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Elon Musk Deletes Own, SpaceX and Tesla Facebook Pages After #deletefacebook
- middle1 9y agoJust checked myself in google. It looks he really did. No Facebook page opened
- nextstep 9y agoBoycotts are one of the most effective methods consumers have to enact change.
- middle1 9y agoI agree with you. Let's see if anything change in a few days and these pages are back. I believe Facebook will not delete them forever.
- shaki-dora 9y agoI can't think of a successful boycott. I believe the largest attempt I witnessed was against BP when they just sank an old oil platform, including all sorts of toxins and petrochemicals. I think that made a single-digit dent in their revenue. Politics and law enforcement are far better tools to get corporations to behave. They solve the coordination problem, they can far easier track changing and long chains of ownership, and they allow you to delegate the research work to someone you trust.
- post_break 9y agoThey took down gawker by targeting their advertisers. Before the hulk thing their ad revenue was decimated.
- piker 9y agoMoving the NCAA Tournament out of North Carolina changed the bathroom law within a year if memory serves.
- macintux 9y agoOutrage over Indiana's "religious freedom" act led to several threatened pullouts and changes in the law.
- bonaldi 9y agoWhat do you mean by successful? Usually the point is not to dent revenue, it's to cause behaviour change. And there is a long list of boycotts that have achieved that. http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/boycotts/successfulboycotts.aspx http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/boycotts/successfulboycotts.a...
- Bartweiss 9y agoLooking at that list, I see two main categories. One are outcomes dubiously tied to boycotts - did Sea World change their orca problem to protect revenues, or because they feared legal intervention? The second is indirect outcomes, where the bad actor and the boycott-ee are different. If you threaten a purchaser over a supplier, or a supplier over a purchaser, they can hope to change behavior with no major loss of revenue. It's a very different situation than changing the actual bad behavior. (And in many of these cases the bad behavior was unchanged, some external company just dissociated from it.) There do seem to be some solid successes there, for instance with product safety, food source sustainability, or sweatshop labor. But even there, I'm curious whether the threat of boycott was a primary influence compared to the other activist campaigns around it.
- dragonwriter 9y ago> One are outcomes dubiously tied to boycotts - did Sea World change their orca problem to protect revenues, or because they feared legal intervention? They feared legal intervention due to the public attention drawn by the boycott. Affecting revenue of a targeted actor directly is not the only mechanism by which boycotts are intended to have an effect.
- Bartweiss 9y agoI agree that revenue hits are not the only (and usually not the primary) effect of boycotts. But what I'm questioning is "due to the public attention drawn by the boycott." Was the consumer boycott actually a major reason SeaWorld feared legal action? When Blackfish came out, a lot of musicians cancelled planned SeaWorld concerts, which had a visible and immediate revenue impact. Share prices dropped 33%, even though revenue only dropped ~1%; presumably shareholders feared the possibility of legal action. And a range of state and federal Congressmen introduced bills on regarding orca captivity, explicitly citing Blackfish as a motivator. Boycotts are certainly correlated with major corporate and legal changes, but I'm skeptical that they're a significant cause. Examples like SeaWorld make me think that boycotts and policy changes have common causes (e.g. Blackfish), but the boycotts aren't themselves very impactful. The Chicago Tribune had a clever bit about the gun-seller boycotts, arguing that boycotts only matter as a way to keep the topic in the news, and it basically doesn't matter whether people actually participate. That's basically my guess, also. http://www.chicagotribune.com/g00/news/opinion/zorn/ct-perspec-zorn-nra-boycott-fedex-apple-amazon-0228-20180227-story.html http://www.chicagotribune.com/g00/news/opinion/zorn/ct-persp...
- jf 9y agoRecent successful boycotts include UFW's "no uvas" and the boycotts related to apartheid. Wikipedia also has a longer list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_boycotts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_boycotts
- vermontdevil 9y agoIndiana - NCAA, GenCon etc threatening to leave over the religious freedom law. It worked. Pence was forced to amend it - weakening it. The bus boycott in Alabama by MLK and others. Boycotts can be an effective tool.
- indymike 9y agoThe biggest influence was Salesforce's threat to leave after just acquiring Indianapolis based ExactTarget. Benioff was very persuasive along with NCAA, GenCon and most of the Indiana business community.
- ebbv 9y agoAre you for real? How about the freakin' Civil Rights movement? Learn some history, my man.
- nabla9 9y agoThere has been research into the effectiveness of consumer boycotts. They can be really effective especially against brands. Nike boycott in the 1990s was really effective. The company’s sales fell in short them, but the damage to the brand was even more significant. Nike had to work a decade to repair the 'child labor' reputation and adopt the global sustainable idea. On the other hand consumer boycotts against products without brand or network externalities have less effect. They suffer from free rider effect. Boycot is essentially subsidizing the consumption of those who use the boycotted product.
- panarky 9y agoThe #DeleteUber campaign was remarkably successful.
- singularity2001 9y agoone week ago there was a link here on HN with data that it wasn't successful.
- tclancy 9y agoThe NFL got Arizona to recognize Martin Luther King, Jr. Day by refusing to hold a Super Bowl there until they did.
- ptaffs 9y agoIt's hard to identify cause and effect, but the large UK/European consumer boycott of South Africa in the 1980s may have had some effect, and there are US Federal laws against boycotting Israel (BDS), so i guess someone fears it is effective in some way.
- desertrider12 9y agoBoycotts aren't going to be effective against companies that make basic commodities, because those companies don't interact directly with their consumers. Facebook deals directly with its users and advertising clients. I think consumer-facing companies are a lot more careful to maintain good PR and avoid boycotts in the first place.
- dragonwriter 9y ago> Boycotts aren't going to be effective against companies that make basic commodities, because those companies don't interact directly with their consumers. The grape boycott would suggest otherwise.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Analemma_ 9y agoThis is precisely the opposite of true. Boycotts almost never have any effect; the impossible coordination problem they impose is why we need governments and regulation instead.
- rocqua 9y agoBoycotts, kind of like protests, show to the government that people care. Specifically, it shows the people care enough to actually take action that takes effort. That is a rather high level of caring. So, it seems to me that boycots (and protests) are important for convincing regulators something is an issue.
