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"Zuckerberg's vision of Facebook as a good thing for the world was a lie" - That is such a broad generalization. In the developing world where I live Facebook g

by passn 8y ago

"Zuckerberg's vision of Facebook as a good thing for the world was a lie" - That is such a broad generalization. In the developing world where I live Facebook gives me the opportunity to maintain contact with my family who live on the other side of the world, as I walk the streets of São Paulo, for free. There are hundreds of millions of others like me who keep in contact with their family because of Facebook (and the companies they own). The alternative (cel phone calls and sms) is literally an inch away on our smartphone, but it is such bad quality and so expensive its unusable. For all of us, Facebook is definitely a good thing.

civility 8y ago
> Facebook gives me the opportunity to maintain contact with my family who live on the other side of the world, as I walk the streets of São Paulo, for free. [...] The alternative (cel phone calls and sms) I use email to keep in contact with my family. CC everyone, then reply all. No Facebook required.
- joe_the_user 8y ago
  Well, as I far as I can tell, a significant portion of negative qualities attributed to Facebook also can be, have been, attributed to email. It seems like the situation of Facebook-anger today involves some people looking at particular interface of details that allegedly make Facebook in particular "more addictive" than email (or whatever unspecified social activity) but with this group with this narrow critique being joined by those with a broader critique of social media that essentially calls for nothing but face-to-face contact. We face a difficult question of "at what point is a communication medium a tool of its users and at what point does a communication medium merely act on the users without them being truly conscious agents". I don't think we can really address this question by demonizing Facebook (the problem has existed since the dawn of mass media, with nearly all these media forms accused of doing terrible things and with the accusations at least have some support). Just for example, Zuckerberg may indeed have made some terrible choices but Facebook seems to signal a desire to take on this difficult question.
  - civility 8y ago
    > Well, as I far as I can tell, a significant portion of negative qualities attributed to Facebook also can be, have been, attributed to email. I disagree, for me this isn't about being addictive. Email doesn't quietly let websites I visit add themselves to my apps list and periodically reset/redefine my permissions so everyone can see my (and my friend's/family's) personal information. If Facebook was just addictive I would still use it (I ditched it over 10 years ago).
- msie 8y ago
  Facebook messaging has less support issues than email plus ...emojis.
  - civility 8y ago
    Support issues with email? Everyone I know can handle email just fine. I consider the lack of emojis a bonus. Old school smileys are just fine by me. :-) (Actually, emojis work just fine with gmail, but I won't be embracing them any time soon)
    - planb 8y ago
      > Everyone I know can handle email just fine. Then you don't know "normal" people. Try managing a school mailing list for a while to learn all the different ways email fails for the average user.
- lmm 8y ago
  Please stop CCing me about that party that I can't make. I don't need to know who's bringing what, I already know that I can't make it and hearing about all the details over and over again is just going to make me sad. Also you missed my sister off the last reply, please re-add her and resend your message, again. But without me in the CC list.
PunchTornado 8y ago
exactly, plus for my elderly parents facebook has opened another world. Internet and google is too complex for them.
madeofpalk 8y ago
> In the developing world where I live Facebook gives me the opportunity to maintain contact with my family who live on the other side of the world, as I walk the streets of São Paulo, for free. Cool. In other developing countries it lead to a massacre.
- mjfl 8y ago
  You're deranged.
  - Zhyl 8y ago
    It's actually well documented that Facebook enabled and inflamed the Rhingya genocide in Myanmar. Here is an example article but there are many more: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/03/facebook-role-rohingya-genocide-180313161609822.html https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/03/facebook-role-rohingy...
    - o10449366 8y ago
      Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and Whatsapp have all been (and continue to be) exploited to spread messages of hate and ignorance. It seems strange to me that Facebook is coming under so much criticism relative to the other platforms when, from my perspective, they've also been the most proactive about trying to address these issues. I haven't heard anything from Twitter recently regarding trying to minimize hate speech and ignorance on its platform (and its the worst service for divisiveness, in my opinion). Google only just recently demonetized anti-Semitic and anti-vax material on YouTube and only after significant backlash from its advertisers (not its users who have been calling for a response for years). Why is this?
    - badfrog 8y ago
      That article doesn't really say what Facebook's "role" was. The closest thing is this: > "It was used to convey public messages but we know that the ultranationalist Buddhists have their own Facebooks and are really inciting a lot of violence and a lot of hatred against the Rohingya or other ethnic minorities," she said. It basically sounds like the bad guys were using Facebook groups to communicate. They could have done the same thing on IRC or anywhere else on the internet.
laurex 8y ago
