6 ms·

The negative campaign started when the media learned of Facebook selling data to Trump's presidential campaign via Cambridge Analytica. It was more or less the

by dexen 8y ago

The negative campaign started when the media learned of Facebook selling data to Trump's presidential campaign via Cambridge Analytica. It was more or less the same [edit: data / service] Facebook provided to Obama's both campaigns, except selling to Obama was seen as "supporting progressive cause" and "modern way of reaching out to the young voters", while selling to Trump was deemed a "terrible betrayal" and "hacking the democracy"; the press' opinion on Facebook turned from "that dependably progressive company we can get mutual support from" to "that unpredictable hired gun that's willing to work with anybody bad". Think of it; nothing else has changed. The press, and people in general, were well aware for years that Facebook is collecting, processing, and selling reams upon reams of user data. It was all glossed over as long as it was supporting the good cause. Now it's bemoaned to no end. It doesn't help that the press has natural adversarial relationship with Facebook just as much as with Google and other similar, due to the platforms being both major news channel (direct competitor), while at the same time the major source of web traffic to the news' websites, thus ad revenue.

gerbilly 8y ago
> except selling to Obama was seen as "supporting progressive cause" I'm pretty sure Obama didn't use a Russian troll farm during his campaigns.
- nkkollaw 8y ago
  > I'm pretty sure Obama didn't use a Russian troll farm during his campaigns. Why do you guys keep saying that, if it's all but speculation? You're stating that as a fact.
- dexen 8y ago
  We are discussing the press' behavior in this thread. Whataboutism ("but the other guy did something bad?") doesn't help us with understanding why journalists switched from tacitly ignoring Facebook's various transgressions to intensely grilling them from several angles at the same time. In the post above I posit that's due to journalists at first assuming they are on the same team, bound by shared worldview, only to learn that Facebook is loyal to the profit first and foremost, and over any ideology. Choice examples: - the OP article; used to be "Facebook helps populist freedom movements a'la Arab Spring"; now is "Facebook helps populist violence a'la Gilets Jaunes" - all the problems with privacy - being faux-feminist (https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/facebook-s-sheryl-sandberg-is-not-a-feminist-icon-this-is-why-1.2808764 https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/facebook-s-sheryl-sandber...) - catering to far-right (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/17/facebook-protects-far-right-activists-even-after-rule-breaches-dispatches-c4 https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/17/facebook-...) - hosting "fake news" (https://www.fastcompany.com/90203347/facebook-can-never-stop-fake-news-and-still-be-facebook https://www.fastcompany.com/90203347/facebook-can-never-stop...)
  - gerbilly 8y ago
    > We are discussing the press' behavior in this thread. I wasn't aware we were discussing just that. It took people a while to figure out the potential downsides of social media, press included. Are you going to tell me that if Facebook is dragged before parliament and congress that the press is supposed to not cover that so as to appear 'fair' to facebook? Those events are newsworthy and they are being covered. As far as privacy concerns, they seem legitimate to me, and also newsworthy to the layman, who may not have considered the side effects of using a voluntary surveillance platform such as facebook. (Also I never really understood the urge to defend the powerful. Powerful organizations like facebook don't need our moral or material support.)
    - dexen 8y ago
