4 ms·

Why Mark Zuckerberg's Writing Style Erodes Our Trust in Facebook

70 points by wwwdonohue 8y ago

knolan 8y ago
There is no trust to erode.
- ori_b 8y ago
  And yet, people keep giving them data. There's clearly still trust, and the faster it erodes, the better.
  - knolan 8y ago
    I see it being somewhat like McDonalds. You don’t trust them to care about your health but you like eating there because you don’t value your health all that either. At least not enough to think it’s doing any harm. A lot of people shrug at the idea of Facebook and Google vacuuming up all their data. They don’t think there’s anything about them and their data that’s all that interesting.
Despegar 8y ago
Does anyone actually still read Facebook's PR blog posts responding to the latest crisis? I can't think of a more pointless exercise. What I actually look forward to reading after every Facebook crisis is the former Facebook employees on Twitter who rush to their defense every time. This one made me lol irl: https://twitter.com/alexstamos/status/1091099413366403072 https://twitter.com/alexstamos/status/1091099413366403072
darkpuma 8y ago
Wasn't he getting coached to make himself less awkward in social situations and to come off less sociopathic? I vaguely remember reading an article a few years ago about him recognizing this personal shortcoming and seeking help (good for him!) I hope he got a refund.
- oh_sigh 8y ago
  You might be thinking of Linus Torvalds.
  - darkpuma 8y ago
    No no, this was many years ago, not months ago. I've found one of the articles I was thinking of from 2008: https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB120465155439210627 https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB120465155439210627 Relevant quotes since it's behind the paywall: > "To season himself, Mr. Zuckerberg in recent years has reached out to high-profile mentors like Mr. McNamee and Don Graham, CEO of the Washington Post Co. Last year, Facebook brought in trainers including Bill Clinton's former speaking coach to help the CEO improve his speaking style." > "Mr. Zuckerberg sought seasoned help. He brought on Messrs. Yu and Palihapitiya. Michael Sheehan, a communications coach who has advised Mr. Clinton, came in to teach the CEO how to improve his wooden image, in part by coaching him in public speaking." I also recall articles about Zuckerberg hiring personality coaches coming out after The Social Network (2010) was released. There has been some revisionist history on HN recently that claims Zuckerberg's PR problems only started in the aftermath of 2016, but he's been in the hot-seat for a bit over a decade now.
iscrewyou 8y ago
Every time I read or hear something he has to say, I keep thinking to myself: “You Keep Using That Word, I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means” He’s simply disconnected from the world. Still stuck in 2007 with his goals for Facebook and how he wants it to change the world. It has changed the world, but a lot of of the change isn’t pretty.
isoskeles 8y ago
Did whoever write this read some article where words from the Federal Reserve were over-analyzed (e.g. "patience") and think that this model also applies to Zuckerberg's Facebook posts? Because it doesn't. There are almost no real world ramifications from the words he writes on Facebook except for articles like this and movement of FB stock price. I also don't understand the direct contradiction between the ideas between #1 and #2 in this article. How does this get past editing, like I'm supposed to forget you just told me in #1 that Zuckerberg shifts blame and then in #2 there's a highlighted quote where he accepts blame? I hate Facebook either way, but Mark Zuckerberg has nothing to do with it. You're missing the boat if you equate Facebook and Zuckerberg and think that by attacking Mark Zuckerberg you're somehow fighting against the bad aspects of Facebook. Sure, Mark Zuckerberg embodies Facebook in many ways. But if he were to be ousted, I don't care if you brought Gandhi back from the dead and made him CEO of Facebook, Facebook will still be terrible. The platform and how people relate to other people on it will still be, net, detrimental to society.
- pdonis 8y ago
  I agree that enough other people have drunk the Facebook kool-aid by now that even if Zuckerberg were ousted, Facebook would still pursue basically the same goals and would still be net detrimental to society. However, Zuckerberg is the one who made the kool-aid in the first place, so I don't think you can say he has nothing to do with it.
  - chrischen 8y ago
    For most companies it transcends any single individual, but for facebook mr. Zuckerberg has basically complete control of the board and the conpany. Even if he lets facebook be the way it is, he has the power to change it single-handidly.
  - dylan604 8y ago
    Is Zuckerberg the chicken or the egg? Other sites existed before FB, but FB seemed to get the right formula. As for the evil use of the data captured by/about its users (and even more for its capturing data of non-users), it again seems to be the one that "got it right" first as far as monetizing it goes. This is from the social media view point. This is just from the FB/Zuck perspective. Google is also in different discussion with how it uses Chrome/G Suite apps.
quacktalk 8y ago
Ha! Fuck facebook. Everything that company pushes is newspeak and doublethink. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.
willart4food 8y ago
Trust is a scarce currency.
willart4food 8y ago
"TRUST" is a scarce currency
peter_vukovic 8y ago
The post is a clever implementation of the clickbait technique with a sole aim of bringing more startup CEOs and executives to visit Slab’s website and discover their product in the process. The arguments presented in the article are weak and show no proof of actual trust erosion as a result of Zuckerberg’s writing style, only a set of arbitrary conclusions on how certain words and phrases may appear to some people. This hardly belongs on HN.
- carbocation 8y ago
  Paul Graham has referred to ads like this as "submarines." http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
  - CPLX 8y ago
    No, he didn't. He's talking about articles in editorial media that were pitched by publicists. This is a content marketing article published by the company itself to promote themselves. Also nobody on the planet calls stories with marketing value submarines, except the legions of HN posters compelled to post this link every day or two for some reason.
    - PhasmaFelis 8y ago
      > Also nobody on the planet calls stories with marketing value submarines, except the legions of HN posters compelled to post this link every day or two for some reason. This seems like a silly argument even if the article in question is not actually a submarine.
- gist 8y ago
  Agree. Not even sure in any way how it matters to FB what anyone who writes about FB thinks about how Zuckerberg communicates or why he says what he does. 'Your Uncle' and 'Your Sister' who use facebook don't care or read what Zuckerberg says. They are looking for pictures on what the family and friends are doing. Likewise Zuckerberg's goal is to simply appeal to care and the actual words that he uses (like any PR release) just need to check off a box of respect in some way. No more and no less. Most fun part of the writing is when it's is mentioned that Zuckerberg studied and was a fan as a student at Harvard 'the classics'. Sure that which happened 15 years ago is enough to make you an expert in a way to actually effectively use that type of information.
qwagmeyer 8y ago
Yes, it’s the writing style that’s the problem. Maybe if Mark Zuckerberg changed his writing style, everything would be okay, and we wouldn’t notice so many problems.
tomphoolery 8y ago
Sorry this is just an old person riffing on the way people younger than him talk. I'd downvote if I could, but HN doesn't let me have nice things.
- PhasmaFelis 8y ago
  No regular users get to downvote articles, as far as I'm aware.
yellowapple 8y ago
Re: #3, what exactly is inherently wrong with changing priorities when something happens to warrant them changing? If my primary focus for the year was "get into shape", and then my house burns down, should my primary focus for the year not shift to "find a new home"?
CalChris 8y ago
I like the article but the writer really shouldn't blame the false dilemma on classicists. Rhetoric is a different subject entirely. However, pointing out that when the reader picks up on the trope they lose faith in the writer, that was spot on.
deanjones 8y ago
Well, it's either his writing style, or all the horrible sh*t his company did.
britch 8y ago
God it frustrates me when Zuckerberg/Facebook/Twitter attack "gate-keepers" like they aren't ones. What do you call determining what appears in a feed? Even if they're using an algorithm trained on user data, they're still selecting who to highlight and what matters.

