7 ms·

I'm surprised the chatter about/against FB hasn't died down yet - how long before FB really starts to worry? Are they already there I wonder?

ReverseCold 9y ago
I think this could have been the end of Facebook if we had an actual alternative ready.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- AlexandrB 9y ago
  I'd like to think that, but a service with 2 billion users doesn't end overnight. Even if this was the beginning of the end it would take many years for everyone to move on to something else. In the meantime, Facebook would still have a lot of influence in the industry.
  - portofcall 9y ago
    I wouldn’t trust FB to accurately report the time of day, never mind their user count. They have every reason to inflate a number that already peobsbly includes a vast number of duplicates, bots, and other “Not quite real,” accounts.
- barry-cotter 9y ago
  Google Plus still exists. It’s not Reader or Wave, they didn’t shut it down.
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    Google is not an alternative to Facebook. I think it is going to be very hard to create an alternative to Facebook that will not in the long term morph into something just as bad as Facebook is today.
AlexandrB 9y ago
The thing is, none of this stuff is new. It's almost like a dam broke and every privacy doomsayer is finally being taken seriously by the media. About time, IMHO. I think it was really easy for Facebook to brush off accusations of data collection overreach before because the media was not doing a good job of reporting on its consequences.
- RobLach 9y ago
  Relevant: http://i2.wp.com/www.business-planning-for-managers.com/Worpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/adoption_curve.jpg http://i2.wp.com/www.business-planning-for-managers.com/Worp...
- austincheney 9y ago
  I think that's irrelevant, because people generally don't care. If nobody cares the media won't report on it. The difference this time is that the word "Facebook" now has a causal relationship to the effectual word "Trump". This isn't panic about privacy. People still don't care and will continue using Facebook like nothing happened. This is about what happens with the data that people donate to Facebook. What Facebook does with it. Now people are suddenly worried or offended about the use of the data they completely surrendered. Of course this isn't going to stop people from continuing to surrender that data. They are just sad and powerless. This sort of behavior is called addiction, but people are very far from admitting they have a problem. It is so much more convenient to simply blame something else.
  - domevent 9y ago
    I feel like the “Nobody cares” line was clearly wrong a while ago, and now it just smacks of desperation. Clearly people care, a lot, and while you can try to denigrate or dismiss them in a number of ways, or play games of tu quoque with “Obama did it” the cat is out of bag. Maybe it took an association with Trump to kick the media out of bed on this issue, but now it really does have a life of its own. The Boz memo, articles like the one we’re commemting on, do not thrill people. As the steady drip feed of FB scandal continues it also promotes discussion about the merits of the platform. In my opinion though, the biggest change is that saying, “FB is spying on you, and manipulating you” no longer gets you weird looks and sighs from most people these days. The narrative of FB as a kind of tentacled monster also fits into a larger narrative of big tech run amok that has been gaining traction. Uber killing that woman, Tesla’s autopilot fatality, YouTube and Google banning what a huge portion of the internet considers reasonable content, is starting to annoy and scare people. Dismiss their concerns and fear at your own peril. People, and societies at large always have breaking points, and there’s nothing worse than being dragged to the guillotine screaming, “But we’ve been fucking you peasants over for years, why now?!” It’s now because there is always a straw that breaks the camel’s back. Trump, CA, may just be a straw, but you have to see it in the full context of a greatly overburdened camel.
otempomores 9y ago
I cant wait for them to turn publicly evil to appease the masses. The following undesireables are using facebook and can be easily singled out by speach patterns and contact patterns. So alliw us to introduce a new feature: The great hunt. Only for those with Facebook.
otempomores 9y ago
I cant wait for them to turn publicly evil to appease the masses. The following undesireables are using facebook and can be easily singled out by speach patterns and contact patterns. So allow us to introduce a new feature: The great hunt. Only for those with Facebook.
citilife 9y ago
Pretty sure this is a coordinated attack by media, similar to media attacking Trump. The fact is, you're right, most of this has been known for years. It's interesting because four years ago, I actually used the same technique as CA to get access to peoples social network(s) for identifying probable interests. This was recommended to me by an app developer still in college. I really don't understand how this can be news if it was pretty much common knowledge in the tech spheres. Or rather, how they couldn't have known about it earlier. Short answer, they had to have known. Long answer, there has to be a reason they are throwing a fit now - which personally I don't know.