Purely self-serving question, but have you tried Marco Polo?
TheTruth321 8y ago
STFU ... nobody is saying that there are no positive aspects to FB ... but it still has an underlying cancer to it which isn't being treated by the C-Suite ... and, in fact, they're feeding it.
en-us 8y ago
That's all fine until some special interest with money wants to launch a targeted propaganda campaign in your country. That can and has lead to effects ranging from detrimental government policy to outright genocide. Nobody argues that Facebook keeping families in touch is a bad thing. It's the rest of it - the collecting and selling of data, the paid targeted propaganda campaigns, the intentional manipulation of user emotion - that people say is bad. But if you don't believe the number of Facebook employees who have quit in protest, even Chris Cox, then I guess my comment here isn't going to persuade you.
- resters 8y ago
  Ironically the fear-mongering about the propaganda campaign you are describing is intended to turn Facebook into an instrument of US government propaganda. Zuckerberg has been resisting that, which is why Facebook is being attacked from all sides at the moment.
  - en-us 8y ago
    I've been saying that Facebook would do these things since around 2008. And now you're here telling me I'm part of some fear mongering campaing orchestrated by the US government. That's beyond absurd.
    - artificial 8y ago
      For the record I didn't infer that from their response. There was no reference to you being part of a fear mongering campaign, unless the comment was edited.
    - resters 8y ago
      My comment was not directed at you personally or at your past views on the subject.
  - Spooky23 8y ago
    The US government has unlimited resources. If they want to use Facebook as a propaganda platform, they would do so, and Facebook would happily accept their cash. The Russian campaign that you’re dismissive of is consistent with the heritage of Russian intelligence services. Lenin’s newspaper was called “Iskra” (spark) in the context of “from a spark a fire will flare up.” The army of trolls is there to foment dissent, motivate nutcases on the right and left and create scenarios difficult for the battleship that is American democracy to navigate. Facebook is being attacked because it’s controlled with an iron fist by a guy who is over his head and possess extreme power without the foresight and vision to be a steward of it or the humility to delegate it. The company is harming the republic and the world.
koolba 8y ago
There’s nothing FB specific about cheap communications over the internet. We had this years before FB and we’ll have it long after it’s gone.
CharlesW 8y ago
> For all of us, Facebook is definitely a good thing. And also a bad thing, is a major theme of the parent comment you replied to. "Lie" is a stark word for what Zuck is doing, but it's not wrong assuming he understands the dark side of his monster. But he also may not know if he's actively deluding himself, and eliminating everyone around him that doesn't support that pretend worldview.
- rhizome 8y ago
  "Evil, or insane?" is a dilemma with a poor history. Once you descend to that standard it's better just to throw the whole thing out and start over. They can't get themselves out of this situation with the same brains that got them into it.
- mirimir 8y ago
  As much as I distrust his motives, there is this in TFA: > Now, Mr. Zuckerberg is barreling ahead with his shift to focus Facebook on private messaging and away from public broadcasting, even if it means shedding some of his top lieutenants. That sounds a lot like "understand[ing] the dark side of his monster". Maybe an extreme overreaction, it's true. But a clear acknowledgment that "sharing will make the world a better place" is rather too idealistic. Edit: spelling
  - habeebtc 8y ago
    Wasn't it the culture he built which led to the many iterations of permissions which were intentionally confusing in order to get you to share everything more publicly than you thought you were? See: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/34825225/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets/t/privacy-dead-facebook-get-over-it/ http://www.nbcnews.com/id/34825225/ns/technology_and_science...
    - mirimir 8y ago
      Yes, I think so too. But it sounds like he's renounced that. And of course, it could be bullshit to deflect criticism. Even so, I've done lots of work with est / Landmark Education, and some with Lifespring, Tony Robbins and NLP. So I'm familiar with concepts of building relationships with family and friends, and broader social networking and community building. And a major aspect of that it honesty and open sharing, both 1:1 and in groups. it helps us see how much we're all the same, and builds empathy and love. So when he talks about social hacking through sharing and strengthening relationships, I hear it through those filters. But I also hear his cynical comments about oversharing fools that sucks into Facebook. so anyway, I'm curious where this will go. Facebook now allows signups via Tor, apparently with no texted authentication. And if he creates a privacy-frirndly version that emphasiuzes P2P communuication, that woutld be very cool.
ses1984 8y ago
The alternative to Facebook isn't SMS and phone calls.
eastendguy 8y ago
We use Skype for the same purpose. It has all the PROs but none of the negatives. Same is true for any other free/freemium chat or communication tool.
eeeeeeeeeeeee 8y ago
And yours is a broad generalization, too, about the impact Facebook has on society. You cheer all the good and mention none of the negative consequences of this model. Google also makes much about the internet less frustrating and easier for novices, but I also understand what is being given up in that compromise. I'm not even saying the "open" experience is not often without frustration. It absolutely is. Part of Facebook's success is connecting the frustrating parts about the internet and making it usable for normal people. But it's not like Facebook achieved some amazing technological advancement, nor is connecting the communication mechanisms of the world something that cannot be done without harvesting all of our personal data.