70 points by wwwdonohue 8y ago

knolan 8y ago

There is no trust to erode.

ori_b 8y ago
And yet, people keep giving them data. There's clearly still trust, and the faster it erodes, the better.
- knolan 8y ago
  I see it being somewhat like McDonalds. You don’t trust them to care about your health but you like eating there because you don’t value your health all that either. At least not enough to think it’s doing any harm. A lot of people shrug at the idea of Facebook and Google vacuuming up all their data. They don’t think there’s anything about them and their data that’s all that interesting.

Despegar 8y ago

Does anyone actually still read Facebook's PR blog posts responding to the latest crisis? I can't think of a more pointless exercise. What I actually look forward to reading after every Facebook crisis is the former Facebook employees on Twitter who rush to their defense every time. This one made me lol irl: https://twitter.com/alexstamos/status/1091099413366403072 https://twitter.com/alexstamos/status/1091099413366403072

darkpuma 8y ago

Wasn't he getting coached to make himself less awkward in social situations and to come off less sociopathic? I vaguely remember reading an article a few years ago about him recognizing this personal shortcoming and seeking help (good for him!) I hope he got a refund.

oh_sigh 8y ago
You might be thinking of Linus Torvalds.
- darkpuma 8y ago
  No no, this was many years ago, not months ago. I've found one of the articles I was thinking of from 2008: https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB120465155439210627 https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB120465155439210627 Relevant quotes since it's behind the paywall: > "To season himself, Mr. Zuckerberg in recent years has reached out to high-profile mentors like Mr. McNamee and Don Graham, CEO of the Washington Post Co. Last year, Facebook brought in trainers including Bill Clinton's former speaking coach to help the CEO improve his speaking style." > "Mr. Zuckerberg sought seasoned help. He brought on Messrs. Yu and Palihapitiya. Michael Sheehan, a communications coach who has advised Mr. Clinton, came in to teach the CEO how to improve his wooden image, in part by coaching him in public speaking." I also recall articles about Zuckerberg hiring personality coaches coming out after The Social Network (2010) was released. There has been some revisionist history on HN recently that claims Zuckerberg's PR problems only started in the aftermath of 2016, but he's been in the hot-seat for a bit over a decade now.

iscrewyou 8y ago

Every time I read or hear something he has to say, I keep thinking to myself: “You Keep Using That Word, I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means” He’s simply disconnected from the world. Still stuck in 2007 with his goals for Facebook and how he wants it to change the world. It has changed the world, but a lot of of the change isn’t pretty.

