8 ms·

The Decline and Fall of the Zuckerberg Empire

ignoramous 8y ago
> Amazon delivers things to your house. Google helps you find things online. Apple sells actual objects. Facebook … helps you get into fights? Delivers your old classmates’ political opinions to your brain? Strawman. The article's writer can do better than view Facebook as a one trick pony. It is an internet behemoth. Instagram aside, there is so much media sharing on WhatsApp alone that it might blow away most of the other internet properties away. WhatsApp with VoIP now has the mobile network operators by their balls. No one is logging out of that, by far. > Some empires fall because they’re invaded from the outside or rot from within. Zuckerberg’s could be the first in history to collapse simply because its citizens logged out. Couldn't be further from the truth. People might get dis-interested in Facebook, over time... but existence of Facebook is more than folks just logging out.
- WaylonKenning 8y ago
  If people stop using Facebook, is anyone around to like its posts? I stopped using Facebook (though still use Instagram and Whatsapp) and my life is much the same as it was before. And here's the secret - I'm not even loyal to Instagram or Whatsapp, more to the network. If friends fall off Facebook, then there's even less reason to go. In fact, Instagram has entirely replaced it for me. And if Photos on iOS had a public sharing feature, I'd probably just use that, and then fall off Instagram too.
  - knolan 8y ago
    > And if Photos on iOS had a public sharing feature, I'd probably just use that, and then fall off Instagram too. It kinda does. You can make an album public and it generates a link that you can share.
- ganeshkrishnan 8y ago
  You are right. People often associate facebook with "just that website" when in fact there is much more to it: ads on facebook, commercial groups, fb pages, whatsapp, insta. Not to mention their open source projects; we use fb prophet a lot for our ML
- jayalpha 8y ago
  WhatsApp? Is this so difficult to program? Just VOIP and messaging? The Chinese WeChat hat much for features (e.g. send money, pay etc.) And even my mother has installed Threema on her phone because a friend of her asked for it. This tells you something. It is hard to come up with another social network like facebook. But a chatting client on the phone? The tide can change very fast there. Threema gets used more in Europe than in the states. But even a US buddy recently suggested we switch to threema. It is closed source but claims to offer more privacy. https://threema.ch/en https://threema.ch/en
  - statictype 8y ago
    Chat apps also have network effects. People use Whatsapp because that's what everyone else uses. I would prefer Signal but no one I know uses it. Everyone I know uses Whatsapp. So I use Whatsapp.
    - josteink 8y ago
      Clearly anecdotal. Nobody I know uses WhatsApp. So I don’t use WhatsApp. See how that works?
      - function_seven 8y ago
        If you count the number of anecdotes on the WhatsApp side vs. Signal or other similar networks, you will find that a massive quantitative difference. There are about 1,000 WhatsApp users for every 1 Telegram or Signal user. The anecdote is supposed to show why one can't just write their own app. It doesn't work that way.
        jayalpha 8y ago
        No, it does. I am not going to post the same story on five different social networks. But I can easily have 5 different chatting clients on my phone.
        8y ago
- sgt101 8y ago
  >WhatsApp with VoIP now has the mobile network operators by their balls. No one is logging out of that, by far. Interesting - when did you last evaluate / buy a phone based on voice quality capabilities?
  - spullara 8y ago
    It is because it is free to call any distance, not the quality.
    - brianwawok 8y ago
      All operators in the US offer unlimited free long distance within the US for several years. A very large percentage of the country never makes international calls.
      - ToFundorNot 8y ago
        The reason for Whatsapp's success is because of the lack of borders in communication. It's not only free in the US, it's free worldwide.
      - spullara 8y ago
        See other comments but literally inside the US calls are not what I am talking about. WhatsApp is used internationally.
- WeAreGoingIn 8y ago
  Left Facebook about 8 years ago. I block all their domains on my internal DNS. I mean they are not getting any metrics from me. Period. I used WhatsApp but dumped it for privacy reason, Facebook is not trusted. Google is the next company that will come under heavy scrutiny. They are aggressively trying to circumvent ad-blockers with their recent usage of semi-random domains. You can’t abuse ordinary people’s privacy and shove ads in people’s face for too long time.
  - cmuguythrow 8y ago
    This is something that I would like to do. Do you have resources you could share that could help me? Specifically interested in how to find the list of all FB domains that need blocking
    - tlb 8y ago
      I cut&pasted this into my /etc/hosts: https://github.com/jmdugan/blocklists/blob/master/corporations/facebook/all https://github.com/jmdugan/blocklists/blob/master/corporatio...
    - medius 8y ago