- joe_the_user 8y ago
  I don't think that "broad generalization" fairly characterizes the gp. They are saying they observe a lot of benefit in Facebook - if you read the post, that's all they say. Maybe Facebook also produces a lot of ill. Any claim about the final impact of Facebook is claim to be able to sum up the good and the evil FB does and get a definite value. That's a pretty challenging argument.
  - eeeeeeeeeeeee 8y ago
    Perhaps, but that person is responding to another about the impact Facebook has on society, good or bad, and that person only highlights the good essentially. I do think it's important to remember that Facebook is really doing nothing technologically amazing to allow that communication -- voice or text -- across geographical borders. The internet forms the basis of this core technology and Facebook simply made it easier to use. It's not like if Facebook goes away we're going to go back to SMS and expensive international phone calls. This method of communication was going to happen regardless. And there are clearly alternatives that exist today with different funding models.
    - volundr- 8y ago
      You say, "Facebook is really doing nothing technologically amazing to allow that communication," but you're kind of glossing over the immense complexity of building systems to support private and public communication (for free), and prevent an incredible variety and volume of abusive traffic. Can you name a single alternative at their scale with a business plan that is viable long term and not state run or state supported?
AsyncAwait 8y ago
Facebook is certainly not doing it out of the goodness of their heart. What they want to do is essentially exploit the fact that data is so expensive in so many countries, in order to make Facebook equal 'the internet' there. I understand somewhat why it's working, but still find it kind of depressing that it's being actively cheered on.
- jryle70 8y ago
  "not doing it out of the goodness of their heart" is such an irritating cliche that makes me cringe. FB was founded in 2004 as a crappy for-profit startup. How many for-profit businesses born out of the goodness of the owner's heart? Yet you seem to make it sound like it's FB's fault. > I understand somewhat why it's working, but still find it kind of depressing that it's being actively cheered on. Social network has enormous benefit because we human being are social animal. Simple as that. I'm surprised that you only "understand somewhat why it's working". Just because there are bad sides of it doesn't make it a mistake. In fact I firmly believe the benefits it brings to the society should be cheered on. Condemn FB for their shady tactics, but don't forget the positive effect. Get out of your bubble. Put yourself in regular people's shoes.
  - Jedi72 8y ago
    What is the point of this comment? You cant justify the bad by pointing at the good. Murderers dont get let off just because they do charity work. ExxonMobile are still responsible for supressing climate change awareness even though oil is a useful commodity.
  - artificial 8y ago
    >Condemn FB for their shady tactics, but don't forget the positive effect. Get out of your bubble. Put yourself in regular people's shoes. What are some of the benefits unique to FB? >Just because there are bad sides of it doesn't make it a mistake. Lists, can be used for good or bad. The only way to ensure they're not misused is to minimize or eliminate the data collected. The centralization is problematic, as always. Edit, formatting :/
  - 8y ago
3xblah 8y ago
This sounds to me like a description of the internet, not Facebook. I also think it is possible to enable others to make such cost-saving use of the internet without also doing the objectionable things Zuckerberg has done.
infinite8s 8y ago
The reason its free is also exactly the reason why people see it as bad - they aren't providing you a service, all your data is the service they are providing to others.
YeahSureWhyNot 8y ago
the way you keep up with your family across the globe using Facebook tools could be replicated easily with alternative tools, some of which were available for free even before the Facebook came out
mindgam3 8y ago
Fair point. To clarify, I’m not saying that Facebook can’t be used for good things. It’s a tool. The “knives can be used to chop vegetables or to kill people” analogy is a cliche at this point, but it’s still true. What I am calling out as a lie is the premise that Facebook’s guiding principle was “for the greater good” (which was how it was sold to us at the beginning, in sharp contrast to other corporate entities), as opposed to “win at all costs” (which it has demonstrated again and again, from the “move fast and break things” mantra to the infamous Boz memo). It’s fine if your corporate values are to win at all costs. I mean, it’s how most companies operate in our society. The problem is that they pretended to be something else, something inherently virtuous, and capitalized on this perception to win the early battles for top talent.
kakarot 8y ago
The fact that your mobile internet is so expensive and such bad quality, and Facebook traffic is prioritized and free, is not a coincidence. You are trading ease of use and convenience for the next generation's walled garden where Facebook sees and provides everything. Sure, the impact doesn't feel as such. And supporting Facebook's plan by talking to your relatives on it doesn't seem like a big deal. Neither did it feel like a big deal when the generations before us decided to sacrifice our entire planet for a few decades of economic advantage.
