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I'm not a Facebook fan but nor do I agree with this article, the analysis seems pretty shallow. Zuck's rules seems like broadly positive things, and like they'd

I'm not a Facebook fan but nor do I agree with this article, the analysis seems pretty shallow. Zuck's rules seems like broadly positive things, and like they'd benefit the competition more than this article lets on. Harmful content => Any government regulation of harmful content will probably hurt small players more, since it's a big fixed cost of moderation. But everyone will realistically pay that cost anyway unless they're something decentralized like Mastodon. Elections => Nothing to do with size of platform I think, they're just saying that it's disingenuous since filter bubbles are more important. I disagree, election financing is super important and as another poster said filter bubbles are as old as print. Privacy => It says that GDPR is terrible for small companies, but without any evidence (or spec of "small") I think for anyone the size enough to be looking to challenge Facebook it's not a big deal, and broadly I like GDPR. "Don't store people's data unless you need to, and ask permission". Not a bad first effort to trying to fix surveillance capitalism. Making data portable => This definitely, definitely would hurt Facebook more than help it. Noone is sitting on Instagram thinking "I'd swap to Facebook if only it was easier". They're the monopolist with the inferior product + network effects, that narrative makes no sense at all.

kreetx 8y ago
I had the same sentiment. Not to be harsh against Bloomberg, but it for a few of these the journalist doesn't know what he is talking about. The "sophisticated tools" to make data portable for example: building it in to any new social network wouldn't be all that difficult, and perhaps adds even a little mental structure over the data since now there are two types of output: the website/app itself, and the portable data export. Sounds good to me.
- chillacy 8y ago
  The crowd here is so cynical that I'd start to be suspicious that Zuckerberg is pulling a reverse psychology move on us.
wavefunction 8y ago
Making data portable means opening up our systems to Facebook, at least as far as I understand Zuckerberg's proposals.
- zimablue 8y ago
  Yeah but my point is, are you more likely to migrate to Facebook or from Facebook at this point? Or are you describing a situation where you use both platforms but they have to interoperate so it's winner take all in the sense that you sit in one platform and it views all of them? Even if Facebook thought that could work, why take the risk? They already have a monopoly position, Microsoft didn't try to force Linux to be compatible with it they just tried to crush it. My own take is that this would be a bad move for Facebook and is either genuine charity or hubris from Zuck, he genuinely might think Facebook is a great platform that can out-compete rather than just a network effect monopoly.

kreetx 8y ago

I had the same sentiment. Not to be harsh against Bloomberg, but it for a few of these the journalist doesn't know what he is talking about. The "sophisticated tools" to make data portable for example: building it in to any new social network wouldn't be all that difficult, and perhaps adds even a little mental structure over the data since now there are two types of output: the website/app itself, and the portable data export. Sounds good to me.

chillacy 8y ago
The crowd here is so cynical that I'd start to be suspicious that Zuckerberg is pulling a reverse psychology move on us.

wavefunction 8y ago

Making data portable means opening up our systems to Facebook, at least as far as I understand Zuckerberg's proposals.

zimablue 8y ago
Yeah but my point is, are you more likely to migrate to Facebook or from Facebook at this point? Or are you describing a situation where you use both platforms but they have to interoperate so it's winner take all in the sense that you sit in one platform and it views all of them? Even if Facebook thought that could work, why take the risk? They already have a monopoly position, Microsoft didn't try to force Linux to be compatible with it they just tried to crush it. My own take is that this would be a bad move for Facebook and is either genuine charity or hubris from Zuck, he genuinely might think Facebook is a great platform that can out-compete rather than just a network effect monopoly.