- omw192168 9y agoLol. Libertarians.
- e1ven 9y agoSadly, I can't agree with you. While occasionally boycotts have encouraged changes, it typically only happens when other companies get involved. Consumers "voting with their wallet" very seldom accomplishes much, except giving people a sense of having "done something". That said, if companies and advertisers start publicly pulling support (like we see here, and the Mozilla story), it can start to raise internal flags, and (occasionally) lead to change. While I get somewhat nervous about bureaucrats that don't understand technology writing overly broad laws, I do have to agree that legislation is often the most effective driver of change.
- matt_s 9y agoIn the case of Facebook, users are the product. If they lose 20% of their users, the usefulness of their product diminishes. Social media companies would literally vanish if all the users stopped using them. What would actual users stand to lose? Event scheduling seems to be the main reason I read on here why people stay. There are soo many ways to do that - it would not be a hardship on users if they view the social gain of #deletefacebook.
- 21717117 9y agoOne might say that Facebook is bound by Metcalfe's law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe's_law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe's_law
- quickben 9y agoI have to disagree. Target/Sears vanished in Canada because enough of us did vote with the wallets. Facebook is just another company, with the difference that a lot of powerfull people now wants them gone.
- dawnerd 9y ago> Target/Sears vanished in Canada Pretty sure target didn't shut down in Canada over boycotts. http://fortune.com/2015/01/15/target-canada-fail/ http://fortune.com/2015/01/15/target-canada-fail/
- jellicle 9y agoI would write that as "Boycotts are one of the least effective methods consumers have to enact change."
- RivieraKid 9y ago99% of people don't care. This changes absolutely nothing.
- PeterStuer 9y agoOnly in cases where the benefits gained and the detriments caused by the consumption are more or less in proportion. In many (most) cases, the benefits are internalized by the consumer and the burdens externalized. In all those cases 'vote with your wallet' has no effect beyond personal handicapping and feel good. Actively pursuing/supporting regulation to curb the behavior is (nearly) always the better option.
- confounded 9y agoWhy are the two things opposed or incompatible?
- vkou 9y agoStrongly disagree. Boycotts are almost never effective. What is effective is legislative changes, marching in the streets, and the occasional turned over car.
- fancyfacebook 9y agoI deleted Facebook after the Beacon fiasco, but I think I'm gonna go ahead and move off google today. Mainly just gmail. I wonder if there will be a backlash against cloud services more generally? Could we see people return to buying their own servers and hiring network engineers again? Everyone I talk to is so concerned about where their data lives now, I could see it happening.
- apotatopot 9y agoWhat email service are you switching to?
- juice_bus 9y agoFastMail and ProtonMail seem to be very popular recommendations on HN. I moved off Gmail 6-7 months ago - I picked FastMail.
- atonse 9y agoHow does this work? You start changing all your account logins? How do you preserve history? Does FastMail import this? (actually just realized this would be a totally different email address, so might be moot) I've considered it but there are a lot more variables I'm concerned about than delivery.
- robertcope 9y agoThis is why you should have your own domain for email. Your email address is important and should remain constant regardless of who is providing your email service.
- ubertakter 9y agoI like this idea, and do it for a domain or two but am not currently using it for private email. Are you just talking about using a domain registrar and using an email redirect? Is there a better way to do it? I can see wanting to grab the common TLD's, just to make sure you are easy to get in touch with. I'm thinking of com, net, org, and info.
- ada1981 9y agoSpaceXBook? Elon ought to boot up a social media company.
- Animats 9y agoDon't get him started. He needs to focus.
- Communitivity 9y agoElon Musk is already using #Mastodon. I suspect he has possibly supported it in other ways as well, through public praise and/or contributions. https://mastodon.social/users/elonmusk/followers https://mastodon.social/users/elonmusk/followers
- terraforming 9y agoCan you check when he created the account? He hasn't made any "toot" yet, so he might've just created the account so no one would pretend to be him?
- Communitivity 9y agoUnfortunately, AFAIK there is no way to check that if he hasn't tooted. Also, bear in mind it might not be him..might be a fake account, but then I'd suspect it would have been used more.
- pleasecalllater 9y agoDeletes the profile, Facebook keeps the data :)
- nothis 9y agoThey’re forced to delete the data as well aren’t they? Or is that just in the EU?
- athenot 9y agoJust the EU. If I'm not mistaken, being a US company they are not even forced until GDPR takes effect.
- rjtavares 9y agoWith all the backlash, I really wonder if Facebook will give EU citizens the option to delete their data but not American citizens. GPRD couldn't come at a worse time for them...
- patrickk 9y agoEven though they will have technical and business procedures in place to ensure compliance with the 'right to be forgotten' for EU citizens behind the scenes - and therefore any user globally - I would be very surprised if they offered this outside the EU (unless forced to by the likes of the EFF but I doubt enough people care). It would directly reduce the attraction to advertisers, and impact their bottom line.
- dglass 9y agoI just downloaded all the data that FB has on me. It's quite surprising to see every single message and wall post I have made and others have made to me. One thing I realized is that even if I delete my account, facebook will still store my communication with other people in case they request to download their information too. So I'm not sure if it would ever get deleted unless both parties delete their accounts? For my info to truly get deleted, all of my contacts would have to delete their accounts too.
- wonder_bread 9y agoCan anybody who lives in the valley speak to whether people really hate Zuckerberg enough over there to the point where this seems like a rational thing to do? I live out in Mass and while the 'scandal' has definitely been front page news, for a company to do this (especially with a well-known entrepreneur) would be decidedly odd.
- immad 9y agoElon lives in LA I believe. I haven't seen many people here (in the valley) delete FB recently.
- make3 9y agoI don't have the privileged information to know if it is true, but this feels more like a gut reaction then a cost benefit analysis action. Musk is known to be pretty polarized in his tech ethics opinions.
- Fjolsvith 9y agoCambridge Analytica isn't the first incidence where Facebook was used for political purposes. Obama Campaign Manager Jim Messina explains their use of it in 2013: https://youtu.be/mZmcyHpG31A https://youtu.be/mZmcyHpG31A
- make3 9y agoyeah, this wasn't a leak, this was the way Facebook was meant to be used
- draw_down 9y agoWhy must this be about "hating" Zuckerberg?