beatpanda 8y ago
> In the developing world where I live Facebook gives me the opportunity to maintain contact with my family who live on the other side of the world, as I walk the streets of São Paulo, for free. There were, before Facebook, hundreds of apps that did the same thing, and there still are.
JKCalhoun 8y ago
> "Zuckerberg's vision of Facebook as a good thing for the world was a lie" - That is such a broad generalization. In the developing world where I live Facebook gives me the opportunity to maintain contact with my family who live on the other side of the world, as I walk the streets of São Paulo, for free. Both can be true of course. Zuckerberg may well have been driven by a less than altruistic vision but nonetheless still enabled some to benefit from the service.
gran_colombia 8y ago
The chat and image service both have many alternatives. Many people do not use Facebook but still use these services.
g_delgado14 8y ago
> The alternative (cel phone calls and sms) is literally an inch away on our smartphone, but it is such bad quality and so expensive its unusable. For all of us, Facebook is definitely a good thing. I'm sorry but I don't buy this at all. There are so many alternatives to facebook that are also free (i.e. skype or email) beyond "cel phone calls and sms". You've simply become accustomed to the __convenience__ of facebook. That convenience has enabled you to interact with more people, and given you a sense of increased / improved connection with the world. But has the quality of those interactions improved? The world (including these execs) says no, on the contrary, interactions on facebook are oftentimes shallow and insignificant.
- stedaniels 8y ago
  Whilst I agree with your general thought, I don't think you realise that in certain regions Facebook subsidises it's data usage so it is 100% free whereas Skype and email cost data. I hope that helps you understand where the parent is coming from. Though I obviously know that Facebook is doing this for market share and not to be "good" to people.
achow 8y ago
Yep and keeping in touch with the flow of actual fake stories. These places FB is the internet and that has bad consequences for sure.
justanotherjoe 8y ago
When discussing the bad impacts of things like these, It's important to remember that we are under no impression that it is bad for everyone. But it is bad for SOME people. And that is enough. Some people will have their life ruined because of exploitative companies. Because their model promote unhealthy behavior that will consume their lives. Everyone knows that this is true. Some people out there are consuming too much time on facebook and having their live ruined as consequence. Just because it's not "everyone", or even a big percentage of the user, doesn't mean that we should be indifferent.
chrischen 8y ago
Actually this was possible already, and most of Facebook's primary features existed before Facebook. Facebook can really be described as the time wasting, addiction-inducing, feature-sets on top of standard social communication features, driven by their main goal of delivering and monetizing ads. Helping you communicate with your friends and family? That's just an ad vector. Recently my friend group switched over to a non-facebook-owned messaging service, and the hardest part was breaking old habits. The facebook specific features? Messenger actually had fewer features to help us communicate and more features designed to distract us and make us mindlessly consume.
- kayoone 8y ago
  In reality it's hard to get all of your friends and family to switch services, because all of their circles also have to change and most of them don't really care about the negatives of FB. In the end you end up with 10 different messengers. The big convenience about FB is that everyone is on it and you don't need their mobile phone number.
  - zaarn 8y ago
    Not everyone is on FB and FB has been bleeding users to instagram, whatsapp and other internet services for a while now. I could say the same thing about WhatsApp really; everyone is on it so why switch to Facebook?
    - lmm 8y ago
      To my mind the killer is event organisation. Put it this way: Meetup is apparently a viable business while charging money for a less-good version of something Facebook offers for free-at-point-of-use. No-one else really competes in that space at all (group chats aren't suitable because people who can't make a given event end up being spammed with all the details of it anyway, while people who join late miss out on details that were posted earlier).
      - zaarn 8y ago
saintPirelli 8y ago
The fact that Facebook as _a_ benefit, doesn't make Facebook _a good thing_ as a whole. Of course it's nice to stay in contact with your friends around the world for free, when just some 20 years ago this - if available to you at all - would have cost you loads of money. Without defaulting to listing what bad Facebook does: Do those benefits really justify all the negative impacts? I hardly think so.
lordfrikk 8y ago
For free? Oh, you're paying, a lot. Just not with money.
- kodablah 8y ago
  > a lot Subjective... many believe it's hardly anything (i.e. basically free to them, which is an ok belief).
zestyping 8y ago
WhatsApp does exactly that at scale; though it is owned by Facebook today, it didn't need Facebook to do that job extremely well, as it did, before Facebook bought it.
MadraRua 8y ago
If you can get online to use Facebook, you can use any other service - email for example, or chat, or just WhatsApp / Signal. If you have an internet connection in your pocket why use one companies walled garden? I know everyone seems to be using it, but look at what Facebook has done to public discourse in the developed world - alot of people in the US and Europe thought it was great at first too.