      This thread started with >There is an intensive negative media campaign against Facebook lately, rightful or not., to which I replied. We are in agreement that the press should hold Facebook and other powerful players to account. My point of interest is why (in my memory) the press was at first covering up for Facebook only to rather abruptly turn into harsh, pervasive criticism against it. It seems to be a repeating pattern in the industry, in which an upstart ran by a dashing founder is for a long while the darling of the media only to suddenly find itself at the receiving end of relentless criticism. Sure Facebook deserves a lot of criticism for their various underhanded and harmful actions; perhaps even the negatives outweight the positives overall. I am asking, where was the criticism early on? Why was Facebook a darling of the media for so long, before it all changed?
      - gerbilly 8y ago
        > I am asking, where was the criticism early on? Why was Facebook a darling of the media for so long, before it all changed? I don't think there is a big grand plan behind the arc in the coverage. In the early days of these companies, the iconoclast story was simply easier to write. Also, you have to know how journalists work. Outside of opinion pieces and editorials, a journalist needs preferably two sources to make a claim in a news piece. In the early days, there simply were fewer critics of facebook or Uber, and certainly the critics were less organized, so they didn't get much coverage. But, I bet if you look back to the first days of facebook, that you will find some negative coverage, but at that time it would have appeared speculative, and would have been a minority voice. Also, it's right there in the word: "news". Somebody getting rich off a new idea is news. Just like cavemen would have considered it news that you can eat the orange berries if you cook them first. Novel risks are also a staple of news. So perhaps the arc went from 'Man gets rich with crazy new idea', to 'People using new thing face a novel risk' (surveillance, loss of privacy).
jjulius 8y ago
>The negative campaign started when the media learned of Facebook selling data to Trump's presidential campaign via Cambridge Analytica. You're forgetting about the part where Cambridge Analytica obtained data erroneously through a Facebook API.
SonicSoul 8y ago
Not sure if you’re just trolling but to say that press is attacking FB for it being used in a presidential campaign is a straw man. The issue is very specific to targeting unknowing users with fake news in order to influence the outcome of a election and how much FB was aware of this. Obama did not do this. Did nothing like this. It’s completely false equivalency to compare social media usage as intended with this shady business
- dexen 8y ago
  Seems I was unclear when presenting my thesis. My impression is the journalists used to give Facebook a pass on many, many well-known bad behaviors. Atrocious behaviors, even. And then it changed, and they would go to great lengths to point out all the faults of Facebook. I experienced the change as a rather abrupt flip, right around the times of the Cambridge Analytica kerfuffle. I gauge it as journalists at first considering Facebook a friend that stumbles and is worth covering, but then feeling betrayed and instead perceiving Facebook as a dangerous enemy that needs to be taken down. Just like user gerbilly in the other post you use whataboutism of assigning blame to presidential candidates. . While interesting point, that detracts us from considering when and why the journalists changed their perception of Facebook. edit: Just to wrap up the very specific "targeting unknowing users with fake news in order to influence the outcome of a election", that's one of the points Facebook raised themselves around that time, were very adamant they are working on fixing it and will fix it. They deployed various mechanisms, including flagging certain news and linking to factcheckers (IIRC). Long story short, that was one of the very few things where Facebook and the journalists (and to large extent the political class) are in agreement, and working together to sort out.

