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Chris Hughes Says It’s Time to Break Up Facebook

542 points by tysone 7y ago

Radle 7y ago
I think it would be enough to ban Zuckerberg from running any public corp in his lifetime. The Facebook problems are all Mark Zuckerberg problems, it starts with the people he pics for management the priority he sets for a business which provides an important part of american infrastructure. Zuckerberg as CEO of Facebook is the same for the USA as putting a teenager in control of the United States Department of Energy.
- foobarbecue 7y ago
  I think I'd rather have a teenager than a guy who couldn't even remember its name when he tried to list it as one of three agencies he'd demolish. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://m.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DYN8uFJz9gTk&ved=2ahUKEwjQ-Z7Rp47iAhXJhFQKHX_YA18QwqsBMAB6BAgHEAU&usg=AOvVaw1janTSlmUJgw03tSF1C_27 https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https:/...
- bsaul 7y ago
  I wonder why you pick on the people rather than the business model inherent to social network. We could argue that making people pay to use a social network or an email would be better, but the experience has shown that reselling personal info to advertisers is the way major internet actors in the field had to pick if they wanted to succeed. i don’t think you can blame zuckerberg for the whole industry practices
- nichos 7y ago
  Not at all equivalent. I'm not forced to use Facebook (and don't). Whereas I'm forced under threat of arrest and violence to fund the DOE. If you don't like it just don't use it. If everyone stopped using Facebook it would be gone in under a year.
- kantos2 7y ago
  >I think it would be enough to ban Zuckerberg from running any public corp in his lifetime. I always wonder ho this kind of trash is created. You retarded because you father raped you? What it is?
  - sctb 7y ago
    If you break the guidelines egregiously like this again we'll ban the account. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
kmlx 7y ago
“Chris Hughes, a co-founder of Facebook, says the company is so big and powerful that it threatens our democracy.” considering how flawed democracies are, i say let democracy die. adopt democracy 2.0 (no parties, no president/pm, no cabinet ministers, elected speaker, continuous citizen participation) and that’s that.
- craigsmansion 7y ago
  Sounds like a great idea, so: - How do you feel about the minimal training of seafarers and the existing directives to that end? - Also, the use of vehicles hired without drivers for the carriage of goods by road? - Amending the regulations contracts for sales of goods? - Postal services directive? - Sustainable urban mobility? - and, of course, cableway installations, how about those? "Well", you might say, "If you're going to pull facetious examples out of thin air..." But I'm not; you can find the pdfs here: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/124949/LUCY_ANDERSON/main-activities/reports-shadow#mep-card-content http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/124949/LUCY_ANDERSON/m... It's just a list of an MEP picked at random where she was shadow rapporteur. Are you really going to read through those documents to make an informed decision about all these topics? Democracy and its politics isn't just about the fun, high-profile stuff you find interesting. Personally I'm pretty happy I can pay someone to read and write all that stuff for me, and then make a decision based on a broader alignment that I share with them.
  - orbifold 7y ago
    Have you read any of these reports? Are you sure they are truly necessary? There have been written reports on the human rights situation of Woman all over the world since the 70s. Do you think those reports contributed to anything? Their formulation is extremely formulaic, the people writing them are underpaid interns or overpaid politicians, that got that cushy job by years of mingling in their respective home countries party system. They don't truly represent the will of the people. In the UN it is especially egregious, you have cousins of African strong men, sitting next to sons of Saudi rich men.
    - 7y ago
uptown 7y ago
“If we don’t have public servants shaping these policies, corporations will.” I fear that in the current environment where money largely drives politics that corporations will just shift from directly making policy to funding the politicians who will do-so on their behalf.
- vermilingua 7y ago
  Well... this is how they currently make policy. There aren’t literally corporations writing law.
  - montalbano 7y ago
    In some cases corporations literally do write the law: https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2019/04/03/public-right-know-model-bill-alec-school-vouchers-lobbyists/3332772002/ https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2019/04/03... https://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_Exposed https://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_Exposed
  - snarfy 7y ago
    Sure there are. That's what all of the associations e.g. NRA do. They write new laws, law makers possibly make a few edits, and then propose those laws to their legislature.
- peteretep 7y ago
  This step of removal at least theoretically hands power back to the people, though, as people can vote out corrupt politicians, but can't vote out Zuck.
- bluetomcat 7y ago
  It's a vicious cycle inherent in capitalism. Companies with a substantial amount of capital have the power to exercise decision-making about where to invest, what to invest in, how many jobs and what kinds of jobs to create or reduce. In order to avoid any economic meltdowns, politicians are doing their best to sustain the system and stimulate growth simply by balancing the interests of wealthy people, disregarding the interests of the wider population.
anonu 7y ago
I agree to breaking up Facebook. But the message falls flat when the suggestion is to spin off WhatsApp and Instagram into separate companies. This doesn't really do anything. When standard oil or Bell telephone broke up, they were broken across geographic lines or "horizontally" in situations where the business was vertically integrated (separating extraction, refining or transport in the case of standard oil) FB, IG and WhatsApp are all separate companies with arguably very different business models, so separating them up has little impact.
- nkozyra 7y ago
  How are the business models different?
  - cameronbrown 7y ago
    FB, IG and WhatsApp are isolated silos (for now). FB tries to work for everyone whereas IG and WhatsApp target younger demographics, since Facebook is no longer cool to be on.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - johnday 7y ago
      WhatsApp certainly does not target younger demographics. Its goal is to be a messenger app for everybody.
      - cameronbrown 7y ago
        Isn't that what Facebook Messenger is doing though? I could be mistaken, I'm just commenting on how it seems from my perspective.
        johnday 7y ago
        To some extent, yes. Facebook Messenger is very effective for communicating with people - so long as they're on Facebook. So it's a good way of keeping people in the system. I probably would have deactivated my account were it not for Messenger. But WhatsApp is capable of including everyone regardless of whether they're on Facebook. As the pool of "I'm too cool for Facebook" people grows, more communities will move away from Messenger and WhatsApp is a good secondary as far as FB is concerned.
Nextgrid 7y ago
It’s time to outlaw stalking-based business models. If you just break up Facebook but don’t outlaw the underlying scummy business model something else will just take its place.
- istjohn 7y ago
  People are waking up to the importance of privacy. If FB had competing social networks, consumer choice would matter. As it is, we have false choices like FB vs. IG.
  - dageshi 7y ago
    Twitter?
    - bluGill 7y ago
      Doesn't solve the same problem.
    - adventured 7y ago
      Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, Snapchat Those are by far the dominant social networks in the US. They all compete in terms of fighting for limited user time. WhatsApp is kinda sorta in that group, however it's not particularly popular in the US. Tumblr used to be, it might as well be dead now, it's going the way of MySpace (sold off a few times, passed around, until it's hardly valuable at all). Snapchat competes primarily with Facebook and Instagram. At the edges there's some competition with sites like YouTube, Reddit, Imgur (and other image sharing networks). Instagram competes with core Facebook, which is of course why they ate them. Also with Snapchat. To a lesser extent YouTube, Pinterest and misc image sites. YouTube competes with Facebook and their goal to build a much larger user video platform. To a lesser extent they compete with Snapchat and Instagram, particularly on very short form user video. Reddit competes with Twitter and some of the smaller niche social networks like Imgur. There's some limited competition between Reddit, Instagram and Pinterest. LinkedIn competes with Facebook. Microsoft scored a nice protected fiefdom in LinkedIn. It suffers no serious competitive threat other than incompetence. When you examine the competitive landscape, it's very clear that Facebook has no direct competitor to their core platform. And further, Instagram has far overwhelmed its competition. Facebook core is Facebook's Google search, Instagram is Facebook's YouTube, all are monopolies at what they do. The scope of Facebook core + Instagram + WhatsApp is breathtaking, it must be something like 2.6 to 3 billion monthly actives now when you include everyone across all three major platforms. The most interesting social network among the group, is Pinterest. If they don't screw things up, they'll have a far better business than Twitter over time. It's a dramatically more mainstream product with direct, obvious, superior monetization potential. None of the other social networks can compete well with what they do (not without contorting themselves into a pretzel and risking their existing userbase and business).
luckerzerg 7y ago
Let's get that Kuckerberg asshole out of the loop. He can pretend that he's hetero with that asian i-m-totally-not-gay pro forma ass holed bride. Guess she'll never need to be grabbed by the SCSI, since Kuckerberg is full gay and all. The jewish end. Get kuckerberg out of any business orientation. Go back to giving and taking it in the ass, just like your hetero smokescreen asian bitch. Let's ass it up for the faggot named Cuckerberg. Ass all the way. Faggot from start to end. Full faggot.
umeshunni 7y ago
Maybe we should have a sticky article at the top of HN for NYTimes' weekly Facebook bashing opinion piece?
- martythemaniak 7y ago
  If we do that for every company/person bashing topic, we'll quickly run out of room on the front page.
- hn-stickies 7y ago
  Ha! So many HN themes could qualify for a sticky though... 0. Open office floor plans versus noise cancelling headphones. 1. Pay gaps and gender ratios in tech. 2. Cosmology article debating dark matter/energy, or other generalizable astronomy interests. 3. Hardware hacker makes smart widget, shoe horn, fly swatter, or classifies old nostalgic toys with computer vision ML/AI. 4. This week's new JavaScript pile of crap. 5. SQL versus JSON. Which is the one true declaritive structured format. And why not YAML? 6. Ask HN: Feeling inadequate on the internet; can anyone please feed my personality complex in some way? 7. How I made millions of dollars in a femtosecond with my new click garbage start-up 8. Obscure luminary has died (bi-monthly black bar) 9. Buying a new laptop. Whether it's Apple or Linux and why or why not. 10. The cloud.
basetop 7y ago
Why just facebook? Why not Amazon, Google, JPM, Disney, etc? "Chris Hughes, a co-founder of Facebook, says the company is so big and powerful that it threatens our democracy." "threatens our democracy". I've heard this talking point so much that it has no meaning any longer. It's just another of the oft-repeated talking point created by PR firms as part of a propaganda campaign. If facebook is truly that powerful that it "threatens our democracy", then it doesn't say much of our democracy does it? I'd say the people attacking the constitution and our rights are the real "threats to our democracy". Facebook is far down on the list of "threats to our democracy". I consider censorship, money in politics, the congressional-industrial-military complex, the israeli/saudi/chinese/etc influence in our economic, media and government institutions, globalism, etc to be far greater threats to democracy than facebook. If facebook was truly as powerful as he says, the establishment and their media wouldn't be attacking facebook as vigorously as they have been. Lets be honest. If Chris Hughes, "co-founder" of Facebook truly feels this way, why doesn't he just created a competitor to facebook. It isn't that difficult to create a social media platform. Though it may be difficult to get users.
- kerkeslager 7y ago
  > I consider censorship, money in politics, the congressional-industrial-military complex, the israeli/saudi/chinese/etc influence in our economic, media and government institutions, globalism, etc to be far greater threats to democracy than facebook. If facebook was truly as powerful as he says, the establishment and their media wouldn't be attacking facebook as vigorously as they have been. Lets be honest. Censorship: Facebook is the largest censor on the internet. Money in politics: Facebook is an enormous lobbyist and political advertiser. Foreign influence: Foreign actors can gather lots of information through Facebook--most of the news about privacy issues on Facebook involve corporations, but it's naive to believe that it's only corporations doing this. Media/government institutions: Facebook IS a media institution, and other media/government institutions use Facebook to gather information on people. Globalism: Facebook is a globalist organization.
- c0vfefe 7y ago
  Any entity sufficiently large to lobby legislators or offer campaign donations can threaten democracy more directly, and in fact it happens every day.
zux2bezuckz 7y ago
His pro forma girlfriend has to be sore in the chass, due to zuck being full ghay and all. PRo form it! Ghay zuck for the win. Fools no one.
eternalban 7y ago
No, Google first. NYTimes is throwing the sacrificial Facebook under the bus to save the real systemic surveillance menace to the future generations.
- ekianjo 7y ago
  Even if you break Google up it won't really change anything (i.e. it won't stop wide tracking of users online).
decasteve 7y ago
I disagree. But I'm not on any, nor use any, of Facebook's services. "It's Time to Break Up with Facebook" is a better title. > We already have the tools we need to check the domination of Facebook. We just seem to have forgotten about them. That evokes different ideas with me and I'm sure it does for many users of this site. We have the tools and capability to employ them to make alternatives. We're so focused on the dominance that we ignore the possibility. > Mark Zuckerberg cannot fix Facebook, but our government can. This is incredibly naive. I haven't gone down the logical path to play this scenario out but my gut tells me that the hand that the government will force will be short-sighted and attack the symptom. The results may be worse.
- uptown 7y ago
  You may not be on Facebook but you can bet your friends or family have shared your contact info with them. And even if that exposure is limited, you can bet they’ve got a shadow profile of you.
  - kantos2 7y ago
    So what?
    - shakna 7y ago
      You can't break up with your stalker. If Facebook is building a data portfolio of you, which is highly likely, then you can't avoid them, which means the problems that arise from the practice still impact you, whether or not you want them to.
      - kantos2 7y ago
        Its not stalking, they just know about you, this is not harassment. If you think stalking is having information about your existence you have big problem man, mental one. >which means the problems that arise from the practice still impact you making up logic to suit your arguments doesn't means you have a point
ekianjo 7y ago
Funny, what do you have to break up something that you are not even forced to use, and that is not even remotely necessary for benefiting from the internet? I must be missing something.
- vermilingua 7y ago
  Exactly because whether or not you use it, Facebook is shaping your use of the internet.
- kerkeslager 7y ago
  Well, increasingly, you are forced to use Facebook. I went through the arduous process of deleting my Facebook account about 8 years ago. 2 years ago, I started doing freelance software development, and at some point almost every one of my clients has wanted me to implement a Facebook login. I could say no, but then I'm likely losing my livelihood. And in order to implement Facebook logins, you need a Facebook account (to administrate and view documentation). My girlfriend cleans up estates, meaning that when someone dies, she helps the family of the deceased clean up the deceased's house. A lot of that involves selling their stuff, for which she splits the profits with the heirs. It used to be that Craigslist was the best place to sell stuff, but increasingly it's much harder to sell stuff on Craigslist, and easier to sell on Facebook marketplace. And again, to buy/sell there, you really need a Facebook account. She also does other odd jobs, and again, most of these are found through Facebook. Maybe Facebook isn't necessary for the ways you benefit from the internet, but your experience isn't everyone's.