by passn 8y ago

civility 8y ago

> Facebook gives me the opportunity to maintain contact with my family who live on the other side of the world, as I walk the streets of São Paulo, for free. [...] The alternative (cel phone calls and sms) I use email to keep in contact with my family. CC everyone, then reply all. No Facebook required.

joe_the_user 8y ago
Well, as I far as I can tell, a significant portion of negative qualities attributed to Facebook also can be, have been, attributed to email. It seems like the situation of Facebook-anger today involves some people looking at particular interface of details that allegedly make Facebook in particular "more addictive" than email (or whatever unspecified social activity) but with this group with this narrow critique being joined by those with a broader critique of social media that essentially calls for nothing but face-to-face contact. We face a difficult question of "at what point is a communication medium a tool of its users and at what point does a communication medium merely act on the users without them being truly conscious agents". I don't think we can really address this question by demonizing Facebook (the problem has existed since the dawn of mass media, with nearly all these media forms accused of doing terrible things and with the accusations at least have some support). Just for example, Zuckerberg may indeed have made some terrible choices but Facebook seems to signal a desire to take on this difficult question.
- civility 8y ago
  > Well, as I far as I can tell, a significant portion of negative qualities attributed to Facebook also can be, have been, attributed to email. I disagree, for me this isn't about being addictive. Email doesn't quietly let websites I visit add themselves to my apps list and periodically reset/redefine my permissions so everyone can see my (and my friend's/family's) personal information. If Facebook was just addictive I would still use it (I ditched it over 10 years ago).
msie 8y ago
Facebook messaging has less support issues than email plus ...emojis.
- civility 8y ago
  Support issues with email? Everyone I know can handle email just fine. I consider the lack of emojis a bonus. Old school smileys are just fine by me. :-) (Actually, emojis work just fine with gmail, but I won't be embracing them any time soon)
  - planb 8y ago
    > Everyone I know can handle email just fine. Then you don't know "normal" people. Try managing a school mailing list for a while to learn all the different ways email fails for the average user.
lmm 8y ago
Please stop CCing me about that party that I can't make. I don't need to know who's bringing what, I already know that I can't make it and hearing about all the details over and over again is just going to make me sad. Also you missed my sister off the last reply, please re-add her and resend your message, again. But without me in the CC list.

PunchTornado 8y ago

exactly, plus for my elderly parents facebook has opened another world. Internet and google is too complex for them.

madeofpalk 8y ago

> In the developing world where I live Facebook gives me the opportunity to maintain contact with my family who live on the other side of the world, as I walk the streets of São Paulo, for free. Cool. In other developing countries it lead to a massacre.

mjfl 8y ago
You're deranged.
- Zhyl 8y ago
  It's actually well documented that Facebook enabled and inflamed the Rhingya genocide in Myanmar. Here is an example article but there are many more: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/03/facebook-role-rohingya-genocide-180313161609822.html https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/03/facebook-role-rohingy...
  - o10449366 8y ago
    Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and Whatsapp have all been (and continue to be) exploited to spread messages of hate and ignorance. It seems strange to me that Facebook is coming under so much criticism relative to the other platforms when, from my perspective, they've also been the most proactive about trying to address these issues. I haven't heard anything from Twitter recently regarding trying to minimize hate speech and ignorance on its platform (and its the worst service for divisiveness, in my opinion). Google only just recently demonetized anti-Semitic and anti-vax material on YouTube and only after significant backlash from its advertisers (not its users who have been calling for a response for years). Why is this?
  - badfrog 8y ago
    That article doesn't really say what Facebook's "role" was. The closest thing is this: > "It was used to convey public messages but we know that the ultranationalist Buddhists have their own Facebooks and are really inciting a lot of violence and a lot of hatred against the Rohingya or other ethnic minorities," she said. It basically sounds like the bad guys were using Facebook groups to communicate. They could have done the same thing on IRC or anywhere else on the internet.

laurex 8y ago

Purely self-serving question, but have you tried Marco Polo?