by dexen 8y ago

gerbilly 8y ago

> except selling to Obama was seen as "supporting progressive cause" I'm pretty sure Obama didn't use a Russian troll farm during his campaigns.

nkkollaw 8y ago
> I'm pretty sure Obama didn't use a Russian troll farm during his campaigns. Why do you guys keep saying that, if it's all but speculation? You're stating that as a fact.
dexen 8y ago
We are discussing the press' behavior in this thread. Whataboutism ("but the other guy did something bad?") doesn't help us with understanding why journalists switched from tacitly ignoring Facebook's various transgressions to intensely grilling them from several angles at the same time. In the post above I posit that's due to journalists at first assuming they are on the same team, bound by shared worldview, only to learn that Facebook is loyal to the profit first and foremost, and over any ideology. Choice examples: - the OP article; used to be "Facebook helps populist freedom movements a'la Arab Spring"; now is "Facebook helps populist violence a'la Gilets Jaunes" - all the problems with privacy - being faux-feminist (https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/facebook-s-sheryl-sandberg-is-not-a-feminist-icon-this-is-why-1.2808764 https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/facebook-s-sheryl-sandber...) - catering to far-right (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/17/facebook-protects-far-right-activists-even-after-rule-breaches-dispatches-c4 https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/17/facebook-...) - hosting "fake news" (https://www.fastcompany.com/90203347/facebook-can-never-stop-fake-news-and-still-be-facebook https://www.fastcompany.com/90203347/facebook-can-never-stop...)
- gerbilly 8y ago
  > We are discussing the press' behavior in this thread. I wasn't aware we were discussing just that. It took people a while to figure out the potential downsides of social media, press included. Are you going to tell me that if Facebook is dragged before parliament and congress that the press is supposed to not cover that so as to appear 'fair' to facebook? Those events are newsworthy and they are being covered. As far as privacy concerns, they seem legitimate to me, and also newsworthy to the layman, who may not have considered the side effects of using a voluntary surveillance platform such as facebook. (Also I never really understood the urge to defend the powerful. Powerful organizations like facebook don't need our moral or material support.)
  - dexen 8y ago
    This thread started with >There is an intensive negative media campaign against Facebook lately, rightful or not., to which I replied. We are in agreement that the press should hold Facebook and other powerful players to account. My point of interest is why (in my memory) the press was at first covering up for Facebook only to rather abruptly turn into harsh, pervasive criticism against it. It seems to be a repeating pattern in the industry, in which an upstart ran by a dashing founder is for a long while the darling of the media only to suddenly find itself at the receiving end of relentless criticism. Sure Facebook deserves a lot of criticism for their various underhanded and harmful actions; perhaps even the negatives outweight the positives overall. I am asking, where was the criticism early on? Why was Facebook a darling of the media for so long, before it all changed?
    - gerbilly 8y ago
      > I am asking, where was the criticism early on? Why was Facebook a darling of the media for so long, before it all changed? I don't think there is a big grand plan behind the arc in the coverage. In the early days of these companies, the iconoclast story was simply easier to write. Also, you have to know how journalists work. Outside of opinion pieces and editorials, a journalist needs preferably two sources to make a claim in a news piece. In the early days, there simply were fewer critics of facebook or Uber, and certainly the critics were less organized, so they didn't get much coverage. But, I bet if you look back to the first days of facebook, that you will find some negative coverage, but at that time it would have appeared speculative, and would have been a minority voice. Also, it's right there in the word: "news". Somebody getting rich off a new idea is news. Just like cavemen would have considered it news that you can eat the orange berries if you cook them first. Novel risks are also a staple of news. So perhaps the arc went from 'Man gets rich with crazy new idea', to 'People using new thing face a novel risk' (surveillance, loss of privacy).

jjulius 8y ago

>The negative campaign started when the media learned of Facebook selling data to Trump's presidential campaign via Cambridge Analytica. You're forgetting about the part where Cambridge Analytica obtained data erroneously through a Facebook API.

SonicSoul 8y ago

Not sure if you’re just trolling but to say that press is attacking FB for it being used in a presidential campaign is a straw man. The issue is very specific to targeting unknowing users with fake news in order to influence the outcome of a election and how much FB was aware of this. Obama did not do this. Did nothing like this. It’s completely false equivalency to compare social media usage as intended with this shady business

dexen 8y ago
Seems I was unclear when presenting my thesis. My impression is the journalists used to give Facebook a pass on many, many well-known bad behaviors. Atrocious behaviors, even. And then it changed, and they would go to great lengths to point out all the faults of Facebook. I experienced the change as a rather abrupt flip, right around the times of the Cambridge Analytica kerfuffle. I gauge it as journalists at first considering Facebook a friend that stumbles and is worth covering, but then feeling betrayed and instead perceiving Facebook as a dangerous enemy that needs to be taken down. Just like user gerbilly in the other post you use whataboutism of assigning blame to presidential candidates. . While interesting point, that detracts us from considering when and why the journalists changed their perception of Facebook. edit: Just to wrap up the very specific "targeting unknowing users with fake news in order to influence the outcome of a election", that's one of the points Facebook raised themselves around that time, were very adamant they are working on fixing it and will fix it. They deployed various mechanisms, including flagging certain news and linking to factcheckers (IIRC). Long story short, that was one of the very few things where Facebook and the journalists (and to large extent the political class) are in agreement, and working together to sort out.