ReverseCold 9y ago

I think this could have been the end of Facebook if we had an actual alternative ready.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
AlexandrB 9y ago
I'd like to think that, but a service with 2 billion users doesn't end overnight. Even if this was the beginning of the end it would take many years for everyone to move on to something else. In the meantime, Facebook would still have a lot of influence in the industry.
- portofcall 9y ago
  I wouldn’t trust FB to accurately report the time of day, never mind their user count. They have every reason to inflate a number that already peobsbly includes a vast number of duplicates, bots, and other “Not quite real,” accounts.
barry-cotter 9y ago
Google Plus still exists. It’s not Reader or Wave, they didn’t shut it down.
- jacquesm 9y ago
  Google is not an alternative to Facebook. I think it is going to be very hard to create an alternative to Facebook that will not in the long term morph into something just as bad as Facebook is today.

AlexandrB 9y ago

The thing is, none of this stuff is new. It's almost like a dam broke and every privacy doomsayer is finally being taken seriously by the media. About time, IMHO. I think it was really easy for Facebook to brush off accusations of data collection overreach before because the media was not doing a good job of reporting on its consequences.

RobLach 9y ago
Relevant: http://i2.wp.com/www.business-planning-for-managers.com/Worpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/adoption_curve.jpg http://i2.wp.com/www.business-planning-for-managers.com/Worp...
austincheney 9y ago
I think that's irrelevant, because people generally don't care. If nobody cares the media won't report on it. The difference this time is that the word "Facebook" now has a causal relationship to the effectual word "Trump". This isn't panic about privacy. People still don't care and will continue using Facebook like nothing happened. This is about what happens with the data that people donate to Facebook. What Facebook does with it. Now people are suddenly worried or offended about the use of the data they completely surrendered. Of course this isn't going to stop people from continuing to surrender that data. They are just sad and powerless. This sort of behavior is called addiction, but people are very far from admitting they have a problem. It is so much more convenient to simply blame something else.
- domevent 9y ago
  I feel like the “Nobody cares” line was clearly wrong a while ago, and now it just smacks of desperation. Clearly people care, a lot, and while you can try to denigrate or dismiss them in a number of ways, or play games of tu quoque with “Obama did it” the cat is out of bag. Maybe it took an association with Trump to kick the media out of bed on this issue, but now it really does have a life of its own. The Boz memo, articles like the one we’re commemting on, do not thrill people. As the steady drip feed of FB scandal continues it also promotes discussion about the merits of the platform. In my opinion though, the biggest change is that saying, “FB is spying on you, and manipulating you” no longer gets you weird looks and sighs from most people these days. The narrative of FB as a kind of tentacled monster also fits into a larger narrative of big tech run amok that has been gaining traction. Uber killing that woman, Tesla’s autopilot fatality, YouTube and Google banning what a huge portion of the internet considers reasonable content, is starting to annoy and scare people. Dismiss their concerns and fear at your own peril. People, and societies at large always have breaking points, and there’s nothing worse than being dragged to the guillotine screaming, “But we’ve been fucking you peasants over for years, why now?!” It’s now because there is always a straw that breaks the camel’s back. Trump, CA, may just be a straw, but you have to see it in the full context of a greatly overburdened camel.

otempomores 9y ago

I cant wait for them to turn publicly evil to appease the masses. The following undesireables are using facebook and can be easily singled out by speach patterns and contact patterns. So alliw us to introduce a new feature: The great hunt. Only for those with Facebook.

otempomores 9y ago

I cant wait for them to turn publicly evil to appease the masses. The following undesireables are using facebook and can be easily singled out by speach patterns and contact patterns. So allow us to introduce a new feature: The great hunt. Only for those with Facebook.

citilife 9y ago

Pretty sure this is a coordinated attack by media, similar to media attacking Trump. The fact is, you're right, most of this has been known for years. It's interesting because four years ago, I actually used the same technique as CA to get access to peoples social network(s) for identifying probable interests. This was recommended to me by an app developer still in college. I really don't understand how this can be news if it was pretty much common knowledge in the tech spheres. Or rather, how they couldn't have known about it earlier. Short answer, they had to have known. Long answer, there has to be a reason they are throwing a fit now - which personally I don't know.