TheTruth321 8y ago

STFU ... nobody is saying that there are no positive aspects to FB ... but it still has an underlying cancer to it which isn't being treated by the C-Suite ... and, in fact, they're feeding it.

en-us 8y ago

That's all fine until some special interest with money wants to launch a targeted propaganda campaign in your country. That can and has lead to effects ranging from detrimental government policy to outright genocide. Nobody argues that Facebook keeping families in touch is a bad thing. It's the rest of it - the collecting and selling of data, the paid targeted propaganda campaigns, the intentional manipulation of user emotion - that people say is bad. But if you don't believe the number of Facebook employees who have quit in protest, even Chris Cox, then I guess my comment here isn't going to persuade you.

resters 8y ago
Ironically the fear-mongering about the propaganda campaign you are describing is intended to turn Facebook into an instrument of US government propaganda. Zuckerberg has been resisting that, which is why Facebook is being attacked from all sides at the moment.
- en-us 8y ago
  I've been saying that Facebook would do these things since around 2008. And now you're here telling me I'm part of some fear mongering campaing orchestrated by the US government. That's beyond absurd.
  - artificial 8y ago
    For the record I didn't infer that from their response. There was no reference to you being part of a fear mongering campaign, unless the comment was edited.
  - resters 8y ago
    My comment was not directed at you personally or at your past views on the subject.
- Spooky23 8y ago
  The US government has unlimited resources. If they want to use Facebook as a propaganda platform, they would do so, and Facebook would happily accept their cash. The Russian campaign that you’re dismissive of is consistent with the heritage of Russian intelligence services. Lenin’s newspaper was called “Iskra” (spark) in the context of “from a spark a fire will flare up.” The army of trolls is there to foment dissent, motivate nutcases on the right and left and create scenarios difficult for the battleship that is American democracy to navigate. Facebook is being attacked because it’s controlled with an iron fist by a guy who is over his head and possess extreme power without the foresight and vision to be a steward of it or the humility to delegate it. The company is harming the republic and the world.

koolba 8y ago

There’s nothing FB specific about cheap communications over the internet. We had this years before FB and we’ll have it long after it’s gone.

CharlesW 8y ago

> For all of us, Facebook is definitely a good thing. And also a bad thing, is a major theme of the parent comment you replied to. "Lie" is a stark word for what Zuck is doing, but it's not wrong assuming he understands the dark side of his monster. But he also may not know if he's actively deluding himself, and eliminating everyone around him that doesn't support that pretend worldview.

rhizome 8y ago
"Evil, or insane?" is a dilemma with a poor history. Once you descend to that standard it's better just to throw the whole thing out and start over. They can't get themselves out of this situation with the same brains that got them into it.
mirimir 8y ago
As much as I distrust his motives, there is this in TFA: > Now, Mr. Zuckerberg is barreling ahead with his shift to focus Facebook on private messaging and away from public broadcasting, even if it means shedding some of his top lieutenants. That sounds a lot like "understand[ing] the dark side of his monster". Maybe an extreme overreaction, it's true. But a clear acknowledgment that "sharing will make the world a better place" is rather too idealistic. Edit: spelling
- habeebtc 8y ago
  Wasn't it the culture he built which led to the many iterations of permissions which were intentionally confusing in order to get you to share everything more publicly than you thought you were? See: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/34825225/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets/t/privacy-dead-facebook-get-over-it/ http://www.nbcnews.com/id/34825225/ns/technology_and_science...
  - mirimir 8y ago
    Yes, I think so too. But it sounds like he's renounced that. And of course, it could be bullshit to deflect criticism. Even so, I've done lots of work with est / Landmark Education, and some with Lifespring, Tony Robbins and NLP. So I'm familiar with concepts of building relationships with family and friends, and broader social networking and community building. And a major aspect of that it honesty and open sharing, both 1:1 and in groups. it helps us see how much we're all the same, and builds empathy and love. So when he talks about social hacking through sharing and strengthening relationships, I hear it through those filters. But I also hear his cynical comments about oversharing fools that sucks into Facebook. so anyway, I'm curious where this will go. Facebook now allows signups via Tor, apparently with no texted authentication. And if he creates a privacy-frirndly version that emphasiuzes P2P communuication, that woutld be very cool.

ses1984 8y ago

The alternative to Facebook isn't SMS and phone calls.

eastendguy 8y ago

We use Skype for the same purpose. It has all the PROs but none of the negatives. Same is true for any other free/freemium chat or communication tool.

eeeeeeeeeeeee 8y ago

And yours is a broad generalization, too, about the impact Facebook has on society. You cheer all the good and mention none of the negative consequences of this model. Google also makes much about the internet less frustrating and easier for novices, but I also understand what is being given up in that compromise. I'm not even saying the "open" experience is not often without frustration. It absolutely is. Part of Facebook's success is connecting the frustrating parts about the internet and making it usable for normal people. But it's not like Facebook achieved some amazing technological advancement, nor is connecting the communication mechanisms of the world something that cannot be done without harvesting all of our personal data.

