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More than a quarter of Americans, and half of young people, report having deleted the flagship Facebook app from their phones in the wake of these scandals. (ht

More than a quarter of Americans, and half of young people, report having deleted the flagship Facebook app from their phones in the wake of these scandals. (https://www.recode.net/2018/9/5/17824116/delete-facebook-mark-zuckerberg-social-media-break-time-well-spent https://www.recode.net/2018/9/5/17824116/delete-facebook-mar...) The losses are offset in their topline numbers by growth in the developing world, but that's a lagging indicator, and those are much less lucrative user eyeballs. It's mitigated to the extent those users migrate to other FB-owned properties like Instagram and WhatsApp, but there the negative media narrative increases the chance that antitrust regulators will break up FB and force it to divest those properties.

thanatropism 8y ago
It's a small piece of a wider process, but Jaron Lanier is having such a global impact; probably much more than what Anglos imagine.
- skeptic_69 8y ago
  not just jaron lanier! there are multiple thinkers who are fellow travelrs. Cal newport, Tristan harris, Nicholas Carr...
  - TrevorAustin 8y ago
    Tim Wu makes the case for breaking up tech giants, and FB specifically, at book length
    - skeptic_69 8y ago
      Are you referring to master switch or attention merchants? been meaning to read both.
      - hyperdimension 8y ago
        They're likely referring to The Master Switch, but I'd definitely recommend both. They're fantastic books, and Tim Wu really goes into significant depth in each.
  - thanatropism 8y ago
    I've been following Nicholas Carr for a while. It's just that Jaron Lanier specifically is making quite a splash in the "developing world". His message particularly resonate with our banana-republic election season online panics.
  - humanetech 8y ago
    Tristan Harris, founder of the non-profit Center for Humane Technology (CHT) [0] has been quite successful at high government circles and board level of big tech companies. At the time Mark Zuckerberg didn't want to testify in the UK, he testified to the UK House of Commons commission to inform them about Fake News [1] In the corporate world the strategy is to 'Engage employees', make them aware of the harms of technology and philosophy of Humane Tech. I found it enlightening to see him address the opening keynote at Dreamforce 2018 "How to Stop Technology from Destabilizing the World" [2] to a hall full of SalesForce customers. The CHT now focuses primarily on fake news, disinformation, political influencing problems that arise from tech - i.e. the topics where the risk for civic breakdown is highest, but they have also played a role in bringing the concept of 'Time Well Spent' - focussed on healthy tech use - across at e.g. Google and Apple (but much to be done still in this area). PS. I represent the Humane Tech Community, which is affiliated yet operates independently of the CHT, as a grassroots movement [3]. [0] https://humanetech.com https://humanetech.com [1] https://community.humanetech.com/t/witness-account-of-tristan-harris-on-fake-news-before-uk-house-of-commons-commission/2330 https://community.humanetech.com/t/witness-account-of-trista... [2] https://community.humanetech.com/t/must-see-video-explaining-primary-raison-detre-of-the-cht-org-interview-with-tristan-harris/2770/2 https://community.humanetech.com/t/must-see-video-explaining... [3] https://community.humanetech.com/t/who-we-are-what-we-do-and-how-you-can-help-humane-technology-too/2955 https://community.humanetech.com/t/who-we-are-what-we-do-and...
    - thanatropism 8y ago
      The other day I heard Time Well Spent get thoroughly mocked in The Culture podcast, but I was too out of the loop to understand why. Still am.
      - humanetech 8y ago
        Not sure if this was about the CHT then, as there exists still the Time Well Spent movement (as a FB group). But it could well be. The CHT realize quite well that TWS constitutes only a small part of what makes tech humane. Also the way that companies are adopting it, has a great deal of marketing to it (akin to 'greenwashing'). So you could say that regarding TWS some tiny steps were made in the right direction.
  - mcguire 8y ago
    "Fellow travelers?" Been a while since I've heard that.
    - skeptic_69 8y ago
      everything old is new again
throwawaymath 8y ago
No. More than a quarter of Americans and half of "young people" have not reported anything about Facebook. In point of fact, a quarter of the 4,594 people surveyed by Pew Research between May 29 and June 11 report deleting the Facebook app.[1] Of those, half who qualify as young deleted the app. Stop getting your statistics from news. This kind of casual stats citing frustrates me beyond belief. Audit your sources. ________________ 1. http://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/1/2018/09/FT_18.09.05_FacebookPrivacy_MethodologyTopline.pdf http://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/1/201...
- BeetleB 8y ago
  >In point of fact, a quarter of the 4,594 people surveyed by Pew Research between May 29 and June 11 report deleting the Facebook app.[1] Of those, half who qualify as young deleted the app. For a population of 330 million, if you want a 95% confidence level and a 2% margin of error, you need only 2401 people in your sample. This is assuming the survey sampled appropriately (i.e. random selection methodology). It is standard to take well executed surveys and extrapolate to the population. Calling it out is calling the whole field of statistics out.
  - throwawaymath 8y ago
    Nice try. I'm well versed in the statistics but I'm not blindly criticizing the sample because it's small. I'm criticizing exactly what you called out as an assumption - the methodology of the sample; namely that they survey's distribution matches the population distribution. So thanks for the lesson in p values, but it has nothing to do with my point. I take issue with blindly citing sources without doing due diligence, especially when the survey was collected over a very small window of time across a population that most likely doesn't match Americans in toto.
    - mcphage 8y ago
      > I'm criticizing exactly what you called out as an assumption - the methodology of the sample; namely that they survey's distribution matches the population distribution. Yeah, I’m reading your previous comment, and I’m still not seeing it.