- jf 9y agoI live in the valley, have several friends at Facebook, etc. I don't know anybody who hates Zuckerberg. I don't hate him. But I am very upset with Facebook-the-company and Facebook-the-system. What bothers me most is that, to the best that I can tell, Facebook-the-company and especially Facebook-the-system just _do not care_ about me or you as individuals. I have a thread on Twitter that goes into more detail here: https://twitter.com/jf/status/976250584213803008 https://twitter.com/jf/status/976250584213803008
- beaconstudios 9y agowould it not be better for the #deletefacebook movement to delete all data and post a single protest message instead? Future users clicking through to the SpaceX or Tesla pages from links on the net won't know why they did this.
- cryptoz 9y ago> would it not be better for the #deletefacebook movement to [not #deletefacebook] No, no it wouldn't. The movement doesn't work if literally nobody does it. The point of the movement is not to preserve Facebook pages for all future visitors! The point is to have those links go nowhere. Future visitors will find out why there isn't a page if they care to, and that only fuels the movement. Edit: Since I'm not allowed to reply any more (banned on HN again for probably "low-quality posts"??), here is my reply to the comment below. > but you know that actually deleting a page simply sets a isDeleted=true flag in a database right? You act like deleting the content on Facebook doesn't just also set the same flag. I'm not sure what you're trying to achieve with that. #deletefacebook is about Deleting Facebook. If you try to make it about something else you clearly aren't getting it. Delete Facebook means Delete Facebook. Get off it. Break the links. Make everything go away. It does not mean to continue to use Facebook as a platform to deliver a message, as you keep saying. It means, Delete Facebook. Edit #2: Another reply below that I am banned from replying directly to, so here it is. > the point of deleting facebook isn't to delete facebook - it's to try to harm facebook. Is this satire or what? The point of deleting facebook is to delete facebook! That's it! There's nothing else! > My suggestion does more harm. No it does not. Leaving Facebook accounts open is telling the world you approve. It doesn't matter what message you put there. You are still giving them money and telling everyone you know that Facebook should get their money too and their time and their attention by going to Facebook to read a message that you posted. The point of deleting Facebook is deleting Facebook. Edit #3, another response to a comment I'm banned from replying to: > People aren't deleting facebook just for the sake of it, there's a meaning and purpose behind the movement. You want them to not delete facebook at all. You want Facebook's 2B+ active users to stay on the platform and not delete their accounts. This is not getting behind the movement, this is a distraction meant to stop people from actually following the movement. You seem to think that the most successful way for the movement to succeed is for literally nobody to participate. That doesn't make any sense. The way for this to work is not your way, it is the total breakage of all those links, the total removal of Facebook's content and accounts from the internet. You will not get very far trying to convince #deletefacebook people that really, truly, they shouldn't delete their accounts, they should keep the convenience there and make sure everybody knows that facebook.com is where you go to learn about boycotting Facebook. You want everyone to go to facebook.com to learn more about some social movement. You are not going to win this - #deletefacebook isn't some half-arsed little game where nobody deletes anything. It's a movement whereby people are saying "Don't go to facebook.com for any reason, there's nothing there any more". Edit #4: This comment and thread are a mess to read. Why does HN not let me reply? Is this format of conversation really better than just letting me participate like everyone else?
- taytus 9y agoI read his tweets and I thought he was just joking. New level of respect for Elon.
- justicezyx 9y agoNew level of marketing probably more accurate
- d23 9y agoFacebook pages are in and of themselves avenues for marketing. Stop being so damn cynical about every single thing people do. It is possible, believe it or not, for people to have personal values and beliefs that extend beyond the ceaseless desire for money.
- paulcole 9y ago> It is possible, believe it or not, for people to have personal values and beliefs that extend beyond the ceaseless desire for money. The best trick is to make people believe this when the opposite is more true.
- lorenzorhoades 9y agoI think the OP above is being practical as opposed to cynical. TBH, most of the demographic that followed him on FB also have insta and twitter. Most of the people i know in my age group (college age - 24) don't even use FB anymore. Theres a little joke that as soon as your parents start to use the platform its time to jump ship. On top of that, its created articles like this - which has led to even more publicity. I also wasn't aware that any of these FB pages existed but i follow them all on insta and twitter.
- antisocial 9y agoMy thoughts exactly, practicality as opposed to cynicism. Also, what are his personal values? Who knows? Why does he bore the underground with abandon even when he acknowledges that the environmental impacts are not completely know. One study says autonomous vehicles can be as effective for congestion easing as his underground tunnels. His transportation is the next level of dependency he is creating and we are turning a blind eye to. As these corporations' services get too essential (through lobbying), there won't be any choice to #delete_boring. I respect him for what he has achieved, but too much celebrity worship is something we should all be watchful of.
- mixmastamyk 9y agoInteresting considering I've not been happy about the lack of privacy regarding driving/location metrics by Tesla automobiles. Has that improved any?
- cryptoz 9y agoThere is a very big difference in the privacy problems posed by Facebook compared to Tesla. Equating the two is a clear false equivalence. Edit: I'm no longer allowed to post on HN. I guess my posts are considered low-quality and not welcome here. Here is my response to the comment below, regardless. Thanks for continually banning me, downvoters. -- > Why does that bother you? Because you exclusively use logical fallacies in these posts to make points that make no logical sense. > whether Tesla will start caring about privacy as well This implies Tesla does not care about privacy. That simply is not true. If you have a concern, voice it in some logical manner, not in some accusatory already-made-up-your-mind tone about how so-and-so doesn't care about your privacy. -- Edit 2: Does Elon really babble on Twitter about people's speeds and driving locations? I don't think so. And surely if you drive a car then you know that the people in the city/state/federal government offices and other tracking corporations also know where you go at all times anyway. Having a Tesla and driving it does not meaningfully invade your privacy in any fashion more than driving any other car does.