joe_the_user 8y ago
I don't think that "broad generalization" fairly characterizes the gp. They are saying they observe a lot of benefit in Facebook - if you read the post, that's all they say. Maybe Facebook also produces a lot of ill. Any claim about the final impact of Facebook is claim to be able to sum up the good and the evil FB does and get a definite value. That's a pretty challenging argument.
- eeeeeeeeeeeee 8y ago
  Perhaps, but that person is responding to another about the impact Facebook has on society, good or bad, and that person only highlights the good essentially. I do think it's important to remember that Facebook is really doing nothing technologically amazing to allow that communication -- voice or text -- across geographical borders. The internet forms the basis of this core technology and Facebook simply made it easier to use. It's not like if Facebook goes away we're going to go back to SMS and expensive international phone calls. This method of communication was going to happen regardless. And there are clearly alternatives that exist today with different funding models.
  - volundr- 8y ago
    You say, "Facebook is really doing nothing technologically amazing to allow that communication," but you're kind of glossing over the immense complexity of building systems to support private and public communication (for free), and prevent an incredible variety and volume of abusive traffic. Can you name a single alternative at their scale with a business plan that is viable long term and not state run or state supported?

AsyncAwait 8y ago

Facebook is certainly not doing it out of the goodness of their heart. What they want to do is essentially exploit the fact that data is so expensive in so many countries, in order to make Facebook equal 'the internet' there. I understand somewhat why it's working, but still find it kind of depressing that it's being actively cheered on.

jryle70 8y ago
"not doing it out of the goodness of their heart" is such an irritating cliche that makes me cringe. FB was founded in 2004 as a crappy for-profit startup. How many for-profit businesses born out of the goodness of the owner's heart? Yet you seem to make it sound like it's FB's fault. > I understand somewhat why it's working, but still find it kind of depressing that it's being actively cheered on. Social network has enormous benefit because we human being are social animal. Simple as that. I'm surprised that you only "understand somewhat why it's working". Just because there are bad sides of it doesn't make it a mistake. In fact I firmly believe the benefits it brings to the society should be cheered on. Condemn FB for their shady tactics, but don't forget the positive effect. Get out of your bubble. Put yourself in regular people's shoes.
- Jedi72 8y ago
  What is the point of this comment? You cant justify the bad by pointing at the good. Murderers dont get let off just because they do charity work. ExxonMobile are still responsible for supressing climate change awareness even though oil is a useful commodity.
- artificial 8y ago
  >Condemn FB for their shady tactics, but don't forget the positive effect. Get out of your bubble. Put yourself in regular people's shoes. What are some of the benefits unique to FB? >Just because there are bad sides of it doesn't make it a mistake. Lists, can be used for good or bad. The only way to ensure they're not misused is to minimize or eliminate the data collected. The centralization is problematic, as always. Edit, formatting :/
- 8y ago

3xblah 8y ago

This sounds to me like a description of the internet, not Facebook. I also think it is possible to enable others to make such cost-saving use of the internet without also doing the objectionable things Zuckerberg has done.

infinite8s 8y ago

The reason its free is also exactly the reason why people see it as bad - they aren't providing you a service, all your data is the service they are providing to others.

YeahSureWhyNot 8y ago

the way you keep up with your family across the globe using Facebook tools could be replicated easily with alternative tools, some of which were available for free even before the Facebook came out

mindgam3 8y ago

Fair point. To clarify, I’m not saying that Facebook can’t be used for good things. It’s a tool. The “knives can be used to chop vegetables or to kill people” analogy is a cliche at this point, but it’s still true. What I am calling out as a lie is the premise that Facebook’s guiding principle was “for the greater good” (which was how it was sold to us at the beginning, in sharp contrast to other corporate entities), as opposed to “win at all costs” (which it has demonstrated again and again, from the “move fast and break things” mantra to the infamous Boz memo). It’s fine if your corporate values are to win at all costs. I mean, it’s how most companies operate in our society. The problem is that they pretended to be something else, something inherently virtuous, and capitalized on this perception to win the early battles for top talent.

kakarot 8y ago

The fact that your mobile internet is so expensive and such bad quality, and Facebook traffic is prioritized and free, is not a coincidence. You are trading ease of use and convenience for the next generation's walled garden where Facebook sees and provides everything. Sure, the impact doesn't feel as such. And supporting Facebook's plan by talking to your relatives on it doesn't seem like a big deal. Neither did it feel like a big deal when the generations before us decided to sacrifice our entire planet for a few decades of economic advantage.

beatpanda 8y ago

> In the developing world where I live Facebook gives me the opportunity to maintain contact with my family who live on the other side of the world, as I walk the streets of São Paulo, for free. There were, before Facebook, hundreds of apps that did the same thing, and there still are.