      I've setup a DigitalOcean instance of PiHole [1] VPN where I have added all the Facebook domains[2] and other add blockers. This helps me block these domains on all my devices including the phone. I don't see any ads in any apps. I also use this list to temporarily add HN when I want to focus. This setup works well for me. Some of my family members and friends use WhatsApp and that's something I regret (tiny bit) not using. But I don't miss Facebook, Instagram, etc. at all. [1] https://pi-hole.net/ https://pi-hole.net/ [2] https://github.com/jmdugan/blocklists/blob/master/corporations/facebook/all https://github.com/jmdugan/blocklists/blob/master/corporatio...
eksemplar 8y ago
I think Facebook is wrong to blame the EU or the GDPR on its faltering status in Europe. The GDPR is certainly making people more aware of what privacy means, and I think that’s a good thing, but it’s also came into existence because the people asked for it. It’s not really a new thing, in the public sector we’ve had stricter regulations for many years, but we’ve had them individually, and we’ve had the because people voted for them. The EU simply gathered all these things as a centralised ruleset, that also happens to apply to the private sector. Slowly more and more people are waking up to find that they have and want the power to make demands on how their data flows. And I think a lot of American tech companies are having a hard time to adapt. There is an old saying, that the US typically has good governments that are not trusted by its people and terrible companies which are trusted. Well, the EU is the exact opposite of that, and I think it’s hard to be Facebook in a world where people genuinely don’t want their photos used for facial recognition software that will eventually be used for evil, have their feeds flooded by probaganda or see their data used to overturn democracy itself. Facebook isn’t really struggling yet though. But they’ve basically become like climate change, everyone knows they have to quit eating social media to save the planet, but knowing is easier than doing. Facebook hasn’t done a single thing to help themselves though, so the comparison to Augustus, who did indeed build an empire and who was so popular that many historians consider him the root of the emperor cult, is a little ridiculous.
Animats 8y ago
This is an article about a New York Times article. It doesn't link directly to that article. It links to another article which links to go.redirectingat.com which links to go.skimresources.com, which is blocked by Ghostery as hostile. This is thus clickbait. The actual New York Times story is here.[1] [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/14/technology/facebook-data-russia-election-racism.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/14/technology/facebook-data-...
- shawn 8y ago
  Came here to say that. It's doubly indirect blog spam. That NYT article is quite substantive. I wonder if there's been an HN thread about it?
- lordgrenville 8y ago
  While I agree that the redirecting is dishonest, I think this article adds a level of commentary to the original NYT piece.
- tomcooks 8y ago
  Thank you
submeta 8y ago
Key sentence: "a majority of Americans across the political spectrum now believe that social media hurts democracy and that the government isn’t doing enough to regulate it." "social media hurts democracy" The arab spring (supported and brought to a tipping point by messages spread on social media) was not only possible in northern africa or in some arab countries (Libya, Egypt, Syria,...) Social media has introduced a new dimension into our western societies. Political will was for decades built by discussion in small groups but more importantly by a small group of media (newspapers, magazines, tv channels). These news channels had some commonly shared values, operated within those values. Now we have "news" spreading publicly on Twitter, on Facebook or in closed groups of Facebook or other social media. And these "news" are not fact-checked by any authority anymore. If I was a rogue actor I would weep for joy because of the possibilities that social media created to manipulate the masses. So yes, I strongly believe that social media is hurting our democracies massively. And Facebook has a major role in this.
- Meai 8y ago
  Probably ironically you're arguing for a very authoritarian, nationalist view of the world where we can't allow any foreign information to hurt the fragile minds of our brittle citizens. In my opinion the tool called Facebook has shown us the real state of our society, the poor state of critical thinking in people and possibly the lack of morality in general. To call for simpler times back when only our own country was able to manipulate us, is a splash of romanticism.
  - ben_w 8y ago
    I don’t read it that way — GP seems to say “rogue actor” rather than “foreign actor”, so I think you’re actually in agreement.
    - Meai 8y ago
      "Rogue actor" is currently a highly political term, so I left that aspect out on purpose. For China you would be a rogue actor if you reported truthfully on free speech issues. For the USA you are a rogue actor if you report on their unconstitutional spying apparatus. It's neither morally nor politically unambigious what a rogue actor is. Such is life in a world where we all have a different morality, talking becomes hard!
random878 8y ago
This is a low quality piece which is only serving to clutter more of hackernews with more opinion pieces on Facebook / Mr Zuckerberg. This is not deeply interesting.

