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But that is a problem that's my point. They sell themselves as allowing us to 'connect' - bless their kind selfless hearts - then filter, prioritize, and suppre

But that is a problem that's my point. They sell themselves as allowing us to 'connect' - bless their kind selfless hearts - then filter, prioritize, and suppress what we choose to connect with. At this stage 'private company yada yada yada' is wilfully missing the point of just how much Facebook is the social media entity for a good chunk of the world.

lgeorget 8y ago
But it's no secret that the content you see on Facebook is the content Facebook and advertisers want you to see, not content you'd be interesting it in the first place. Maybe I'm stubborn or stupid but I fail to see the problem. What make you think Facebook should have the interest of their users at heart to begin with, except to attract more users? The users are not their customers, the advertisers are. And anyway, nobody is forcing anyone to use Facebook or any social media at all.
- brianmcc 8y ago
  You forget perhaps that we HN folk are not typical. What you describe is not widely accepted, not by a long way. To most users FB is absolutely a pure(ish) content exchange medium. They treat posting like sending SMS or what have you, an 'open' exhange, and not entirely unreasonably IMHO given 11+ years of precedent. With that in mind today's event becomes significant. It rams home that FB is in control. And frankly that's new to most people!
  - stcredzero 8y ago
    They treat posting like sending SMS or what have you, an 'open' exhange, and not entirely unreasonably IMHO given 11+ years of precedent. Back when SMS was new, people treated it like it had time end delivery guarantees, even though it had neither, and messages could sometimes be delayed by 20 minutes or an hour. I even had a girlfriend accuse me of lying because of that.
    - sobani 8y ago
      That's the problem with anything that's true 99% of the time. People start to believe it's true 100% of the time. That's why your ex didn't expect this 'SLA', because most of the time messages arrive practically immediately. And that's why most people don't expect Facebook to block non-spam, non-offensive content, because most of the time they don't.
- koonsolo 8y ago
  You are 100% correct in theory, and everybody here knows this. But the problem is that in practice, most people live on Facebook, and don't really care about any of this. This means that companies such as Facebook have a huge influence on what people see. So the question really is, do we, as a democratic society, allow a single company to have such a big power over the opinion of the masses. I don't have a proper answer for this, but that question is definitely there, regardless of the fact that people are not forced to use it.
- DougN7 8y ago
  So you’re saying it would be fine if they only showed content for one political ideology and one religious view, and suppressed everything else??
  - lgeorget 8y ago
    That's what a lot of websites do, and it's called "editorial choices".
- CaptainZapp 8y ago
  I disagree with you, nevertheless I upvoted you. It's so galling that legit opinions, which are well presented are trashed, just because they go against the direction of the polit bureau.
  - lgeorget 8y ago
    Thank you. Well I'm playing the devil's advocate there. To me Facebook has always looked very untrustworthy. They have a very bad habit of mishandling users' data and manipulating public opinion. Nevertheless I believe in editorial fredom of private websites.

lgeorget 8y ago

But it's no secret that the content you see on Facebook is the content Facebook and advertisers want you to see, not content you'd be interesting it in the first place. Maybe I'm stubborn or stupid but I fail to see the problem. What make you think Facebook should have the interest of their users at heart to begin with, except to attract more users? The users are not their customers, the advertisers are. And anyway, nobody is forcing anyone to use Facebook or any social media at all.

brianmcc 8y ago
You forget perhaps that we HN folk are not typical. What you describe is not widely accepted, not by a long way. To most users FB is absolutely a pure(ish) content exchange medium. They treat posting like sending SMS or what have you, an 'open' exhange, and not entirely unreasonably IMHO given 11+ years of precedent. With that in mind today's event becomes significant. It rams home that FB is in control. And frankly that's new to most people!
- stcredzero 8y ago
  They treat posting like sending SMS or what have you, an 'open' exhange, and not entirely unreasonably IMHO given 11+ years of precedent. Back when SMS was new, people treated it like it had time end delivery guarantees, even though it had neither, and messages could sometimes be delayed by 20 minutes or an hour. I even had a girlfriend accuse me of lying because of that.
  - sobani 8y ago
    That's the problem with anything that's true 99% of the time. People start to believe it's true 100% of the time. That's why your ex didn't expect this 'SLA', because most of the time messages arrive practically immediately. And that's why most people don't expect Facebook to block non-spam, non-offensive content, because most of the time they don't.
koonsolo 8y ago
You are 100% correct in theory, and everybody here knows this. But the problem is that in practice, most people live on Facebook, and don't really care about any of this. This means that companies such as Facebook have a huge influence on what people see. So the question really is, do we, as a democratic society, allow a single company to have such a big power over the opinion of the masses. I don't have a proper answer for this, but that question is definitely there, regardless of the fact that people are not forced to use it.
DougN7 8y ago
So you’re saying it would be fine if they only showed content for one political ideology and one religious view, and suppressed everything else??
- lgeorget 8y ago
  That's what a lot of websites do, and it's called "editorial choices".
CaptainZapp 8y ago
I disagree with you, nevertheless I upvoted you. It's so galling that legit opinions, which are well presented are trashed, just because they go against the direction of the polit bureau.
- lgeorget 8y ago
  Thank you. Well I'm playing the devil's advocate there. To me Facebook has always looked very untrustworthy. They have a very bad habit of mishandling users' data and manipulating public opinion. Nevertheless I believe in editorial fredom of private websites.