JKCalhoun 8y ago

> "Zuckerberg's vision of Facebook as a good thing for the world was a lie" - That is such a broad generalization. In the developing world where I live Facebook gives me the opportunity to maintain contact with my family who live on the other side of the world, as I walk the streets of São Paulo, for free. Both can be true of course. Zuckerberg may well have been driven by a less than altruistic vision but nonetheless still enabled some to benefit from the service.

gran_colombia 8y ago

The chat and image service both have many alternatives. Many people do not use Facebook but still use these services.

g_delgado14 8y ago

> The alternative (cel phone calls and sms) is literally an inch away on our smartphone, but it is such bad quality and so expensive its unusable. For all of us, Facebook is definitely a good thing. I'm sorry but I don't buy this at all. There are so many alternatives to facebook that are also free (i.e. skype or email) beyond "cel phone calls and sms". You've simply become accustomed to the __convenience__ of facebook. That convenience has enabled you to interact with more people, and given you a sense of increased / improved connection with the world. But has the quality of those interactions improved? The world (including these execs) says no, on the contrary, interactions on facebook are oftentimes shallow and insignificant.

stedaniels 8y ago
Whilst I agree with your general thought, I don't think you realise that in certain regions Facebook subsidises it's data usage so it is 100% free whereas Skype and email cost data. I hope that helps you understand where the parent is coming from. Though I obviously know that Facebook is doing this for market share and not to be "good" to people.

achow 8y ago

Yep and keeping in touch with the flow of actual fake stories. These places FB is the internet and that has bad consequences for sure.

justanotherjoe 8y ago

When discussing the bad impacts of things like these, It's important to remember that we are under no impression that it is bad for everyone. But it is bad for SOME people. And that is enough. Some people will have their life ruined because of exploitative companies. Because their model promote unhealthy behavior that will consume their lives. Everyone knows that this is true. Some people out there are consuming too much time on facebook and having their live ruined as consequence. Just because it's not "everyone", or even a big percentage of the user, doesn't mean that we should be indifferent.

chrischen 8y ago

Actually this was possible already, and most of Facebook's primary features existed before Facebook. Facebook can really be described as the time wasting, addiction-inducing, feature-sets on top of standard social communication features, driven by their main goal of delivering and monetizing ads. Helping you communicate with your friends and family? That's just an ad vector. Recently my friend group switched over to a non-facebook-owned messaging service, and the hardest part was breaking old habits. The facebook specific features? Messenger actually had fewer features to help us communicate and more features designed to distract us and make us mindlessly consume.

kayoone 8y ago
In reality it's hard to get all of your friends and family to switch services, because all of their circles also have to change and most of them don't really care about the negatives of FB. In the end you end up with 10 different messengers. The big convenience about FB is that everyone is on it and you don't need their mobile phone number.
- zaarn 8y ago
  Not everyone is on FB and FB has been bleeding users to instagram, whatsapp and other internet services for a while now. I could say the same thing about WhatsApp really; everyone is on it so why switch to Facebook?
  - lmm 8y ago
    To my mind the killer is event organisation. Put it this way: Meetup is apparently a viable business while charging money for a less-good version of something Facebook offers for free-at-point-of-use. No-one else really competes in that space at all (group chats aren't suitable because people who can't make a given event end up being spammed with all the details of it anyway, while people who join late miss out on details that were posted earlier).
    - zaarn 8y ago

saintPirelli 8y ago

The fact that Facebook as _a_ benefit, doesn't make Facebook _a good thing_ as a whole. Of course it's nice to stay in contact with your friends around the world for free, when just some 20 years ago this - if available to you at all - would have cost you loads of money. Without defaulting to listing what bad Facebook does: Do those benefits really justify all the negative impacts? I hardly think so.

lordfrikk 8y ago

For free? Oh, you're paying, a lot. Just not with money.

kodablah 8y ago
> a lot Subjective... many believe it's hardly anything (i.e. basically free to them, which is an ok belief).

zestyping 8y ago

WhatsApp does exactly that at scale; though it is owned by Facebook today, it didn't need Facebook to do that job extremely well, as it did, before Facebook bought it.

MadraRua 8y ago

If you can get online to use Facebook, you can use any other service - email for example, or chat, or just WhatsApp / Signal. If you have an internet connection in your pocket why use one companies walled garden? I know everyone seems to be using it, but look at what Facebook has done to public discourse in the developed world - alot of people in the US and Europe thought it was great at first too.