> Amazon delivers things to your house. Google helps you find things online. Apple sells actual objects. Facebook … helps you get into fights? Delivers your old classmates’ political opinions to your brain? Strawman. The article's writer can do better than view Facebook as a one trick pony. It is an internet behemoth. Instagram aside, there is so much media sharing on WhatsApp alone that it might blow away most of the other internet properties away. WhatsApp with VoIP now has the mobile network operators by their balls. No one is logging out of that, by far. > Some empires fall because they’re invaded from the outside or rot from within. Zuckerberg’s could be the first in history to collapse simply because its citizens logged out. Couldn't be further from the truth. People might get dis-interested in Facebook, over time... but existence of Facebook is more than folks just logging out.

WaylonKenning 8y ago
If people stop using Facebook, is anyone around to like its posts? I stopped using Facebook (though still use Instagram and Whatsapp) and my life is much the same as it was before. And here's the secret - I'm not even loyal to Instagram or Whatsapp, more to the network. If friends fall off Facebook, then there's even less reason to go. In fact, Instagram has entirely replaced it for me. And if Photos on iOS had a public sharing feature, I'd probably just use that, and then fall off Instagram too.
- knolan 8y ago
  > And if Photos on iOS had a public sharing feature, I'd probably just use that, and then fall off Instagram too. It kinda does. You can make an album public and it generates a link that you can share.
ganeshkrishnan 8y ago
You are right. People often associate facebook with "just that website" when in fact there is much more to it: ads on facebook, commercial groups, fb pages, whatsapp, insta. Not to mention their open source projects; we use fb prophet a lot for our ML
jayalpha 8y ago
WhatsApp? Is this so difficult to program? Just VOIP and messaging? The Chinese WeChat hat much for features (e.g. send money, pay etc.) And even my mother has installed Threema on her phone because a friend of her asked for it. This tells you something. It is hard to come up with another social network like facebook. But a chatting client on the phone? The tide can change very fast there. Threema gets used more in Europe than in the states. But even a US buddy recently suggested we switch to threema. It is closed source but claims to offer more privacy. https://threema.ch/en https://threema.ch/en
- statictype 8y ago
  Chat apps also have network effects. People use Whatsapp because that's what everyone else uses. I would prefer Signal but no one I know uses it. Everyone I know uses Whatsapp. So I use Whatsapp.
  - josteink 8y ago
    Clearly anecdotal. Nobody I know uses WhatsApp. So I don’t use WhatsApp. See how that works?
    - function_seven 8y ago
      If you count the number of anecdotes on the WhatsApp side vs. Signal or other similar networks, you will find that a massive quantitative difference. There are about 1,000 WhatsApp users for every 1 Telegram or Signal user. The anecdote is supposed to show why one can't just write their own app. It doesn't work that way.
      - jayalpha 8y ago
        No, it does. I am not going to post the same story on five different social networks. But I can easily have 5 different chatting clients on my phone.
        8y ago
sgt101 8y ago
>WhatsApp with VoIP now has the mobile network operators by their balls. No one is logging out of that, by far. Interesting - when did you last evaluate / buy a phone based on voice quality capabilities?
- spullara 8y ago
  It is because it is free to call any distance, not the quality.
  - brianwawok 8y ago
    All operators in the US offer unlimited free long distance within the US for several years. A very large percentage of the country never makes international calls.
    - ToFundorNot 8y ago
      The reason for Whatsapp's success is because of the lack of borders in communication. It's not only free in the US, it's free worldwide.
    - spullara 8y ago
      See other comments but literally inside the US calls are not what I am talking about. WhatsApp is used internationally.
WeAreGoingIn 8y ago
Left Facebook about 8 years ago. I block all their domains on my internal DNS. I mean they are not getting any metrics from me. Period. I used WhatsApp but dumped it for privacy reason, Facebook is not trusted. Google is the next company that will come under heavy scrutiny. They are aggressively trying to circumvent ad-blockers with their recent usage of semi-random domains. You can’t abuse ordinary people’s privacy and shove ads in people’s face for too long time.
- cmuguythrow 8y ago
  This is something that I would like to do. Do you have resources you could share that could help me? Specifically interested in how to find the list of all FB domains that need blocking
  - tlb 8y ago
    I cut&pasted this into my /etc/hosts: https://github.com/jmdugan/blocklists/blob/master/corporations/facebook/all https://github.com/jmdugan/blocklists/blob/master/corporatio...
  - medius 8y ago
    I've setup a DigitalOcean instance of PiHole [1] VPN where I have added all the Facebook domains[2] and other add blockers. This helps me block these domains on all my devices including the phone. I don't see any ads in any apps. I also use this list to temporarily add HN when I want to focus. This setup works well for me. Some of my family members and friends use WhatsApp and that's something I regret (tiny bit) not using. But I don't miss Facebook, Instagram, etc. at all. [1] https://pi-hole.net/ https://pi-hole.net/ [2] https://github.com/jmdugan/blocklists/blob/master/corporations/facebook/all https://github.com/jmdugan/blocklists/blob/master/corporatio...