- mixmastamyk 9y agoI didn't "equate" them, but asked a question regarding whether Tesla will start caring about privacy as well. Why does that bother you? You seem to be angry about it. > Having a Tesla and driving it does not meaningfully invade your privacy in any fashion more… They track you by the millisecond versus a few times a day, perhaps you are not aware of the details: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/apr/03/the-customer-is-always-wrong-tesla-lets-out-self-driving-car-data-when-it-suits https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/apr/03/the-custo... https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2013/02/19/the-big-privacy-takeaway-from-tesla-vs-the-new-york-times/#4158d1f42fff https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2013/02/19/the-big-... Basically Tesla uses your driving metrics against you when they choose to, but will not release the information to help you. It has been a lose-lose situation for the consumer. I'd heard they might give the ability to disable it, but details are hard to find to nonexistent.
- DoreenMichele 9y ago#BattleOfTheBillionaires
- sergiotapia 9y agoOut of the loop here, are people mad at Facebook for third-party apps that use their oauth data sharing API?
- Ajedi32 9y agoAs far as I can tell, yes that's exactly what's happening. The HN crowd has, of course, hated Facebook for a long time now for a variety of reasons completely unrelated to that, but that was the incident that seems to have triggered all this.
- sergiotapia 9y agoIn that case, people are just looking for anything to rabble about. Facebook did nothing wrong here.
- mxschumacher 9y agoInteresting, especially considering that Facebook is/was a customer of SpaceX: https://www.wsj.com/articles/spacex-rocket-test-hit-by-explosion-1472738051 https://www.wsj.com/articles/spacex-rocket-test-hit-by-explo...
- greglindahl 9y agoNo, Facebook was planning on being a customer of Spacecom, the satellite owner. Spacecom is SpaceX's customer.
- BadassFractal 9y agoThings I like about Facebook: * seeing what events in the area my friends are going to, helps me know what's happening around me and going there * facebook groups for some friends / professional organizations * following bands / band tours so I can get updates about them Don't really care about anything else on there. Can I keep just the good parts somehow?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- notananthem 9y agoThe problem here is just adding anonymized (so international traveling bands aren't stopped at customs) tour schedules to something like bandcamp won't do. Music is generally served on some type of forum, that's how it grows and permeates. For me, the ever-aging metal/punk/hardcore scenes are fairly present on facebook- the older crowd stays because they have jobs to worry about and are technophobic/terrible at computers (mostly). The younger crowd is the innovative one, and tries new things. Currently a bunch of friends are all leaving facebook and I'm a crotchity old 30-something being like "well ralph where the fuck am I going to find your tour schedule?" There's been every sort of private forum for these things city by city and the problem is basically the drama that comes with it, that's why people like facebook because the architecture of conversations is so spread out you can avoid something that would otherwise get someone trolling. I guess its something to really respect about the service is its ability to have so many people with such public opinions online and friends with each other. That's what you need for stuff like music related tours/bands/etc, professional circles where all sorts of people come together, school programs (me.. night school MBA), etc.
- foobaw 9y agoConsidering that Elon and Mark constantly disagreed on subjects like AI, this isn't surprising. Also notable is that typical Tesla customers probably don't rely on Facebook anyway so this should not have consequences.
- em3rgent0rdr 9y agoFacebook can be an essential promotional tool for many. If you're rich or an already successful company, then you can handle the loss by not being on Facebook. But if you're poor or just starting up a new venture, then it is harder to afford not being on Facebook.
- taytus 9y agoI'm poor and starting a new venture. I don't have FB. If my success depends on me/my company having FB presence, then my business sucks. How this idea of FB being the "place to be" got so much traction is beyond me.
- toufka 9y agoYep. LinkedIn as well. Still without one, and starting strong. Very much realize I must put my data where my mouth is. Similarly, I'll be far less likely to hire one who has Facebook on their resume.
- dgellow 9y ago> Similarly, I'll be far less likely to hire one who has Facebook on their resume. Could you explain why? I don’t see an obvious reason to avoid ex-Facebook employees
- toufka 9y agoFrom my personal interactions, and with my personal perspective of how Facebook has publicly conducted itself over the years, having worked at Facebook would immediately raise red flags in my mind about the philosophical perspective of the potential employee for having worked 'at will' at the company. Context certainly matters, but it would be become a point of conversation. Not all that different from a health-professional being wary of hiring someone who used to work for a tobacco company. To me it would indicate the possibility that the person might not want to understand the wider implications of their work, might understand those implications but not care about them so long as they are personally or socially enriched, or might just agree with the duplicitous nature of the company. There are of course circumstances to account for, and everyone's reasons are different - but the above rationalizations would raise red flags for me - especially in my industry where thinking about wider implications of our work is absolutely critical.
- terraforming 9y agoI never had the impression that Musk cared much about privacy but I seem to be wrong. Or perhaps it has more to do with the current POTUS and his impact in the environment. Either way, I am happy for his decision.
- majestik 9y agoFYI here’s a link to delete your Facebook account: https://www.facebook.com/help/delete_account https://www.facebook.com/help/delete_account Earlier I had “deactivated” my account thinking it would get deleted, but then I learned I have to visit this page to actually delete it.
- samthecoy 9y agoDoes doing this also delete Messenger? I'm aware there's been a little bit of decoupling of the two services in recent times.
- Bajeezus 9y agoDeactivating your account does nothing to Messenger, not sure about deleting.
- ktta 9y agoYes, unfortunately.
- crowbahr 9y agoIf you're deleting Facebook and not getting rid of messenger you're missing the point. Messenger is more invasive in many ways, even if it doesn't track your web activity as much.
- ktta 9y agoInvasiveness of Messenger is much more bearable because it lets me communicate with my Facebook friends, which I see as much more important benefit compared to a time sink newsfeed. Also, using Messenger Lite (Android only) is a vastly better experience than the main Messenger app.
- swebs 9y agoSlimSocial also supports Messenger and is a good alternative to the Facebook app in general. You still have the same privacy issues regarding data on Facebook's servers, but at least this app lacks the client-side analytics.
- akerro 9y agoHey, Elon, why don't you build a better Facebook? Call it, "the better interplanetary Facebook".
