6 ms·

Interesting spin from the NYTimes ("Facebook Loses Top Executives, Including Chris Cox"[0]): "The departures follow two years of scandals for Facebook around d

Interesting spin from the NYTimes ("Facebook Loses Top Executives, Including Chris Cox"[0]): "The departures follow two years of scandals for Facebook around data privacy and disinformation. The issues have buffeted the Silicon Valley company, causing internal turmoil and a redirection in strategy." [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/14/technology/facebook-chris-cox.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/14/technology/facebook-chris...

annadane 8y ago
This is what pisses me off. I'm more than willing to criticize Facebook when they deserve it but IMO the media blitzkrieg has said more about the media than Facebook. Not that FB hasn't done scummy things but my faith in the whole attack angle has been reduced
- chc 8y ago
  They leaked tens of millions of people's personal information to third parties without so much as notifying them. There were congressional hearings about their privacy violations. Facebook is very publicly pivoting to emphasize personal privacy much more than they have before. It seems like a pretty legitimate bit of context more than an attack.
  - lph 8y ago
    They’re very publicly pivoting to /claiming/ to take privacy seriously. I don’t know why anyone would believe them, given their track record, continued willful ignorance about the actual definition of privacy, and vested interest in mining every detail about their users to achieve better ad targeting.
- JeremyBanks 8y ago
  Facebook has been consistently and intentionally abusive of their users since its founding. The media isn't being too aggressive now: they've been too lenient for the previous decade. The outrage has finally caught up with the outrageous reality.
- untog 8y ago
  Why? What level of criticism is acceptable, and what level is not, and why? This is something I've not really been able to understand about those who defend Facebook against these "attacks". Nothing reported (AFAIK) has been untrue. Facebook is one of the richest and most culturally central companies of the 21st century. It seems fair game to examine what they do.
  - o10449366 8y ago
    Significant portions of NYT's reporting have been highly misleading, to the extent that it's difficult to conclude it wasn't intentional. "Facebook allowed Microsoft’s Bing search engine to see the names of virtually all Facebook users’ friends without consent, the records show, and gave Netflix and Spotify the ability to read Facebook users’ private messages." [0] Netflix and Spotify have Messenger plugins that allow you to share movie trailers and songs from directly within the Messenger app. Spotify's desktop app also used to connect with Messenger to enable similar functionality. NYT equated having standard "read/write" permissions necessary for basic app functionality with Netflix and Spotify being able to access, store, and modify all of your private messages. Read the comments on that article and any prior discussion of it on the internet and you'll see that many technology illiterate people misinterpreted what that meant. Also, it's fair game to examine what Facebook has been doing, but it's also fair game to examine what NYT's motives are for scrutinizing them so closely. When Google, Twitter, Equifax, and others have been largely ignored one naturally begins to wonder if there's an underlying agenda at play. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/18/technology/facebook-privacy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/18/technology/facebook-priva...
    - noelsusman 8y ago
      I'm confused. Netflix and Spotify did have the ability to read anyone's private messages. That's what they reported, and as far as I know none of the involved parties disputed that. The point isn't that somebody at Spotify was sitting there reading everyone's messages. The point is that they could have been doing that, and Facebook had nothing in place to know if they were doing that, and none of the users sharing a song with friends would think that doing so would enable them to do that, and such extensive privileges were not necessary to implement a simple sharing feature.
