to deal with what I call "spotlight aversion", the unwillingness to expose ourselves to the public on a regular basis, and yet its entire financial model revolves around it with sponsored content attached to what our friends are doing and likes as an engagement metric.