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Internal emails cause more trouble for Facebook and its C.E.O.
- Traubenfuchs 8y agoTo think that Zuckerberg wanted to get into politics just a few months ago. A sweaty, nervous guy who appears so very much non-human that countless memes about him trying to appear human were made, who is also synonymous with a company/product hated but used a lot worldwide. I guess Trump winning let him think everything is possible.
- Gigablah 8y agoIs this what the level of discourse has sunk to? Disparaging comments on a person's looks?
- ReptileMan 8y agoIn politics looks matter like it or not.
- isostatic 8y agoHave you seen the current U.S. President?
- ReptileMan 8y agoCompared to his rival he was still the better looking one.
- johnchristopher 8y agoDidn't you see the slip from "public image" to "look".
- isostatic 8y agoDuring Bush's funeral I saw 4 respected, graceful presidents, and an orangutan. I won't comment on Trumps image or qualities as a president, however he clearly doesn't have hollywood looks, or even good looks.
- johnchristopher 8y agoNo, the slip in this thread from discussing public image and perception to physical appearance.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- asianthrowaway 8y agoI don't think he was disparaging his looks, but rather his social skills. It's undeniable that Zuckerberg is not really an extroverted social butterfly with good public speaking skills, which is kind of a requirement if you want to get into politics.
- Traubenfuchs 8y agoLooks decide the first impression and the attitude people associate with you. In the public, no one associates leadership and composure with Zuckerberg.
- rq1 8y agoNixon?
- hannasanarion 8y agoNixon didn't break down with a panic attack the first time someone asked him a hard question in public.
- newnewpdro 8y agoThe speculation that Zuckerberg would be entering politics and probably pursue the presidency date to long before the 45th presidential election. If memory serves, it goes back to when he began visibly embracing a particular religion, in contrast to a previously atheistic stance. It was pointed out in the media that this transition often occurs in the preparation phases of entering politics to attract votes.
- blfr 8y agothe company had hired a right-wing opposition research group, Definers Public Affairs, to dig up dirt on George Soros, after Soros gave a blistering speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos decrying the power of social media, especially Facebook and Google, for their “far-reaching adverse consequences on the functioning of democracy, particularly on the integrity of elections.” What is this about? Because it's weird friendly fire. Both Soros and Facebook/Google want largely the same outcome from elections: liberal politicians who keep the markets humming while allowing for easy international trade and migration.
- asianthrowaway 8y agoPot calling the kettle black.
- Juliate 8y agoYou might be mistaken about what Facebook "wants".
- sattoshi 8y agoFacebook is nautorious for silently banning anything right of center.
- pjc50 8y agoHardly - they let the entire leave.eu campaign alone, and there are plenty of far-right organisations on there. I believe that eventually, after much public pressure, they banned Infowars? That's about it.
- gaius 8y agoWho says leaving the EU is a right-wing thing? The current leader of the Labour Party is far more anti-EU than the current leader of the Tories! Some things just don’t fit the classic left/right model.
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- aokiji 8y agoDo not lose focus. George Soros and the faceless associates of globalism are in absolute panic. This article, as well as the comments, are in essence a hit-and-run on Facebook and Zuckerberg.
- draw_down 8y agoMy condolences to those attempting to maintain that the media is simply on a witch hunt out of petty revenge. These people are just endlessly greasy. I can’t imagine how they sleep at night.
- makomk 8y ago"The documents also reveal that, in 2015, a permissions update for Android devices, which users were required to accept, included a feature that continuously uploaded text messages and call logs to Facebook." Wow, that's some sleazy wording. While users were required to accept the permissions update for the simple reason that Android at the time didn't offer any way to pick and choose what permissions to grant, the very email they're basing this claim on says that actually accessing and uploading call logs was opt-in. Ironically, the coverage of this has demonstrated exactly why this was (as the released email put it) a high PR risk.
- epistasis 8y agoSo they just uploaded everything, "just in case"? Your description doesn't sound any better than the article's.
- ForHackernews 8y agoNo, I think the parent comment is making the distinction that the Android permissions model at the time wasn't very granular, so Facebook's app had to request more permissions than it intended to use, and that FB offered a separate opt-in within their own app. I don't use the FB app, and I have no idea how this was presented to users and whether it was a legitimate choice or a "dark pattern" to trick users into handing over everything.
- lowercased 8y agoAnd FB's platform permission stuff itself was not very granular for a long time - still might not be. Years ago, building basic 'login with facebook' things for apps, the minimum my app could do was to have access to your email, name, and your friends list. Whether the friends list was used or wanted or not, it was always part of basic permission requests.