- DiabloD3 9y agoWe could call it.... Spacebooks. I could surf my Spacebooks feed, while eating at Spacedonalds, before heading to the Spaceradioshack to get parts for my Spaceship before heading to Spacemars.
- cvaidya1986 9y agoActually Elon might do that. He really launches stuff he believes in rather quickly.
- alexnewman 9y agoAnd I just bought some more tesla stock
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Raphmedia 9y agoContext: Elon Musk: "What’s Facebook?" -https://twitter.com/brianacton/status/976231995846963201 https://twitter.com/brianacton/status/976231995846963201
- jessaustin 9y agoISTM Acton's statement is more surprising than Musk's. They gave that dude a pile of money, not very long ago.
- avoidit 9y agoHa ha.. this reminds me of a politician who once said "If you can't eat their food, drink their booze, screw their women, take their money and then vote against them you've got no business being up here." Brian Acton for President!
- jessaustin 9y agoJesse Unruh. Truly, a man for his time. If Raquel Welch had nicknamed me "Big Daddy", that fact would be on my tombstone.
- urmish 9y agoWho would turn down that amount of money. Also, I think he didn't join facebook after the acquisition.
- jessaustin 9y agoHe remained there for three years. A founder that didn't agree to stay on for a respectful period would get dinged on the price. He probably didn't want to do that to co-founders.
- nsx147 9y agoI always had respect for the fact that Apple just never used Facebook...except for claiming the profile it seems. https://www.facebook.com/apple https://www.facebook.com/apple
- glbrew 9y agoWow, I never knew that.
- slig 9y agoThey do use it https://www.facebook.com/applemusic/ https://www.facebook.com/applemusic/
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- bobthechef 9y agoWhy would they use it? Nothing to gain.
- http-teapot 9y agoProbably for ads. Since ads can be rendered as regular post a profile is needed but they won't be rendered in the profile's feed. Apple also has an account with no posts on Twitter: https://twitter.com/apple https://twitter.com/apple
- jayess 9y agoDoes anyone know if it works if you change your location to Europe and then delete your account to take advantage of the better privacy protections?
- ovulator 9y agoI've lived in America all my life, but since I signed up for Facebook 10 years ago my hometown/current city has always been listed as a place in Portugal. For a long time all my adds were served in Portuguese, but that changed years ago to English. My guess is they know where you really are.
- Symbiote 9y agoKnowing it enough to serve ads is one thing. Knowing it enough to be sure under European privacy rules, especially the new GDPR ones, is another. I doubt one person's data is worth the risk Facebook would take by keeping it.
- ThrustVectoring 9y agoAnd if you said you were a a European Citizen (or even just neglecting to mention that you aren't), would Facebook really check?
- thanatropism 9y agoOnce I clicked on a slate.fr link et depuis cette occasion tout Facebook apparait en français pour moi.
- kakarot 9y agoThat's my boy! We need more tech leaders to take this stance.
- joelrunyon 9y agoIs there a way to bulk-download photos? That's about the only FB related item I care about.
- Karunamon 9y agoPhotos you uploaded are included in the "download your Facebook data" archive. https://www.facebook.com/help/131112897028467/ https://www.facebook.com/help/131112897028467/
- iooi 9y agoWhile I don't normally give much weight to Business Insider, they have an interesting theory [1] that this is related to Zuckerberg's nasty comments about SpaceX after the rocket carrying Facebook's 85M satellite blew up. Must feel pretty good for Elon considering how much press this is getting. [1] http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-deletes-tesla-spacex-facebook-pages-2018-3 http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-deletes-tesla-space...
- anocendi 9y agoDon't forget another instance of back and forth between MZ and EM on twitter about "Dangers of Artificial Intelligence."
- 908087 9y agoThat was one of the few times that a rocket blowing up put a smile on my face. The last thing the world needs is Facebook satellites constantly orbiting overhead.
- pocketstar 9y agoThe satellite was headed to geostationary orbit over africa, 4Deg west. Unless you live in northern africa the satellite would never be overhead.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- gnode 9y agoBeing pedantic: In GEO, with an orbital radius of about 42Mm, and earth having a radius of 7Mm, that gives a radius of 7Mm * acos( 7Mm / 42Mm ) ~ 9800km around 4°W (almost a hemisphere), for which it would be overhead. But admittedly it would only give service to a portion of that.
- perilunar 9y agoProps for Mm, instead of 'thousand km'.
- tambourine_man 9y agoAnd yet, still a heavy Instagram user. As long we keep guessing which companies are “bad” and which aren't, we are not solving the problem. We need open, decentralized standards and protocols. We can then choose the fashionable front end client du jour.
- deviationblue 9y agoI don't think #deletefacebook is a backlash against the results of the 2016 elections. To me it seems that it's more about it now being socially acceptable to dislike Facebook and social media in general. Some may have always innately disliked it, but never had the follow through with any desire to get rid of it, or had to keep it for business/appearances.