  - kantos2 7y ago
    You are not forced to be software developer. Nobody makes you use Craigslist Less communism my friend, it will make you love better. Just control your need to impose your beliefs on others >Maybe Facebook isn't necessary for the ways you benefit from the internet, but your experience isn't everyone's. Not an argument
    - kerkeslager 7y ago
lefstathiou 7y ago
I found this piece very unconvincing. Where is the articulate and data supported argument that our democracy is under threat? Are people no longer voting? No, they are voting in droves. People of all ages are more politically charged than ever before. I’m seeing 10 year olds engaging in our democracy. To me it is becoming increasingly apparent that the issue here is that people aren’t voting for the issues the NYT and Chris want people to vote on. That doesn’t qualify as a threat to democracy. They don’t understand these voters or their values and the assumption at NYT is that they are morons who are clicking on fake news links on Facebook. An entire case is being made without data to support it. I get that Trump got elected and nobody at the NYT is happy about it. Time to move on imo.
- noarchy 7y ago
  >To me it is becoming increasingly apparent that the issue here is that people aren’t voting for the issues the NYT and Chris want people to vote on. While you're getting downvoted, there is likely an element of truth to this. The "old" media has seen entities like Twitter and Facebook as a threat to their business model, as well as their ability to be influencers. There are legitimate gripes that we should all have with Facebook and their ilk, but I am sure the NYT is motivated by more than just concern for the public good.
  - lefstathiou 7y ago
    I’ve spent 12 years on HN and have read countless threads from users I’ve followed for many years. This up/down voting mechanism is just another system of censorship and it has gotten worse on HN and you see the restraint exercised in comments. Anyone can spot articles that are “safe” to comment on and articles that are not (from the perspective of sharing views that do not jive with the HN majority and being downvoted into oblivion). I made a conscience decision not to let that bother or deter me. I try to balance that with my attempt to not troll and try to be constructive if a choose to post. The bias that NYT has here to destroy Facebook is evident to anyone who takes a moment to think about it. Their entire business model has been upended because they no longer control distribution, FB does. How can we form thoughtful / well balanced opinions based on these one-sided pieces? We can’t. Alas, who cares.
3jckd 7y ago
One one hand side, I agree that Facebook/Amazon/Apple etc. but also many telcoms are way too big which in turn stifles fair competition and leads to monopolies (and subsequently abuse of power, lobbying etc). On the other, there has not been one good solution proposed to this so far. Let's run through the options (accumulated over months or years of discussions): 1) Split FB into the FB-Instagram-WhatsApp trio that we used to have in the past. Neat but the main culprit remains the same. 2) Remove Zuck or at least reduce his voting power s.t. the board has more. This would work if we assume that Zuck is the main issue with FB, which I doubt he is. Investors would always push for more money and if it means more of the same privacy-violating, advertising-driven social media, I doubt they would change it - money hardly ever has a moral compass of any kind. 3) Kind of like 2 but on top of this, you fix some members of the board with community/government selected representatives which would be supposed to balance out things and/or at least raise concerns. 4) Introduce point 3 as a general rule - if a company reaches X% of the given industry's estimated total market value, it has to give up some board seats. In theory, forces companies to stay focused instead of spreading into every single adjacent industry. Now, all of these have problems of their own (corruption in case of 3-4, anyone?) but the sooner the discussion starts the better. Google/Amazon/Microsoft/Apple/chip makers are next in line but also, as another commenter pointed out - we do want to see people build strong and prosperous companies that truly innovate. Damn, it's a non-trivial topic, just writing this down brings more questions than answers
- blululu 7y ago
  Agreed that the solutions proposed thus far do nothing to address the problems. Even if we tore the company apart brick by brick there are no guarantees that we wouldn't have the exact same problems resurface in 5 years under a different company. Prehaps we should focus about ways to increase the transparency and accountability of any Media/Telecom platform.
josh2600 7y ago
I have trouble understanding why we should break up Facebook but not google. Is it because we think google is less evil than Facebook?
- iagooar 7y ago
  In a way, it is less evil. It has not been caught selling user data the same way FB has. It does not have the same reach / social control, since it's never managed to create a social network with enough traction. Still, some control is needed, but I think we should all agree that Facebook should be top priority?
  - josh2600 7y ago
    I think I agree with you, but I also feel like a few missteps out of alignment with that narrative and google would be up for anti-trust conversation just like Facebook. I’m mostly musing about how your relationship with regulators has a lot to do with how you treat them and the public. When people perceive you as good, you can get away with monetizing people’s data. When people perceive you as bad, you’re the monster selling data to the Russians. It’s a matter of perspective (and sometimes reality). Let’s not pretend that the Russians couldn’t have bought google ads, it’s simply that Facebook’s audience targeting is way, way better than google’s because their surveillance economy is richer. It’s complicated. Is Facebook simply too good at targeting? This is part of why I’m working on mobilecoin. Can you imagine Facebook ad targeting if they also have all of your payment information?
- chadmeister 7y ago
  It's not any less evil and needs to be broken up just as quickly, but focusing on one giant and not trying to simultaneously fight both is probably a better idea. At the very least this sets precedent for splitting up the other.
- jondubois 7y ago
  Both should be broken up. They are both equally dangerous. It's just that Facebook's standards have been degrading faster and so it's been more noticeable.
naveen99 7y ago
advertisers and web masters wanting analytics can get together and share cookies on users they want to track weather Facebook or google enable them or not.
patwolf 7y ago
"Mark Zuckerberg is a good guy. But his company is a threat to our economy and democracy." "Mark is a good, kind person. But I’m angry that his focus on growth led him to sacrifice security and civility for clicks." I always find it difficult to take an argument seriously when someone is defined simply as "good". It glosses over a lot of things, like what motivates a person and how we define "good". For example, if we can agree that Facebook's privacy issues are bad, and that Mark was directly responsible for them, then it seems that either a) Mark selfishly disregards privacy for the growth of the company. (bad) b) Mark does care about privacy, but if he doesn't grow the company, he'll be forced out and someone less good will take the helm. (good) c) Mark thinks that all the good Facebook does outweighs the negatives, and therefore the sacrifice of privacy is a net positive. (good) For reference, that first quote is taken from the NYT front page summary, and the second from the body of the editorial.
- oldjokes 7y ago
  I'd be ok with calling Zuckerberg a good person if anything he has ever done has indicated he's honest or open to serious change. But he's not. The pattern is pretty clear. Ever since the Beacon fiasco he's been saying that privacy is important and that he's going to take it seriously and make changes, while every action he and those around him take moves blatantly in the opposite direction. He's been lying every time. Year after year, over and over again, just lying straight to our face. It's not innocent, it's not naive, he's not dumb. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_Beacon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_Beacon
  - specialist 7y ago