- makomk 8y agoPretty much, though the problem isn't that the permissions weren't granular - reading the call log has been its own permission since Android 4.1, and apps targetting that version have to request it separately even if they support older versions - but that there simply wasn't any way for users to grant only some permissions. So Facebook had to request all the permissions they might want to use from every single user, regardless of whether those users ever opted into the features that required them. The first official version of Android that allowed users to turn individual permissions off was Marshmallow, released in October 2015 with the first beta in May 2015 - the email in question is dated the start of February 2015 and says they planned to ship it by the end of the month.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- eksemplar 8y agoI wonder when Facebook is going to get disrupted. It seems to me their key feature is having everyone connected, and while anecdotal, my friends list sure hasn’t been affected by these scandals. What has been affected is the perception. It’s no longer considered cool to have a Facebook account. Meet-ups and interest groups are still heavily used in my social circles, but it’s almost always with an apology for being on Facebook. Instagram has suffered less, but instagram isn’t really useful for anything but wasting time. Facebook on the other hand serves as a modern day yellowpages and meetup combined, but with its popularity dropping and people slowly adopting privacy concerns, it seems like the right company with the right business model could displace Facebook. Of course you could say something similar about google and how it’s search engine is so terrible at finding anything interesting. Maybe it’s my little anecdotal world playing tricks on my perception, but to me, the whole web seems ripe for another revolution.
- martinald 8y agoAgreed - though at least in my contacts in the UK, everyone uses WhatsApp (and whatsapp groups) instead of FB. People used to make a FB event for a party now make a WhatsApp group which everyone gets invited into. I think what Facebook is very very good at is tracking the market and identifying potential competitors and buying them up. My previous thoughts (and still are) was that FB would become a media holding company, similar to Comcast or Fox/News Corp. The problems I now see for them is they are really starting to piss off regulators, who will probably not look kindly to future acquisitions, especially larger ones. They also have a problem that WhatsApp is IMO cannibalising their core 'social media' offerings and I can't see how they can commercialise that product without eroding the privacy and/or simplicity aspects which make it so popular. In hindsight I think Apple locking iMessage to iPhone was a mistake. If they'd released an Android version Apple would have surpassed WhatsApp in non-US markets where iPhone penetration is lower, and would have dominated the messaging space like it does in the US, as they'd be preinstalled on every iPhone to seed the market.
- TAForObvReasons 8y agoiMessage arguably serves as lock-in for the iPhone user base. If it were supported on android, many people would switch to the less expensive Android + iMessage ecosystem, likely enough to really make a dent in their cash cow
- tzfld 8y agoThere is an intensive negative media campaign against Facebook lately, rightful or not.
- mlthoughts2018 8y agoFacebook has perpetrated a series of negative actions successively for a long time. A large number of people are negatively affected by the ramifications of these bad actions. The reporting of these actions therefore seems like responsible journalism just calling it like they see it, reporting on the serial perpetrator of meaningful bad actions. Given this, it seems disingenuous and even harmful to attribute the negativity side of it to the “media” or suggest that the coordination and timing of the stories is a media “campaign.” Nobody denies that the media can coordinate like this and probably has in the past and will again. However, there is no need to reach for conspiracy theories when it comes to negative reporting on Facebook. Facebook is negative. Facebook has perpetrated a serial campaign of negative behaviors. The media in this case are merely just reporting that. Any negativity is down to Facebook itself for acting negatively, not down to the media.
- lithos 8y agoThe media doesn't "need" to coordinate on Facebook. They just need to do their job. Reporters when doing an interest story will as part of their job research further into the subject. Facebook just happens to have a really long trail of SV mentality of move fast and deal with the consequences later. It's Facebook's fault for making themselves really interesting before cleaning themselves. Can you really blame reporters doing their job, researching an interesting subject, and one that has so much dirt that it's easy to do your job.
- janzij 8y agoGlad that I'm not the only one noticing it. Last time it was Uber. Now they moved on to Facebook. Uber didn't change much, and so won't Facebook, because the media will eventually pick another target (I wonder which, I'm guessing Google) which makes people click their links. They don't really care about reporting or about making things right, they just need a dead horse to beat. I am happy the power of the media dwindles year after year, they should have no right to do something like this against certain people or companies they don't like. They are bullies, that's all they are.
- ineedasername 8y agoIt seems like Facebook got caught in a monetization trap. They started on a model of "get the audience, figure out revenue streams later". But then when it came to crunch time on figuring out monetization strategies, they realized there was no easy answer. Charge for access? Sell your users & their data to 3rd parties in various ways? (I do wonder if a freemium model would have worked.) Either way it's like they had a panic and got it all wrong, began considering & trying all kinds of shady things. Then to hide that fact they made it even worse, first by hiding it and looking duplicitous, then by doing even more shady things.