- mdip 9y agoI tend to agree with you there. It's difficult for me to believe that the single Cambridge Analytics thing is it personally. And it sounds like as far back as 2012, an Obama campaign person mentioned they were getting similar information. The reality, for me, is I don't/didn't care -- I left Facebook a few years ago[0]. Up until this point, I was pretty sure Facebook wouldn't end up going the direction of MySpace -- partly because there's not a perfect/better alternative (as Facebook was to MySpace) and partly because Facebook has subscribers that I never saw with MySpace[1], and there are increasing numbers non-Facebook things of things tightly coupled with Facebook[2]. At this point, however, the needle has moved quite a bit. There's clearly a massive market for this; and unfortunately, Facebook has everyone on it, which is the product to most people. Starting up a similar social network -- even with amazing features that Facebook lacks (I can't think of any) won't bring people in if the rest of their family, friends, the HS crush they want to stalk, etc aren't there. Personally speaking, since leaving Facebook, I don't feel like I lost anything. Of the large friend list that I had, there were a small handful that I knew in real life; the rest were acquaintances or people from my past that were it not for Facebook I wouldn't have been terribly interested in having conversations with. Of the small handful, they were there before Facebook and are there after Facebook. It wasn't lost on me that of that friends list, nobody on the "I used to know you/barely know you" ever became a good friend and outside of my volunteer team, very few of the "people I knew in HS/previous jobs/otherwise used to associate with" ended up being people I saw in person. I did feel like I gained a lot by leaving, though. No more inane posts from people thinking their 40 word status update is going to make me say "Oh, my goodness! All of my political beliefs are wrong. Thank GOD I read your incredible rant about (some dumb politician)" (and other forms of political masturbation), or stupidity like "dial 46 instead of 911 on your cell phone" and other urban legends posted by elderly friends along with their immediate replies linking to Snopes. All sorts of wasted time was reclaimed. Unfortunately, this would probably have been the perfect* time for Google to launch Google+ and aggressively mine gmail users to create a friends list. I don't think dusting that off at this point would help, especially since a lot of the folks I know who are sour on Facebook feel the same way about Google these days, but it's a tough spot for anyone outside of them to fill adequately. [0] I was never terribly happy about the privacy thing, but if you value privacy there's a whole lot of the internet you won't use. I left after receiving an angry phone call from a family member because I failed to "like" a picture ... once I became socially obligated to use Facebook in a specific manner, I decided it wasn't worth it. Between that and a somewhat recent announcement -- at the time -- that they'd begin linking stories you read around the web to your account despite you being logged out, I'd had it. [1] My parents, aunts and uncles had barely heard of MySpace outside of scare-pieces that landed on the local news, let alone considered getting accounts. They're all on Facebook. The volunteer team I led for 5 years which consisted mostly of retired individuals all had Facebook accounts. Ask them about Twitter, Instagram, etc and it feels like I'm talking about MySpace again. [2] There are services I can't sign up for and groups which have nothing to do with the Internet that I will not show up on their members list and have to rely on my wife to get updates from because that's the only place they provide information.
- MikusR 9y agoProbably Tesla workers were using it to talk about unionization.
- 908087 9y agoIs he still on Instagram? If he is, he's still supporting Facebook.
- cvaidya1986 9y agoLooks like it
- danso 9y agoPeople quitting FB but staying on Instagram is still going to hurt FB. Part of FB’s strength is the massive network effects.
- kolbe 9y agoThat is cool. I wonder if he can kick his Instagram addiction, though.
- malloreon 9y agohopefully people deleting facebook don't flee to instagram and think their somehow safe from facebook.
- malloreon 9y agoI am ashamed that I missed seeing my obvious error in 'their/they're' usage long enough that I cannot edit the parent of this post.
- codebook 9y agoI will not use any service that requires to specify my personal info such as real name, address, phones anymore unless it is tightly coupled to my offline life (financial, hiring). Even email can link many scattered info into one and guess who I am, but at least it gives a lot more complexity than one single source has my info.
- shady-lady 9y agoAn unbelievable amount of bots on that twitter thread responding to a fake Ethereum giveaway by not 1, but 2 * fake Brian Action a/c's: https://imgur.com/a/yv1Hm https://imgur.com/a/yv1Hm very nearly believed it was legit too.. *fake twitter handle of brianhacton (h) & brianpacton (p)
- cvaidya1986 9y agoThis needs to be more well-known. People fall for this all the time.
- jessaustin 9y agoThanks for pointing out the "h" and "p"! This is so lame; it's kind of like the fake IRS agents who called basically everyone in my family over the last month.
- shady-lady 9y agonot surprising that there are even more of these fake look-a-like a/cs: brianlacton (l) brianmacton (m) brianzacton (z) Is it really that hard for Twitter to detect a fake look-a-like a/c given that: a) the display name is the same for all fakes b) they all have limited posts, all posting the same link c) the bad actors do seem to be making ever so slight changes to (full square) profile pics in an avoidance attempt- ref https://imgur.com/a/QruDm https://imgur.com/a/QruDm ?? I've personally clicked report scam on the initial a/cs I listed along with all the fake a/c's that liked/replied duplicitously.
- censorship 9y agoPeople please wakeup and delete your fb account asap. Facebook bosses run away from responsibility and leave company. This tells alot.
- alcover 9y agoThis will deeply count in facebook's demise I think. Tech people act as prescribers to the rest. When they use something new, it then propagates to the population. Abandoning is the same. Now Elon Musk is mystically revered by tech people. Then transitively, his example will accelerate tech peoples' condamnation of facebook, then everyone listening to techies advice.
- Kajayacht 9y agoGoogle+
- alcover 9y agoExactly. But Google+ was a side-game for Google.. If FB turns to the new G+ we might soon profit from discount hardware!
- Thrymr 9y ago> But Google+ was a side-game for Google.. That's not what Google said when it launched. They were restructuring all of their products around social networks...
- Kajayacht 9y agoSorry for the late reply, but I suppose I need to elaborate more. At least as I remember it, when Google+ launched I was in my second year of university studying Computer Science. I remember all of my fellow CS students were excited about it and sharing beta invites. Once Google+ became available to the general public, it quickly lost its appeal. Then Google forced it upon everyone and it never recovered.
- seanwilson 9y ago> Tech people act as prescribers to the rest Any good examples of this? I don't find this at all. Hackernews for example is always very against Facebook, ads and tracking user behaviour. As far as I can see, none of my less technical friends want to know more details about any of this or care in the slightest. Most of the time if my non-technical friends are asking for technology advice, it's advice to help them follow the crowd e.g. my friends wouldn't ask me what social network to use, they'd ask me how to install Facebook on their phone. If I started ranting about privacy stuff for something all their friends used, they'd just dismiss it as me being overly concerned.
- nugi 9y agoElon, whatever your reasons, I applaud this. Now delete insragram.
- abalone 9y ago<gif of SpaceX rocket blowing up Facebook satellite>
- sidyapa 9y agoLike apple, facebook has very successfully created an ecosystem which makes it very very hard for you to escape and remain sane. I used 4 products from facebook - the website(deleted), instagram, messenger(deleted), whatsapp because all of my contacts are on either of them. I do not have an alternative currently where I can be assured of finding any of my contact to connect and share stuff with.