- jinushaun 8y ago
  What's your specific issue in media coverage of Facebook? Seems like they do this to themselves.
- gabbygab 8y ago
  It's about the media and political actors getting control over the lucrative and politically important social media platforms. It's not just facebook. Google, Twitter and Reddit have also faced tremendous media pressure. Facebook gets most of the attention because they are by far the largest social media player. For all the talk about how powerful tech companies are, traditional media is proving they are no slouches. Of course traditional media has far greater political backing so you could say they have an unfair advantage. All we can do is have ourselves some popcorn and watch the entertainment. One thing that perplexes me is why the social media companies don't band together and help each other from these politically motivated attacks. There is strength in numbers and they'd be able to fend off these attacks better if they acted together. Maybe the tech environment is just too competitive for that?
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
dang 8y ago
I've tentatively switched to that URL from https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2019/03/a-note-from-mark-zuckerberg/ https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2019/03/a-note-from-mark-zucker.... If someone can suggest a better article, we'll happily change it again. It's just that generally, press releases don't make for great HN stories. This is a bit of an exception to the original-sources rule in the site guidelines.
o10449366 8y ago
Both WAPO and NYT have a clear editorial and political agenda against Facebook. To add two datapoints to your observation above: "Facebook’s top executive in charge of all products, Chris Cox, the longtime confidant of chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, is leaving the company, the highest-level departure at the social media giant amid nearly two years of sustained crises." (WAPO) [1] "Two Facebook Inc. senior executives said Thursday that they would leave the company—surprise departures that come days after CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced a major shift in direction for the company." (WSJ) [2] [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/03/14/facebook-says-its-top-product-executive-chris-cox-is-leaving-highest-level-departure-years https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/03/14/faceboo... [2] https://www.wsj.com/articles/two-top-facebook-executives-leaving-company-11552594466 https://www.wsj.com/articles/two-top-facebook-executives-lea...
- untog 8y ago
  > Over the past two years they've published ~14,000 articles each on FB That would mean publishing around 19 articles a day. So, uh, [citation needed]. I'd say that both WaPo and NYT have a clear editorial and political agenda of questioning those with/in power. Silicon Valley companies like Facebook and Google (who have had their own fair share of bad coverage) are enormously powerful, rich companies that own a huge amount of data about all of us. It's only right that they are held to account when they do things with that data that users don't want. It's something Wall Street banks and oil companies have had to bear for a long time.
  - o10449366 8y ago
    I rechecked my methodology for those estimates after your comment and have now retracted them for being inaccurate. Thank you for the reality check. Based on an unscientific site-limited Google search of each publication, it looks like all 3 have published ~2,000 articles directly on Facebook within the past 2 years (since March 2017). Many of the WSJ articles are with respect to its business prospects while both the NYT and WAPO feature many anti-FB columns and opinion pieces. I still maintain that NYT in particular has a strong editorial bias against FB and an underlying agenda, but I should definitely do a deeper analysis to support my claim.