    "... if anything [Zuckerberg] has ever done has indicated he's honest ..." By way of comparison: Look at Bill Gates' actions independent of Microsoft. If his foundation cures malaria, and so forth, all other sins are forgiven. I'm pretty conflicted about Gates. But I accept that people are complicated. eg Ruthless on the battlefield of business, humanitarian in retirement. I'm still chewing on Zuckerberg San Fran General Hospital's surprise billing. I know it was just a donation, not active control. But it now has his name. So I can't understand how someone with more money than god isn't giving away healthcare. If only for the PR. How is someone so insightful into human behavior simultaneously so oblivious? https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/1/7/18137967/er-bills-zuckerberg-san-francisco-general-hospital https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/1/7/18137967/er...
polskibus 7y ago
While you're at it, do the same for GOOG, AMZN and MSFT to avoid unbalancing the market and strengthening other tech behemoths. They could easily step in FB role.
panglott 7y ago
The whole business model of Silicon Valley is finding companies that can grow to become abusive monopolies, and then growing them into that. Cut off one head and two will take its place.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > The whole business model of Silicon Valley The thing you point to is the model for which Capitalism selects, not some local quirk of Silicon Valley.
  - panglott 7y ago
    A lot of the infrastructure of capitalism is oriented around generating and sustaining small- and medium-sized businesses, and while large corporations will always want to increase market power most sectors have antitrust reasons to avoid outright monopoly. The tech sector feels free to aim for monopoly and generate monopoly rents.
    - dragonwriter 7y ago
      > A lot of the infrastructure of capitalism is oriented around generating and sustaining small- and medium-sized businesses A lot of the infrastructure of modern mixed economies is dedicated to maintaining some space for such businesses against the natural forces of capitalism, as part of the broader purpose of modern mixed economies of providing sufficient mitigation of the clear adverse effects of capitalism to relieve pressure for more radical reform, sure. That is not inconsistent with the fact that the basic nature of the capitalist property system is to promote the creation of productive monopolies from which monopoly rents can be extracted. Actually, that fact is why that effort is necessary.
- thrav 7y ago
  In fact, Facebook’s first investor wrote the book on this idea.
  - 7y ago
csberg4recess 7y ago
Coclsuckerberg better pay up. What a piece of skit you ass. Ducking juice.
jondubois 7y ago
Why is this article not being upvoted more? It's probably the most important piece that has ever been posted to HN; especially considering who the author is.
- erwan 7y ago
  I don't know for others but personally, I think it's pure hysteria and scapegoating. If you don't like Facebook, don't use it. I don't think private property should be forcibly removed away because it is the current news cycle ennemy-of-the-day. The standards for overruling consent should be extremely high - if they should exist at all. I got fed up with Facebook a while ago and deleted my account. No problem. If Facebook has influence it is because people voluntarily chose to give it to them.
  - Jommi 7y ago
    You are really not missing the forest for the trees. Facebook has grown so large that it's no longer an individual's decision to be there or not. Your data is there whatever you do, growing as a phantom profile based on data you give to advertisers or what your friends share. It's become such a huge power that it's a huge part of social life. It influences our society in ways we coulndt even imagine before.
    - stvswn 7y ago
      This is insane. No, you don't have to use it. You can reset cookies and device identifiers whenever you want if you don't want "phantom profiles."
      - Jommi 7y ago
        We're at a point where you are massively crippled from the rest of society if you do not use it. There are so many uses that I just cannot afford to not be on the platform.
- MangezBien 7y ago
  Look at the comments here. This website is essentially a bunch of Ayn Rand novels come to life.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
loudmax 7y ago
Better than breaking up social networks would be to force them to interoperate on an open protocol. When I first signed up for Facebook I was disappointed that only other Facebook users could see my account. Then when Google+ came on the scene I thought they'd worked out a way to interoperate with Facebook, but instead Google just wanted their own silo. What we really need is for social networks to interoperate the way email from different providers does. Same goes for chat and audio/video communication. Rather than breaking up Facebook, mandate that they must provide access to other social networks. Use an open protocol, say, Mastadon.
- return1 7y ago
  > What we really need is for social networks to interoperate the way email from different providers does. And then things will get way, way worse than facebook, because nobody is there to censor anyone, and then the nytimes will be asking to censor the entire internet because reasons. No, please. Let people stick to facebook where they can be herded appropriately.
- dominotw 7y ago
  sounds like terrible govt interference. Why would they give away their most valuable asset for free.
  - Jommi 7y ago
    Because it creates an unfair advantage? If switching costs are high it enables monopolistic power just because of high amount of users, and not because of quality of the platform.
- cjslep 7y ago
  Nit: Mastodon isn't a protocol. ActivityPub[0] is the protocol. [0] https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub/ https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub/
  - michaelbrooks 7y ago
    To add to this, anyone can turn their website into a social network using ActivityPub. For example, if you have a WordPress blog/site then you can use this plugin https://wordpress.org/plugins/activitypub/ https://wordpress.org/plugins/activitypub/. This then allows profiles from other networks such as Mastodon to follow, read and comment on your posts or statuses.
HNthrow22 7y ago
FB is the sacrificial lamb, popular scapegoat and effective distraction in this new era of SV policies shaping public opinion, ideas and as a result global politics. It seems misplaced, the amount of vitriol and negative press directed at facebook when from my perspective Google/Twitter/Amazon and even Reddit are far, far worse in terms of aggressively monopolistic behavior and negative effects on society and democracy. The fallout and effects of these platforms unparalleled power and influence is not well-researched yet. The key part that strikes me as disingenuous if these outlets and politicians who fling so much mud towards FB cared so much about privacy violations where were the billion dollar fines and string of hit pieces on Equifax (Who also collect and store your info without your consent)? The answer is there weren't any because they don't, and this is just a distraction from the real shit.
- davemp 7y ago
  I agree with other companies being worse influences than FB. Though I'd guess that FB is the target for these articles just because of brand recognition in the publisher's target demographics.
  - jvagner 7y ago
    Aside from Equifax, I disagree. I think FB is getting what they deserve.
    - davemp 7y ago
      FB definitely deserves negative press, there are just a lot of other companies who should be getting blasted harder. IMO at least.
- solipsism 7y ago
  If you believe it, say it from your real account. This ubiquitous practice of commenting on contentious topics using throwaways reveals much of that's wrong with HN culture.
  - 7y ago
TheRealDunkirk 7y ago
I got 2 words for you: regulatory capture. There's literally no chance that a guy who got invited to Bilderberg is going to have his company broken up (unless that were to somehow work to his advantage). He's made deals with the people that run the world. They won't touch him or his company.
mensetmanusman 7y ago
The real problem is that too many people who didn’t have a voice before can leverage centralized platforms to spread their views to too many people (according to the NYT). The internet has accelerated winner-take-all dynamics for good and bad. The day will come when there will be no local news covering high school sports events or community activities. People will rely on viewing participant posts on social media. What’s lost here is that it is so easy to game the system and spread BS...
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
jmastrangelo 7y ago