- tfha 9y agoI lost a lot of friends quitting Facebook. All of the events we coordinated were over Facebook. I was no longer able to invite people to my events, and they no longer were notifying me of their events. I was off the radar. Took me more than two years to build up a new set of friends who could coordinate apart from Facebook after that. Not fun, but Facebook was definitely unhealthy.
- superquest 9y agoThat's the only reason I won't delete. So many friends from traveling that would be lost ...
- steaknsteak 9y agoSame. As much as I would like to move off Facebook, my friends are worth more to me than that. I could still communicate with them if I didn't have it, but it would take much more effort and I'm not the type to reach out that often. For people in my age range, we often make a facebook event, invite all the relevant friends, and it's done. If you don't have Facebook or don't check it, I won't remember to text you an invite. Maybe it makes me a shitty friend but I just assume everyone will see it on Facebook
- confounded 9y agoBadger people for contact details (phone, email, etc.). It’s a good excuse to catch-up with people, and it’s a good thing to do, even if you won’t be deleting you’re account. Even if this whole thing blows over in a week, Facebook will eventually go out of style for the usual reasons that social platforms do. Your connections are more important than an ad surveillance network. Backup your relationships!
- cobbzilla 9y agoThis is excellent. We need more high-profile people to do this. It's not so hard! After years off all personal/social media, I recently joined the mastodon fediverse; it's really a breath of fresh air, I'm enjoying it.
- gnicholas 9y agoWhile it might seem a big deal to give up a platform with millions of followers (2.6M, apparently), it's much less of a sacrifice for a company that has a large presence on Instagram (which the article notes Musk has said is "borderline", and he's not deleting) and Twitter. Also, they're in the news all the time, both for their victories and failures. So this is a great way for Musk to brand Tesla, SpaceX, and himself, without actually giving up much in terms of his social media reach.
- jliptzin 9y agoFor Facebook to truly die someone needs to come up with a bare bones social network that has all the basics - friends lists, photos, address book, messaging, groups. Charge $1 a month. No sleazy tracking you everywhere on the internet, no ads, no newsfeed filled with garbage clickbait ads and conspiracy theories. This would be insanely profitable assuming it reaches some critical mass.
- d4l3k 9y agoExcept it probably won't ever happen. Charging anything turns off the vast majority of users.
- jliptzin 9y agoThere may be enough people out there now who wouldn’t mind paying for a social network with the assurance that their personal data isn’t going to be mined and sold to the highest bidder. Definitely wouldn’t happen 15 years ago though, but a lot has changed. These people are probably more valuable to advertisers and if they disappear from Facebook it might cause advertising revenue to seriously dry up.
- steaknsteak 9y agoDefinitely. People are reluctant to buy $1 or $2 mobile apps that would be really useful, even though they would never notice the money was gone. Just because most apps are free. Also, most people lose more than they gain by deleting their facebook or anything else. Tech people tend to care about privacy because of all of the terrible implications and possibilities that come with all your personal info being freely bought and sold, but the vast majority of people will never (at least consciously) suffer any ill effects of government tracking or targeted ads.
- globuous 9y agoI remember reading this a few years back a feeling a little guilty while having such a good laugh: http://theoatmeal.com/blog/apps http://theoatmeal.com/blog/apps
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- wwarner 9y agoScreen shot from my twitter feed https://twitter.com/warnerw/status/976431809889210368 https://twitter.com/warnerw/status/976431809889210368
- braderhart 9y agoMusk honestly seems very inauthentic to me, and his online cult following seem more like bots from an evil genius than someone really trying solve inequality. I don't blame Zuckerberg for being upset about the rocket failure, considering there is reason for a lot of speculation as to what caused it.
- nunez 9y agoI don't think that this matters nearly as much as a major advertiser like Johnson and Johnson or pseudo celebrity Instagram followers pulling out.
- shmerl 9y agoGood! Time for Facebook refugees to switch to decentralized social networks, that respect their privacy and don't treat their profiles as a product.
- overcast 9y ago#deletefacebook really isn't going to go anywhere, outside of a vocal minority that don't rely on it. The train stops once the general population realizes they can no longer login to their favorite sites without it. Social Auth is a thing, and it's MASSIVE.
- virtuexru 9y agoFound the one Facebook oAuth engineer. /s
- anonytrary 9y agoI am seriously considering disallowing OAuth in my apps for a few reasons: 1. It would be impossible for the user to voluntarily give up rights to information they may not understand. 2. It would be impossible for the app to act on behalf of a user. 3. True early adopters are not deterred by the lack of quick sign-in if they truly love the product. 4. Signing up with email is easy today, and browsers make logging in an automatic and smooth process. 5. Emails already act as zero-permission identities. For me, emails are the root of my internet activity. Everything I do is tethered to email, not Facebook or Twitter. Going to my email to click a verification link is trivial and takes a few seconds; well designed email-verification can be seamless. It might even take me more time to read and grok all of the permissions the app is asking for. Furthermore, I don't have to worry about having a user account system that has to be ready to deal with N different OAuth tokens. Personally, I have found OAuth to be a very inelegant technology. Next time I build a website that has accounts, I will try and market the lack of "signing in with Facebook" as a boon to the user. OAuth is a slippery tool for collusion, something I never want my customers to be victims of. I cannot advocate for technology that is primarily used to extract information from passive people. Making the rules so hard to read that the average person just says "yes" was unethical in 1492, and it's unethical now.