annadane 8y ago

This is what pisses me off. I'm more than willing to criticize Facebook when they deserve it but IMO the media blitzkrieg has said more about the media than Facebook. Not that FB hasn't done scummy things but my faith in the whole attack angle has been reduced

chc 8y ago
They leaked tens of millions of people's personal information to third parties without so much as notifying them. There were congressional hearings about their privacy violations. Facebook is very publicly pivoting to emphasize personal privacy much more than they have before. It seems like a pretty legitimate bit of context more than an attack.
- lph 8y ago
  They’re very publicly pivoting to /claiming/ to take privacy seriously. I don’t know why anyone would believe them, given their track record, continued willful ignorance about the actual definition of privacy, and vested interest in mining every detail about their users to achieve better ad targeting.
JeremyBanks 8y ago
Facebook has been consistently and intentionally abusive of their users since its founding. The media isn't being too aggressive now: they've been too lenient for the previous decade. The outrage has finally caught up with the outrageous reality.
untog 8y ago
Why? What level of criticism is acceptable, and what level is not, and why? This is something I've not really been able to understand about those who defend Facebook against these "attacks". Nothing reported (AFAIK) has been untrue. Facebook is one of the richest and most culturally central companies of the 21st century. It seems fair game to examine what they do.
- o10449366 8y ago
  Significant portions of NYT's reporting have been highly misleading, to the extent that it's difficult to conclude it wasn't intentional. "Facebook allowed Microsoft’s Bing search engine to see the names of virtually all Facebook users’ friends without consent, the records show, and gave Netflix and Spotify the ability to read Facebook users’ private messages." [0] Netflix and Spotify have Messenger plugins that allow you to share movie trailers and songs from directly within the Messenger app. Spotify's desktop app also used to connect with Messenger to enable similar functionality. NYT equated having standard "read/write" permissions necessary for basic app functionality with Netflix and Spotify being able to access, store, and modify all of your private messages. Read the comments on that article and any prior discussion of it on the internet and you'll see that many technology illiterate people misinterpreted what that meant. Also, it's fair game to examine what Facebook has been doing, but it's also fair game to examine what NYT's motives are for scrutinizing them so closely. When Google, Twitter, Equifax, and others have been largely ignored one naturally begins to wonder if there's an underlying agenda at play. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/18/technology/facebook-privacy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/18/technology/facebook-priva...
  - noelsusman 8y ago
    I'm confused. Netflix and Spotify did have the ability to read anyone's private messages. That's what they reported, and as far as I know none of the involved parties disputed that. The point isn't that somebody at Spotify was sitting there reading everyone's messages. The point is that they could have been doing that, and Facebook had nothing in place to know if they were doing that, and none of the users sharing a song with friends would think that doing so would enable them to do that, and such extensive privileges were not necessary to implement a simple sharing feature.
jinushaun 8y ago
What's your specific issue in media coverage of Facebook? Seems like they do this to themselves.
gabbygab 8y ago
It's about the media and political actors getting control over the lucrative and politically important social media platforms. It's not just facebook. Google, Twitter and Reddit have also faced tremendous media pressure. Facebook gets most of the attention because they are by far the largest social media player. For all the talk about how powerful tech companies are, traditional media is proving they are no slouches. Of course traditional media has far greater political backing so you could say they have an unfair advantage. All we can do is have ourselves some popcorn and watch the entertainment. One thing that perplexes me is why the social media companies don't band together and help each other from these politically motivated attacks. There is strength in numbers and they'd be able to fend off these attacks better if they acted together. Maybe the tech environment is just too competitive for that?

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

dang 8y ago

I've tentatively switched to that URL from https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2019/03/a-note-from-mark-zuckerberg/ https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2019/03/a-note-from-mark-zucker.... If someone can suggest a better article, we'll happily change it again. It's just that generally, press releases don't make for great HN stories. This is a bit of an exception to the original-sources rule in the site guidelines.

o10449366 8y ago

Both WAPO and NYT have a clear editorial and political agenda against Facebook. To add two datapoints to your observation above: "Facebook’s top executive in charge of all products, Chris Cox, the longtime confidant of chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, is leaving the company, the highest-level departure at the social media giant amid nearly two years of sustained crises." (WAPO) [1] "Two Facebook Inc. senior executives said Thursday that they would leave the company—surprise departures that come days after CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced a major shift in direction for the company." (WSJ) [2] [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/03/14/facebook-says-its-top-product-executive-chris-cox-is-leaving-highest-level-departure-years https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/03/14/faceboo... [2] https://www.wsj.com/articles/two-top-facebook-executives-leaving-company-11552594466 https://www.wsj.com/articles/two-top-facebook-executives-lea...

untog 8y ago
> Over the past two years they've published ~14,000 articles each on FB That would mean publishing around 19 articles a day. So, uh, [citation needed]. I'd say that both WaPo and NYT have a clear editorial and political agenda of questioning those with/in power. Silicon Valley companies like Facebook and Google (who have had their own fair share of bad coverage) are enormously powerful, rich companies that own a huge amount of data about all of us. It's only right that they are held to account when they do things with that data that users don't want. It's something Wall Street banks and oil companies have had to bear for a long time.
- o10449366 8y ago
  I rechecked my methodology for those estimates after your comment and have now retracted them for being inaccurate. Thank you for the reality check. Based on an unscientific site-limited Google search of each publication, it looks like all 3 have published ~2,000 articles directly on Facebook within the past 2 years (since March 2017). Many of the WSJ articles are with respect to its business prospects while both the NYT and WAPO feature many anti-FB columns and opinion pieces. I still maintain that NYT in particular has a strong editorial bias against FB and an underlying agenda, but I should definitely do a deeper analysis to support my claim.