While we're discussing Facebook and anticompetitive practices, I'd like to bring the effects of FANG/Unicorns and their current compensation. I think we are seeing a drop in people leaving established tech to startups, but I think most of this is due to the _ludicrous_ amount of money an engineer/PM can make being a 9-5er at one FB/G. Engineers who meet expectations and get promoted at the minimum allowed rate can be an E5 engineer at facebook within 5 years of graduation where there's a median income of ~$300k. Engineers who are good can get promoted much faster/further than that and make absurd amounts of money. With Level 1 directors at FB making over a $1M a year. It really doesn't make sense for an individual engineer to ever join a small startup nowadays. Being the founder of a successful startup now still makes sense, but considering that much of the low-hanging fruit of the mobile/internet era has been picked, I think being a founder requires more domain/technological expertise than it did in the era when our current unicorns were born. I like the state of things as someone making good money relatively stress free at a FANG, but I hope a new fundamental technology wave comes soon and creates opportunity for a whole new set of companies, reigniting the startup scene's energy.
- xiaolingxiao 7y ago
  what's the median age (in your estimation) of a level I director at FB? and what's "absurd amount of money" for good engineers? Something like 400 - 600K?
  - jmastrangelo 7y ago
    From my (likely poor) estimation, an internally promoted director likely has ~10 - 15 years of experience, and externally hired directors can range from that little to much much more. These are usually very talented people who could be C-suite executives at smaller companies so their compensation makes sense. When I said "absurd amount of money" it was more of a rhetorical device, I don't actually think that its unreasonable, and yeah I meant ~500k or so. Considering the value good engineering and leadership bring to a tech company, this pay makes perfect sense, hell it still may be lowballing the value they generate for the organization. But it is still a high amount of money for a 9-5 individual contribution job compared with other industries. I'm more making the point that tech used to pay middlingly compared to other professional jobs (doctor/lawyer etc.), and Mechanical/Electrical engineering for the most part still do pay middlingly. I think this encouraged the talented to strike out for startups far more often as the opportunity cost of doing so was lower, especially in times with new technology waves where there was a lot more "low hanging fruit". I'm not saying the pay is anticompetitive or a bad thing, I'm merely commenting on a trend that I've seen where startups make less and less sense for talented individual engineers and I wonder how that will affect the tech scene in the next decade.
username223 7y ago
> I don’t blame Mark for his quest for domination. He has demonstrated nothing more nefarious than the virtuous hustle of a talented entrepreneur. What a strange juxtaposition. It would be a shame if "entrepreneur" now only refers to the VC dream of either domination or flaming death. There are many trajectories in between. Zuckerberg's focus on "domination" in the company's early days, added to his famous "dumb f*s" comment, makes me even more certain that Facebook was rotten from the beginning.
driven20 7y ago
The problem with breaking up Facebook or any big US tech companies, is giving China tech companies a huge advantage. Tech is global market/competitive space.
stvswn 7y ago
This is Chris Hughes trading on the only credibility he has left, which is that he participated in Facebook as an undergad and Harvard (but never quit school to pursue it full-time), amd by virtue of luck and his early contributions gets the status as "Facebook cofounder." His real ambition has been to become a figure in liberal politics. He bought The New Republic as a vanity project and drove it into the ground in two years. He and his husband moved to NY so that his husband could run for office in a purple district, he lost in a landslide (in a winnable district, too). It's popular in liberal circles to blame Facebook for Trump, and so punishing them has become a cause celebre, but it will pass.
drngdds 7y ago
>But there is no constitutional right to harass others or live-stream violence. Pretty sure the Supreme Court would disagree with you on that one, bud. They aren't fond of adding new categories of unprotected speech. See Trope #3 in this article: https://www.popehat.com/2015/05/19/how-to-spot-and-critique-censorship-tropes-in-the-medias-coverage-of-free-speech-controversies/ https://www.popehat.com/2015/05/19/how-to-spot-and-critique-...
- davemp 7y ago
  The trope "But there is no constitutional right to [blah]" is blatantly ignoring the 9th amendment. [1] [1]: https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-9 https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-9
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
mindgam3 7y ago
Chris Hughes noticeably pulled a few punches regarding his old friend Zuck’s character: 1. “I don’t blame Mark for his quest for domination. He has demonstrated nothing more nefarious than the virtuous hustle of a talented entrepreneur.” 2. “I don’t think these proposals [Zuck finally asking for regulation] were made in bad faith.” It’s pretty naïve at this point to say that Zuckerberg has done nothing more than a “virtuous hustle”. And Zuck asking for weak regulation is such an obvious ploy to stave off stronger action like a breakup that would threaten dominance. Having made those nitpicks, this is a fairly bombshell article for someone so early at FB to come out swinging. You can expect more power players to take up this cause in the next quarter or two as early execs start waking up from what basically amounts to Facebook brainwashing.
- ThrustVectoring 7y ago
  >And Zuck asking for weak regulation is such an obvious ploy to stave off stronger action like a breakup that would threaten dominance. Regulation can often help incumbent businesses by raising the barrier to entry for competition, which allows higher monopoly rents.
  - mindgam3 7y ago
    Fair point. Also I just LOLed after reading the NYT editorial board reaction to this piece - apparently we disagree on whether any punches were pulled. The first line: “Chris Hughes, a co-founder of Facebook, pulls no punches in his essay for The Times Privacy Project...” https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/09/opinion/chris-hughes-facebook.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/09/opinion/chris-hughes-face...
- TAForObvReasons 7y ago
  This is all posturing. Different people are putting different proposals to create the spectrum of possibilities. No one is talking about 100B fine because FB already pegged the fine at ~5B
anticensor 7y ago
It is time to tear the Face Book down.
blunderkid 7y ago
Useless idea. Social networks esp FB should come with a statutory warning: Excessive vanity can cause permanent brain damage leading to a dysfunctional real life with real friends/family who may actually give 2 fux about you.
ycombonator 7y ago
Deleted Facebook a month ago. Didnt seem to miss anything. Still share pictures and memes and statuses on iMessage with friends relatives. And those that are not on ios using whatsapp by holding the nose. Didnt miss a thing.
thallavajhula 7y ago
While I agree with most of what Chris has said in the video (& the article), it's hard for me to consider his intentions as purely objective. Chris Hughes has always been a democrat and has been part of Obama campaign and endorsed Hillary. Democrat leaders blame Facebook for how much it has contributed to their loss in the 2016 elections. To me, all of this makes sense. But, Chris being on the side of the democrats and coming up with these points, IMHO, makes it less objective. This also seems like a good time to come up with something like this, especially, when the candidates from both the wings have begun campaigning for 2020.
paulcole 7y ago
Common rich person move. Something only becomes unethical and awful after you get rich off it.
Calib3r 7y ago
Chris Hughes is right on a lot of things. But to create a new Federal Agency that can write blank-check laws is not a good idea. What ever happened to the Schoolhouse rock song "I'm just a bill?" What happened to laws being written through approval of house and congress? We are pushing for laws to be written by people who do not have the citizen in mind (FCC killed Net Neutrality ring a bell?). Why is it so crazy to expect the House and Congress to do their diligence and vet all laws? Why must we create federal entities to do the heavy lifting for us at the cost of removing representation?
manigandham 7y ago
Ironic and hilarious how many ex-Facebook employees call for changes while greatly enjoying the wealth they've received from it. Talk is cheap. When are they going to do anything other than write op-eds?