- submeta 9y agoI always felt like doing this (deleting my facebook account), but fear of missing out always kept me from doing it. Whenever I seriously considered leaving the platform, I had a vague sense that I would "not belong to the herd" anymore, that I would lose the option to contact friends / family members, that I would be left outdoors. The other day I made the step. I deleted my account. Before I did I exported all my data. Two days past and I have a strange sense of freedom. Previously I would check my FB feed a dozen times a day. Although I deleted the app years ago, never really used Messenger, always had to use different browsers than Safari on my iPhone because FB would not let me read/use messages in Safari, instead it wanted me to install Messagner. So previously I would check my feed many times a day to kill time. I was a "lurker". Never posted anything since years, just used it as a news reader. And glanced over the things that my contacts posted. It gave me an illusionary feeling of connectedness, when in fact I could not be more disconnected from real contacts, quality contacts, and most of all: from myself by fleeing into a dull activity, by entering "the matrix", killing time. Today I felt like in my childhood, going to appointments, not killing time on my way to my appointment, having seen my surroundings like back in those days without so many distractions. A wonderful feeling. I hope this platform dies, rather quickly. Because it harms society and individuals more than we are aware of. Edit: Grammar
- 2muchcoffeeman 9y ago>I hope this platform dies, rather quickly. Because it harms society and individuals more than we are aware of. I'm not deleting my account. I only signed up because I was using the Facebook API for something once and needed an account to test. Other than that, I occasionally post links to news, pictures (look at my food! look at this funny animal!), and I check on groups that I belong to, especially the trading ones. The groups are especially useful. I also only ever log in from a single place, my mobile. It always amazes me how people use it. What did you think was going to happen to that data? How do you think a service as large as Facebook was paying it's bills? People don't need to stop using Facebook. They need to sit for a second and think about they are using it.
- submeta 9y ago
- phonebucket 9y agoSpaceX and Tesla has their FB pages for publicity. When they delete them, they get even more publicity, it seems. Is this a moral stand, or a publicity stunt?
- soundpuppy 9y agoFacebook won't die by a movement like this, it'll die when users adopt alternatives.
- booleandilemma 9y agoOne of the best things to come out of all this controversy surrounding FB will be that people will no longer look at me like I have two heads when I tell them I don’t have a FB account.
- thelittleone 9y agoI want to delete my FB profile but I'm reluctant because it opens the door for someone to start a new profile with my name and pictures. Perfect for social engineering.
- stunt 9y agoI don’t have FB account for more than 5 years (for both privacy reasons and also cos it felt wasting my time for a platform that doesn’t add any value to my life) and today I’m very happy about that. It is kinda funny how people are reacting just now because I am pretty sure people already knew what was happening to their data anyway. It was obvious, there was so many discussions around it. So it’s a lie if you say you didn’t know they are using your data. But everybody chose to stay just because everyone else was there. (most)People don’t dare to move alone and that’s very sad and stupid.
- grinsekatze 9y agoI abandoned Facebook instead of deleting my account. I treat Facebook like a big phone book now and left a public status on my profile with an email address that forwards mail to my real email address for people that want to get in touch with me. The main reason I did not delete my account is that there is one other person with exactly my name and very questionable values, judging the public content of his profile. This really sucks. My name is not common and unfortunately he married a distant cousin of mine and now has my name. Now I don’t like the idea of people looking for me accidentally getting in touch with him thinking they are contacting me. Unlikely with his current profile picture in place, but still a possibility in the future.
- asdsa5325 9y agoWhy is this news?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- mindfulplay 9y agoThis is great but... This is deleting FB pages not actually deleting FB ads. Facebook doesn't care about FB pages anymore now that they can track people closely for ad targetting.
- downandout 9y agoMy guess is that they just made the pages private and will quietly bring them back after realizing how much traffic they lose as a result, and/or after a shareholder lawsuit is filed alleging that Musk is squandering a valuable company asset on a whim, based on his own political views. Tesla is especially vulnerable to such shareholder lawsuits, given that it had millions of “fans” on the platform. Arguably Musk just took an asset worth tens of millions of dollars, that technically belongs to his shareholders, and set it on fire. That won’t fly, even amongst the most liberal investors.
- dannyw 9y agoIf you think that the FB page is worth that much to Tesla and SpaceX, I’d like to sell you some Facebook pages...
- downandout 9y agoYou don’t think a fan page liked by nearly 3 million people, many of whom are customers or potential customers for a $100,000+ car, is worth at least $10M in sales to them? That’s only ~100 sales. I’d bet just about anything that the Tesla FB Page has helped drive at least that many sales. People look at comments to see what other customers feel about the car etc.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- sweetp 9y agothis pushed me over the edge to delete my account too. facebook is toxic
- guiambros 9y agoIf you're considering doing the same but is still on the fence, here's an alternative: News Feed Eradicator [1]. It still gives you access to messages, but eliminates the news feed, so it breaks your habit of going there to "check what's new". Go ahead and give it a try. If after 30 days you still miss the news feed, you can just disable the extension. But I bet you won't even notice... ps: but don't forget to delete the mobile app. Conveniently FB offers you a separate app just for messages, if desired. [1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/news-feed-eradicator-for/fjcldmjmjhkklehbacihaiopjklihlgg https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/news-feed-eradicat...
- obblekk 9y agojust use messenger.com ?
- hollerith 9y agoI don't need that (probably because I never got into a habit of checking the news feed) but I'd love to eradicate most of the things in the left and right columns, particularly, the profile photos of friends.
- igornadj 9y agoYou can accomplish the same thing by unfollowing everyone in your friends list. My news feed is always empty, it's great.
- Jerry64545 9y agoElon and Mark were not getting along well as far as i can tell from reading past news. My guess is Mark and Bezos might be getting along well.
- exodust 9y agoPerhaps this will result in a re-booted demand for custom websites that replace Facebook business pages, or at least take on more responsibilities and tasks that would otherwise be left to FB. Over the years I've seen many businesses including those I've worked for (as frontend developer) putting effort into Facebook and diminishing effort into their own websites (the kind that I make for a living). It surprised and disappointed me over the years as I saw organisations move in and start paying Facebook to promote posts. The misguided assumption that user behaviour was better quality because of the real name policy (not true); and that "everyone was on it". There's also a mistaken perception that Facebook is good for long form or archived topics, such as factual content, but this is not correct. It's awful for anything other than recent buzz. We seem to have lots of nice new web technology standards, but there's an absence of something approaching a "social profile" or system whereby users and businesses can create, manage, share, follow, and control 100% the data in some social context web mechanism, decoupled from a closed platform with CEO at the top. I don't pretend to have the solution on how that might be possible.
- ejanus 9y agoI don't work at FB and I don't have their shares either . But to me this is looking like punishment beating because it is linked to Trump victory at the polls. We all know that FB is in the business of selling data in one form or other. And we also know that FB is human and is subjected errors and mistakes. But deleting FB , leaving FB , pulling adverts from FB may not change the fundamental.