eksemplar 8y ago

I think Facebook is wrong to blame the EU or the GDPR on its faltering status in Europe. The GDPR is certainly making people more aware of what privacy means, and I think that’s a good thing, but it’s also came into existence because the people asked for it. It’s not really a new thing, in the public sector we’ve had stricter regulations for many years, but we’ve had them individually, and we’ve had the because people voted for them. The EU simply gathered all these things as a centralised ruleset, that also happens to apply to the private sector. Slowly more and more people are waking up to find that they have and want the power to make demands on how their data flows. And I think a lot of American tech companies are having a hard time to adapt. There is an old saying, that the US typically has good governments that are not trusted by its people and terrible companies which are trusted. Well, the EU is the exact opposite of that, and I think it’s hard to be Facebook in a world where people genuinely don’t want their photos used for facial recognition software that will eventually be used for evil, have their feeds flooded by probaganda or see their data used to overturn democracy itself. Facebook isn’t really struggling yet though. But they’ve basically become like climate change, everyone knows they have to quit eating social media to save the planet, but knowing is easier than doing. Facebook hasn’t done a single thing to help themselves though, so the comparison to Augustus, who did indeed build an empire and who was so popular that many historians consider him the root of the emperor cult, is a little ridiculous.

Animats 8y ago

This is an article about a New York Times article. It doesn't link directly to that article. It links to another article which links to go.redirectingat.com which links to go.skimresources.com, which is blocked by Ghostery as hostile. This is thus clickbait. The actual New York Times story is here.[1] [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/14/technology/facebook-data-russia-election-racism.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/14/technology/facebook-data-...

shawn 8y ago
Came here to say that. It's doubly indirect blog spam. That NYT article is quite substantive. I wonder if there's been an HN thread about it?
lordgrenville 8y ago
While I agree that the redirecting is dishonest, I think this article adds a level of commentary to the original NYT piece.
tomcooks 8y ago
Thank you

submeta 8y ago

Key sentence: "a majority of Americans across the political spectrum now believe that social media hurts democracy and that the government isn’t doing enough to regulate it." "social media hurts democracy" The arab spring (supported and brought to a tipping point by messages spread on social media) was not only possible in northern africa or in some arab countries (Libya, Egypt, Syria,...) Social media has introduced a new dimension into our western societies. Political will was for decades built by discussion in small groups but more importantly by a small group of media (newspapers, magazines, tv channels). These news channels had some commonly shared values, operated within those values. Now we have "news" spreading publicly on Twitter, on Facebook or in closed groups of Facebook or other social media. And these "news" are not fact-checked by any authority anymore. If I was a rogue actor I would weep for joy because of the possibilities that social media created to manipulate the masses. So yes, I strongly believe that social media is hurting our democracies massively. And Facebook has a major role in this.

Meai 8y ago
Probably ironically you're arguing for a very authoritarian, nationalist view of the world where we can't allow any foreign information to hurt the fragile minds of our brittle citizens. In my opinion the tool called Facebook has shown us the real state of our society, the poor state of critical thinking in people and possibly the lack of morality in general. To call for simpler times back when only our own country was able to manipulate us, is a splash of romanticism.
- ben_w 8y ago
  I don’t read it that way — GP seems to say “rogue actor” rather than “foreign actor”, so I think you’re actually in agreement.
  - Meai 8y ago
    "Rogue actor" is currently a highly political term, so I left that aspect out on purpose. For China you would be a rogue actor if you reported truthfully on free speech issues. For the USA you are a rogue actor if you report on their unconstitutional spying apparatus. It's neither morally nor politically unambigious what a rogue actor is. Such is life in a world where we all have a different morality, talking becomes hard!

random878 8y ago

This is a low quality piece which is only serving to clutter more of hackernews with more opinion pieces on Facebook / Mr Zuckerberg. This is not deeply interesting.