542 points by tysone 7y ago

I think it would be enough to ban Zuckerberg from running any public corp in his lifetime. The Facebook problems are all Mark Zuckerberg problems, it starts with the people he pics for management the priority he sets for a business which provides an important part of american infrastructure. Zuckerberg as CEO of Facebook is the same for the USA as putting a teenager in control of the United States Department of Energy.

foobarbecue 7y ago
I think I'd rather have a teenager than a guy who couldn't even remember its name when he tried to list it as one of three agencies he'd demolish. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://m.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DYN8uFJz9gTk&ved=2ahUKEwjQ-Z7Rp47iAhXJhFQKHX_YA18QwqsBMAB6BAgHEAU&usg=AOvVaw1janTSlmUJgw03tSF1C_27 https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https:/...
bsaul 7y ago
I wonder why you pick on the people rather than the business model inherent to social network. We could argue that making people pay to use a social network or an email would be better, but the experience has shown that reselling personal info to advertisers is the way major internet actors in the field had to pick if they wanted to succeed. i don’t think you can blame zuckerberg for the whole industry practices
nichos 7y ago
Not at all equivalent. I'm not forced to use Facebook (and don't). Whereas I'm forced under threat of arrest and violence to fund the DOE. If you don't like it just don't use it. If everyone stopped using Facebook it would be gone in under a year.
kantos2 7y ago
>I think it would be enough to ban Zuckerberg from running any public corp in his lifetime. I always wonder ho this kind of trash is created. You retarded because you father raped you? What it is?
- sctb 7y ago
  If you break the guidelines egregiously like this again we'll ban the account. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

kmlx 7y ago

“Chris Hughes, a co-founder of Facebook, says the company is so big and powerful that it threatens our democracy.” considering how flawed democracies are, i say let democracy die. adopt democracy 2.0 (no parties, no president/pm, no cabinet ministers, elected speaker, continuous citizen participation) and that’s that.

craigsmansion 7y ago
Sounds like a great idea, so: - How do you feel about the minimal training of seafarers and the existing directives to that end? - Also, the use of vehicles hired without drivers for the carriage of goods by road? - Amending the regulations contracts for sales of goods? - Postal services directive? - Sustainable urban mobility? - and, of course, cableway installations, how about those? "Well", you might say, "If you're going to pull facetious examples out of thin air..." But I'm not; you can find the pdfs here: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/124949/LUCY_ANDERSON/main-activities/reports-shadow#mep-card-content http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/124949/LUCY_ANDERSON/m... It's just a list of an MEP picked at random where she was shadow rapporteur. Are you really going to read through those documents to make an informed decision about all these topics? Democracy and its politics isn't just about the fun, high-profile stuff you find interesting. Personally I'm pretty happy I can pay someone to read and write all that stuff for me, and then make a decision based on a broader alignment that I share with them.
- orbifold 7y ago
  Have you read any of these reports? Are you sure they are truly necessary? There have been written reports on the human rights situation of Woman all over the world since the 70s. Do you think those reports contributed to anything? Their formulation is extremely formulaic, the people writing them are underpaid interns or overpaid politicians, that got that cushy job by years of mingling in their respective home countries party system. They don't truly represent the will of the people. In the UN it is especially egregious, you have cousins of African strong men, sitting next to sons of Saudi rich men.
  - 7y ago

uptown 7y ago

“If we don’t have public servants shaping these policies, corporations will.” I fear that in the current environment where money largely drives politics that corporations will just shift from directly making policy to funding the politicians who will do-so on their behalf.

vermilingua 7y ago
Well... this is how they currently make policy. There aren’t literally corporations writing law.
- montalbano 7y ago
  In some cases corporations literally do write the law: https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2019/04/03/public-right-know-model-bill-alec-school-vouchers-lobbyists/3332772002/ https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2019/04/03... https://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_Exposed https://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_Exposed
- snarfy 7y ago
  Sure there are. That's what all of the associations e.g. NRA do. They write new laws, law makers possibly make a few edits, and then propose those laws to their legislature.
peteretep 7y ago
This step of removal at least theoretically hands power back to the people, though, as people can vote out corrupt politicians, but can't vote out Zuck.
bluetomcat 7y ago
It's a vicious cycle inherent in capitalism. Companies with a substantial amount of capital have the power to exercise decision-making about where to invest, what to invest in, how many jobs and what kinds of jobs to create or reduce. In order to avoid any economic meltdowns, politicians are doing their best to sustain the system and stimulate growth simply by balancing the interests of wealthy people, disregarding the interests of the wider population.

anonu 7y ago

I agree to breaking up Facebook. But the message falls flat when the suggestion is to spin off WhatsApp and Instagram into separate companies. This doesn't really do anything. When standard oil or Bell telephone broke up, they were broken across geographic lines or "horizontally" in situations where the business was vertically integrated (separating extraction, refining or transport in the case of standard oil) FB, IG and WhatsApp are all separate companies with arguably very different business models, so separating them up has little impact.

nkozyra 7y ago
How are the business models different?
- cameronbrown 7y ago
  FB, IG and WhatsApp are isolated silos (for now). FB tries to work for everyone whereas IG and WhatsApp target younger demographics, since Facebook is no longer cool to be on.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - johnday 7y ago
    WhatsApp certainly does not target younger demographics. Its goal is to be a messenger app for everybody.
    - cameronbrown 7y ago
      Isn't that what Facebook Messenger is doing though? I could be mistaken, I'm just commenting on how it seems from my perspective.
      - johnday 7y ago
        To some extent, yes. Facebook Messenger is very effective for communicating with people - so long as they're on Facebook. So it's a good way of keeping people in the system. I probably would have deactivated my account were it not for Messenger. But WhatsApp is capable of including everyone regardless of whether they're on Facebook. As the pool of "I'm too cool for Facebook" people grows, more communities will move away from Messenger and WhatsApp is a good secondary as far as FB is concerned.