thanatropism 8y ago

It's a small piece of a wider process, but Jaron Lanier is having such a global impact; probably much more than what Anglos imagine.

skeptic_69 8y ago
not just jaron lanier! there are multiple thinkers who are fellow travelrs. Cal newport, Tristan harris, Nicholas Carr...
- TrevorAustin 8y ago
  Tim Wu makes the case for breaking up tech giants, and FB specifically, at book length
  - skeptic_69 8y ago
    Are you referring to master switch or attention merchants? been meaning to read both.
    - hyperdimension 8y ago
      They're likely referring to The Master Switch, but I'd definitely recommend both. They're fantastic books, and Tim Wu really goes into significant depth in each.
- thanatropism 8y ago
  I've been following Nicholas Carr for a while. It's just that Jaron Lanier specifically is making quite a splash in the "developing world". His message particularly resonate with our banana-republic election season online panics.
- humanetech 8y ago
  Tristan Harris, founder of the non-profit Center for Humane Technology (CHT) [0] has been quite successful at high government circles and board level of big tech companies. At the time Mark Zuckerberg didn't want to testify in the UK, he testified to the UK House of Commons commission to inform them about Fake News [1] In the corporate world the strategy is to 'Engage employees', make them aware of the harms of technology and philosophy of Humane Tech. I found it enlightening to see him address the opening keynote at Dreamforce 2018 "How to Stop Technology from Destabilizing the World" [2] to a hall full of SalesForce customers. The CHT now focuses primarily on fake news, disinformation, political influencing problems that arise from tech - i.e. the topics where the risk for civic breakdown is highest, but they have also played a role in bringing the concept of 'Time Well Spent' - focussed on healthy tech use - across at e.g. Google and Apple (but much to be done still in this area). PS. I represent the Humane Tech Community, which is affiliated yet operates independently of the CHT, as a grassroots movement [3]. [0] https://humanetech.com https://humanetech.com [1] https://community.humanetech.com/t/witness-account-of-tristan-harris-on-fake-news-before-uk-house-of-commons-commission/2330 https://community.humanetech.com/t/witness-account-of-trista... [2] https://community.humanetech.com/t/must-see-video-explaining-primary-raison-detre-of-the-cht-org-interview-with-tristan-harris/2770/2 https://community.humanetech.com/t/must-see-video-explaining... [3] https://community.humanetech.com/t/who-we-are-what-we-do-and-how-you-can-help-humane-technology-too/2955 https://community.humanetech.com/t/who-we-are-what-we-do-and...
  - thanatropism 8y ago
    The other day I heard Time Well Spent get thoroughly mocked in The Culture podcast, but I was too out of the loop to understand why. Still am.
    - humanetech 8y ago
      Not sure if this was about the CHT then, as there exists still the Time Well Spent movement (as a FB group). But it could well be. The CHT realize quite well that TWS constitutes only a small part of what makes tech humane. Also the way that companies are adopting it, has a great deal of marketing to it (akin to 'greenwashing'). So you could say that regarding TWS some tiny steps were made in the right direction.
- mcguire 8y ago
  "Fellow travelers?" Been a while since I've heard that.
  - skeptic_69 8y ago
    everything old is new again

throwawaymath 8y ago

No. More than a quarter of Americans and half of "young people" have not reported anything about Facebook. In point of fact, a quarter of the 4,594 people surveyed by Pew Research between May 29 and June 11 report deleting the Facebook app.[1] Of those, half who qualify as young deleted the app. Stop getting your statistics from news. This kind of casual stats citing frustrates me beyond belief. Audit your sources. ________________ 1. http://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/1/2018/09/FT_18.09.05_FacebookPrivacy_MethodologyTopline.pdf http://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/1/201...

BeetleB 8y ago
>In point of fact, a quarter of the 4,594 people surveyed by Pew Research between May 29 and June 11 report deleting the Facebook app.[1] Of those, half who qualify as young deleted the app. For a population of 330 million, if you want a 95% confidence level and a 2% margin of error, you need only 2401 people in your sample. This is assuming the survey sampled appropriately (i.e. random selection methodology). It is standard to take well executed surveys and extrapolate to the population. Calling it out is calling the whole field of statistics out.
- throwawaymath 8y ago
  Nice try. I'm well versed in the statistics but I'm not blindly criticizing the sample because it's small. I'm criticizing exactly what you called out as an assumption - the methodology of the sample; namely that they survey's distribution matches the population distribution. So thanks for the lesson in p values, but it has nothing to do with my point. I take issue with blindly citing sources without doing due diligence, especially when the survey was collected over a very small window of time across a population that most likely doesn't match Americans in toto.
  - mcphage 8y ago
    > I'm criticizing exactly what you called out as an assumption - the methodology of the sample; namely that they survey's distribution matches the population distribution. Yeah, I’m reading your previous comment, and I’m still not seeing it.