- r3vrse 8y agoEvery now and then I rise above the temporal miasma of popular web culture and think: why is this surprising? BBS, AOL, Netscape, MySpace, Tumblr, FB, Insta, Snap... Why are we surprised by this progression? All "good" things go bad. The same lessons, rinsed and repeated. Power, money corrupts. We burn effigies and mark their passing. We move on. Tempted to say a little more history and psychology instead of fiscal fixation would make a difference. Tempted, but no. It's not how humans work.
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago>Tempted to say a little more history and psychology instead of fiscal fixation would make a difference. Tempted, but no. It's not how humans work. // I don't think profit motive is innate, we're not Ferengi! However, things can't go on growing forever, and the rich need growth to get richer, and need churn to maintain fashion as the societal norm that feeds growth, and feeds purchases of stuff in order to fit in ... Things that work well enough and stably and are liked are prime for exploitation for [more] profit. It's really only very few people driving that exploitation -- though perhaps many more would if given the chance.
- pas 8y agonot profit, but simple rational local optimization. if you were not selfish enough, you would be dead. (or your ancestors would have died before proceating.) http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/
- WhompingWindows 8y agoDo they "go" bad or are they surpassed/replaced by better things? I'd argue Tumblr is inherently a better product than AOL or BBS. With FB, while it certainly slid over time, it also acquired the next/better platforms to protect itself against their disruption, and so it may actually be somewhat protected or given longer shelf life.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- porpoisely 8y agoFacebook stopped being cool a decade ago when adults, parents, companies started using it. Like most social media, it started with the young and was cool. Then it got quickly adopted by the adults. If anything, instagram, twitch, tiktok, etc is cool. Facebook is practically a utility now. I doubt facebook is going to get disrupted any time soon. No more than Elon Musk was going to jail or his businesses ( tesla, spacex ) taken from him. Facebook is more than facebook. It's an ecosystem. It's the preferred login mechanism of a lot of the web. Also, facebook owns Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram. Nearly 1.5 billion people use Messenger alone. The media is in attack mode against facebook. Everything from the media about them will be exaggerated and negative. So I'd take anything the news about facebook with a grain of salt. Even the new yorker doesn't believe facebook is going anywhere. https://www.facebook.com/newyorker https://www.facebook.com/newyorker
- specialist 8y agoA social network stops being cool when that coworker you dislike tries to connect with you.
- Balgair 8y agoLinkedIn in a nutshell.
- stedaniels 8y agoIt wasn't that the "adults" adopted it, it's that the younger generation inevitably grew up and turned into the adults.
- smelendez 8y agoIt was both. Plenty of parents and grandparents of that first college-aged Facebook generation are on Facebook now.
- rc_hadoken 8y agoHoly shit, this. The whole "my parents joined so I left because it wasn't cool" isn't it. The people who adopted in the early naughts are now those very adults we speak of. No Jane --although cute-- I don't care about your baby. And is it really a good idea to put your baby on social media without their explicit consent? Who owns a child's social media presence before they do?
- eezurr 8y agoHN Mods why are you allowing click bait headlines on here? You're throwing another rock into the net we're carrying every time you allow this. Some day the master fisherman are going to get sick of carrying rocks. ie, I come here to learn from the fishermen, not the rock throwers. I can "feel" this headline yanking my brain for attention. "How could it get worse?!" "What did they do now?!" "How was this month very bad?!" "I for sure enjoy perceived petty revenge against large evil corp". Edit: We're allowed to have a different title than the actual article.
- wglb 8y agoI think that the title reflects the content of the article. The rules say that the title must be not editorialized. This comment doesn't really add to the discussion in a positive way.
- danso 8y agoI agree the headline is seemingly a little clickbaity. But the article itself is 1,700 words from the New Yorker. Because it enumerates a variety of controversies, "Very Bad Month" ends up being the most succinct way to describe the content of the article. I don't understand "fishermen" metaphor. Whose "we" in "You're throwing another rock into the net we're carrying..."?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- dang 8y agoWe don't come close to seeing all the posts here, so if you want us to take a look at a baity headline or some other concern on HN, you need to email us at hn@ycombinator.com. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Someone pinged me about your comment and I've changed the title now, but of course it's too late to make much difference.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- pers0n 8y agoIt’s not a bad month unless they lose 10% of their users, until then they are strong and will be around for many years. Yahoo and aol are still around
- sudovancity 8y agoI stopped using Facebook in 2009 when my parents and grandparents hopped on, I was 19 and felt like it wasn't cool anymore. Now I am telling them all to leave it due to privacy concerns, but hardly any of my family cares about privacy concerns and are just worried about keeping in touch. Which I understand but it is sad to see so little being understood about privacy. However, I don't see people like my parents ever leaving Facebook, and if they do, they will be the ones rejoining in a couple of days.