Nextgrid 7y ago

It’s time to outlaw stalking-based business models. If you just break up Facebook but don’t outlaw the underlying scummy business model something else will just take its place.

istjohn 7y ago
People are waking up to the importance of privacy. If FB had competing social networks, consumer choice would matter. As it is, we have false choices like FB vs. IG.
- dageshi 7y ago
  Twitter?
  - bluGill 7y ago
    Doesn't solve the same problem.
  - adventured 7y ago
    Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, Snapchat Those are by far the dominant social networks in the US. They all compete in terms of fighting for limited user time. WhatsApp is kinda sorta in that group, however it's not particularly popular in the US. Tumblr used to be, it might as well be dead now, it's going the way of MySpace (sold off a few times, passed around, until it's hardly valuable at all). Snapchat competes primarily with Facebook and Instagram. At the edges there's some competition with sites like YouTube, Reddit, Imgur (and other image sharing networks). Instagram competes with core Facebook, which is of course why they ate them. Also with Snapchat. To a lesser extent YouTube, Pinterest and misc image sites. YouTube competes with Facebook and their goal to build a much larger user video platform. To a lesser extent they compete with Snapchat and Instagram, particularly on very short form user video. Reddit competes with Twitter and some of the smaller niche social networks like Imgur. There's some limited competition between Reddit, Instagram and Pinterest. LinkedIn competes with Facebook. Microsoft scored a nice protected fiefdom in LinkedIn. It suffers no serious competitive threat other than incompetence. When you examine the competitive landscape, it's very clear that Facebook has no direct competitor to their core platform. And further, Instagram has far overwhelmed its competition. Facebook core is Facebook's Google search, Instagram is Facebook's YouTube, all are monopolies at what they do. The scope of Facebook core + Instagram + WhatsApp is breathtaking, it must be something like 2.6 to 3 billion monthly actives now when you include everyone across all three major platforms. The most interesting social network among the group, is Pinterest. If they don't screw things up, they'll have a far better business than Twitter over time. It's a dramatically more mainstream product with direct, obvious, superior monetization potential. None of the other social networks can compete well with what they do (not without contorting themselves into a pretzel and risking their existing userbase and business).

luckerzerg 7y ago

Let's get that Kuckerberg asshole out of the loop. He can pretend that he's hetero with that asian i-m-totally-not-gay pro forma ass holed bride. Guess she'll never need to be grabbed by the SCSI, since Kuckerberg is full gay and all. The jewish end. Get kuckerberg out of any business orientation. Go back to giving and taking it in the ass, just like your hetero smokescreen asian bitch. Let's ass it up for the faggot named Cuckerberg. Ass all the way. Faggot from start to end. Full faggot.

umeshunni 7y ago

Maybe we should have a sticky article at the top of HN for NYTimes' weekly Facebook bashing opinion piece?

martythemaniak 7y ago
If we do that for every company/person bashing topic, we'll quickly run out of room on the front page.
hn-stickies 7y ago
Ha! So many HN themes could qualify for a sticky though... 0. Open office floor plans versus noise cancelling headphones. 1. Pay gaps and gender ratios in tech. 2. Cosmology article debating dark matter/energy, or other generalizable astronomy interests. 3. Hardware hacker makes smart widget, shoe horn, fly swatter, or classifies old nostalgic toys with computer vision ML/AI. 4. This week's new JavaScript pile of crap. 5. SQL versus JSON. Which is the one true declaritive structured format. And why not YAML? 6. Ask HN: Feeling inadequate on the internet; can anyone please feed my personality complex in some way? 7. How I made millions of dollars in a femtosecond with my new click garbage start-up 8. Obscure luminary has died (bi-monthly black bar) 9. Buying a new laptop. Whether it's Apple or Linux and why or why not. 10. The cloud.

basetop 7y ago

Why just facebook? Why not Amazon, Google, JPM, Disney, etc? "Chris Hughes, a co-founder of Facebook, says the company is so big and powerful that it threatens our democracy." "threatens our democracy". I've heard this talking point so much that it has no meaning any longer. It's just another of the oft-repeated talking point created by PR firms as part of a propaganda campaign. If facebook is truly that powerful that it "threatens our democracy", then it doesn't say much of our democracy does it? I'd say the people attacking the constitution and our rights are the real "threats to our democracy". Facebook is far down on the list of "threats to our democracy". I consider censorship, money in politics, the congressional-industrial-military complex, the israeli/saudi/chinese/etc influence in our economic, media and government institutions, globalism, etc to be far greater threats to democracy than facebook. If facebook was truly as powerful as he says, the establishment and their media wouldn't be attacking facebook as vigorously as they have been. Lets be honest. If Chris Hughes, "co-founder" of Facebook truly feels this way, why doesn't he just created a competitor to facebook. It isn't that difficult to create a social media platform. Though it may be difficult to get users.

kerkeslager 7y ago
> I consider censorship, money in politics, the congressional-industrial-military complex, the israeli/saudi/chinese/etc influence in our economic, media and government institutions, globalism, etc to be far greater threats to democracy than facebook. If facebook was truly as powerful as he says, the establishment and their media wouldn't be attacking facebook as vigorously as they have been. Lets be honest. Censorship: Facebook is the largest censor on the internet. Money in politics: Facebook is an enormous lobbyist and political advertiser. Foreign influence: Foreign actors can gather lots of information through Facebook--most of the news about privacy issues on Facebook involve corporations, but it's naive to believe that it's only corporations doing this. Media/government institutions: Facebook IS a media institution, and other media/government institutions use Facebook to gather information on people. Globalism: Facebook is a globalist organization.
c0vfefe 7y ago
Any entity sufficiently large to lobby legislators or offer campaign donations can threaten democracy more directly, and in fact it happens every day.

zux2bezuckz 7y ago

His pro forma girlfriend has to be sore in the chass, due to zuck being full ghay and all. PRo form it! Ghay zuck for the win. Fools no one.

eternalban 7y ago

No, Google first. NYTimes is throwing the sacrificial Facebook under the bus to save the real systemic surveillance menace to the future generations.

ekianjo 7y ago
Even if you break Google up it won't really change anything (i.e. it won't stop wide tracking of users online).

decasteve 7y ago

I disagree. But I'm not on any, nor use any, of Facebook's services. "It's Time to Break Up with Facebook" is a better title. > We already have the tools we need to check the domination of Facebook. We just seem to have forgotten about them. That evokes different ideas with me and I'm sure it does for many users of this site. We have the tools and capability to employ them to make alternatives. We're so focused on the dominance that we ignore the possibility. > Mark Zuckerberg cannot fix Facebook, but our government can. This is incredibly naive. I haven't gone down the logical path to play this scenario out but my gut tells me that the hand that the government will force will be short-sighted and attack the symptom. The results may be worse.