isoskeles 8y ago

Did whoever write this read some article where words from the Federal Reserve were over-analyzed (e.g. "patience") and think that this model also applies to Zuckerberg's Facebook posts? Because it doesn't. There are almost no real world ramifications from the words he writes on Facebook except for articles like this and movement of FB stock price. I also don't understand the direct contradiction between the ideas between #1 and #2 in this article. How does this get past editing, like I'm supposed to forget you just told me in #1 that Zuckerberg shifts blame and then in #2 there's a highlighted quote where he accepts blame? I hate Facebook either way, but Mark Zuckerberg has nothing to do with it. You're missing the boat if you equate Facebook and Zuckerberg and think that by attacking Mark Zuckerberg you're somehow fighting against the bad aspects of Facebook. Sure, Mark Zuckerberg embodies Facebook in many ways. But if he were to be ousted, I don't care if you brought Gandhi back from the dead and made him CEO of Facebook, Facebook will still be terrible. The platform and how people relate to other people on it will still be, net, detrimental to society.

pdonis 8y ago
I agree that enough other people have drunk the Facebook kool-aid by now that even if Zuckerberg were ousted, Facebook would still pursue basically the same goals and would still be net detrimental to society. However, Zuckerberg is the one who made the kool-aid in the first place, so I don't think you can say he has nothing to do with it.
- chrischen 8y ago
  For most companies it transcends any single individual, but for facebook mr. Zuckerberg has basically complete control of the board and the conpany. Even if he lets facebook be the way it is, he has the power to change it single-handidly.
- dylan604 8y ago
  Is Zuckerberg the chicken or the egg? Other sites existed before FB, but FB seemed to get the right formula. As for the evil use of the data captured by/about its users (and even more for its capturing data of non-users), it again seems to be the one that "got it right" first as far as monetizing it goes. This is from the social media view point. This is just from the FB/Zuck perspective. Google is also in different discussion with how it uses Chrome/G Suite apps.

quacktalk 8y ago

Ha! Fuck facebook. Everything that company pushes is newspeak and doublethink. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

willart4food 8y ago

Trust is a scarce currency.

willart4food 8y ago

"TRUST" is a scarce currency

peter_vukovic 8y ago

The post is a clever implementation of the clickbait technique with a sole aim of bringing more startup CEOs and executives to visit Slab’s website and discover their product in the process. The arguments presented in the article are weak and show no proof of actual trust erosion as a result of Zuckerberg’s writing style, only a set of arbitrary conclusions on how certain words and phrases may appear to some people. This hardly belongs on HN.

carbocation 8y ago
Paul Graham has referred to ads like this as "submarines." http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
- CPLX 8y ago
  No, he didn't. He's talking about articles in editorial media that were pitched by publicists. This is a content marketing article published by the company itself to promote themselves. Also nobody on the planet calls stories with marketing value submarines, except the legions of HN posters compelled to post this link every day or two for some reason.
  - PhasmaFelis 8y ago
    > Also nobody on the planet calls stories with marketing value submarines, except the legions of HN posters compelled to post this link every day or two for some reason. This seems like a silly argument even if the article in question is not actually a submarine.
gist 8y ago
Agree. Not even sure in any way how it matters to FB what anyone who writes about FB thinks about how Zuckerberg communicates or why he says what he does. 'Your Uncle' and 'Your Sister' who use facebook don't care or read what Zuckerberg says. They are looking for pictures on what the family and friends are doing. Likewise Zuckerberg's goal is to simply appeal to care and the actual words that he uses (like any PR release) just need to check off a box of respect in some way. No more and no less. Most fun part of the writing is when it's is mentioned that Zuckerberg studied and was a fan as a student at Harvard 'the classics'. Sure that which happened 15 years ago is enough to make you an expert in a way to actually effectively use that type of information.

qwagmeyer 8y ago

Yes, it’s the writing style that’s the problem. Maybe if Mark Zuckerberg changed his writing style, everything would be okay, and we wouldn’t notice so many problems.

tomphoolery 8y ago

Sorry this is just an old person riffing on the way people younger than him talk. I'd downvote if I could, but HN doesn't let me have nice things.

PhasmaFelis 8y ago
No regular users get to downvote articles, as far as I'm aware.

yellowapple 8y ago

Re: #3, what exactly is inherently wrong with changing priorities when something happens to warrant them changing? If my primary focus for the year was "get into shape", and then my house burns down, should my primary focus for the year not shift to "find a new home"?

CalChris 8y ago

I like the article but the writer really shouldn't blame the false dilemma on classicists. Rhetoric is a different subject entirely. However, pointing out that when the reader picks up on the trope they lose faith in the writer, that was spot on.

deanjones 8y ago

Well, it's either his writing style, or all the horrible sh*t his company did.

britch 8y ago

God it frustrates me when Zuckerberg/Facebook/Twitter attack "gate-keepers" like they aren't ones. What do you call determining what appears in a feed? Even if they're using an algorithm trained on user data, they're still selecting who to highlight and what matters.