uptown 7y ago
You may not be on Facebook but you can bet your friends or family have shared your contact info with them. And even if that exposure is limited, you can bet they’ve got a shadow profile of you.
- kantos2 7y ago
  So what?
  - shakna 7y ago
    You can't break up with your stalker. If Facebook is building a data portfolio of you, which is highly likely, then you can't avoid them, which means the problems that arise from the practice still impact you, whether or not you want them to.
    - kantos2 7y ago
      Its not stalking, they just know about you, this is not harassment. If you think stalking is having information about your existence you have big problem man, mental one. >which means the problems that arise from the practice still impact you making up logic to suit your arguments doesn't means you have a point

ekianjo 7y ago

Funny, what do you have to break up something that you are not even forced to use, and that is not even remotely necessary for benefiting from the internet? I must be missing something.

vermilingua 7y ago
Exactly because whether or not you use it, Facebook is shaping your use of the internet.
kerkeslager 7y ago
Well, increasingly, you are forced to use Facebook. I went through the arduous process of deleting my Facebook account about 8 years ago. 2 years ago, I started doing freelance software development, and at some point almost every one of my clients has wanted me to implement a Facebook login. I could say no, but then I'm likely losing my livelihood. And in order to implement Facebook logins, you need a Facebook account (to administrate and view documentation). My girlfriend cleans up estates, meaning that when someone dies, she helps the family of the deceased clean up the deceased's house. A lot of that involves selling their stuff, for which she splits the profits with the heirs. It used to be that Craigslist was the best place to sell stuff, but increasingly it's much harder to sell stuff on Craigslist, and easier to sell on Facebook marketplace. And again, to buy/sell there, you really need a Facebook account. She also does other odd jobs, and again, most of these are found through Facebook. Maybe Facebook isn't necessary for the ways you benefit from the internet, but your experience isn't everyone's.
- kantos2 7y ago
  You are not forced to be software developer. Nobody makes you use Craigslist Less communism my friend, it will make you love better. Just control your need to impose your beliefs on others >Maybe Facebook isn't necessary for the ways you benefit from the internet, but your experience isn't everyone's. Not an argument
  - kerkeslager 7y ago

lefstathiou 7y ago

I found this piece very unconvincing. Where is the articulate and data supported argument that our democracy is under threat? Are people no longer voting? No, they are voting in droves. People of all ages are more politically charged than ever before. I’m seeing 10 year olds engaging in our democracy. To me it is becoming increasingly apparent that the issue here is that people aren’t voting for the issues the NYT and Chris want people to vote on. That doesn’t qualify as a threat to democracy. They don’t understand these voters or their values and the assumption at NYT is that they are morons who are clicking on fake news links on Facebook. An entire case is being made without data to support it. I get that Trump got elected and nobody at the NYT is happy about it. Time to move on imo.

noarchy 7y ago
>To me it is becoming increasingly apparent that the issue here is that people aren’t voting for the issues the NYT and Chris want people to vote on. While you're getting downvoted, there is likely an element of truth to this. The "old" media has seen entities like Twitter and Facebook as a threat to their business model, as well as their ability to be influencers. There are legitimate gripes that we should all have with Facebook and their ilk, but I am sure the NYT is motivated by more than just concern for the public good.
- lefstathiou 7y ago
  I’ve spent 12 years on HN and have read countless threads from users I’ve followed for many years. This up/down voting mechanism is just another system of censorship and it has gotten worse on HN and you see the restraint exercised in comments. Anyone can spot articles that are “safe” to comment on and articles that are not (from the perspective of sharing views that do not jive with the HN majority and being downvoted into oblivion). I made a conscience decision not to let that bother or deter me. I try to balance that with my attempt to not troll and try to be constructive if a choose to post. The bias that NYT has here to destroy Facebook is evident to anyone who takes a moment to think about it. Their entire business model has been upended because they no longer control distribution, FB does. How can we form thoughtful / well balanced opinions based on these one-sided pieces? We can’t. Alas, who cares.

3jckd 7y ago

One one hand side, I agree that Facebook/Amazon/Apple etc. but also many telcoms are way too big which in turn stifles fair competition and leads to monopolies (and subsequently abuse of power, lobbying etc). On the other, there has not been one good solution proposed to this so far. Let's run through the options (accumulated over months or years of discussions): 1) Split FB into the FB-Instagram-WhatsApp trio that we used to have in the past. Neat but the main culprit remains the same. 2) Remove Zuck or at least reduce his voting power s.t. the board has more. This would work if we assume that Zuck is the main issue with FB, which I doubt he is. Investors would always push for more money and if it means more of the same privacy-violating, advertising-driven social media, I doubt they would change it - money hardly ever has a moral compass of any kind. 3) Kind of like 2 but on top of this, you fix some members of the board with community/government selected representatives which would be supposed to balance out things and/or at least raise concerns. 4) Introduce point 3 as a general rule - if a company reaches X% of the given industry's estimated total market value, it has to give up some board seats. In theory, forces companies to stay focused instead of spreading into every single adjacent industry. Now, all of these have problems of their own (corruption in case of 3-4, anyone?) but the sooner the discussion starts the better. Google/Amazon/Microsoft/Apple/chip makers are next in line but also, as another commenter pointed out - we do want to see people build strong and prosperous companies that truly innovate. Damn, it's a non-trivial topic, just writing this down brings more questions than answers

blululu 7y ago
Agreed that the solutions proposed thus far do nothing to address the problems. Even if we tore the company apart brick by brick there are no guarantees that we wouldn't have the exact same problems resurface in 5 years under a different company. Prehaps we should focus about ways to increase the transparency and accountability of any Media/Telecom platform.

josh2600 7y ago

I have trouble understanding why we should break up Facebook but not google. Is it because we think google is less evil than Facebook?

iagooar 7y ago
In a way, it is less evil. It has not been caught selling user data the same way FB has. It does not have the same reach / social control, since it's never managed to create a social network with enough traction. Still, some control is needed, but I think we should all agree that Facebook should be top priority?
- josh2600 7y ago
  I think I agree with you, but I also feel like a few missteps out of alignment with that narrative and google would be up for anti-trust conversation just like Facebook. I’m mostly musing about how your relationship with regulators has a lot to do with how you treat them and the public. When people perceive you as good, you can get away with monetizing people’s data. When people perceive you as bad, you’re the monster selling data to the Russians. It’s a matter of perspective (and sometimes reality). Let’s not pretend that the Russians couldn’t have bought google ads, it’s simply that Facebook’s audience targeting is way, way better than google’s because their surveillance economy is richer. It’s complicated. Is Facebook simply too good at targeting? This is part of why I’m working on mobilecoin. Can you imagine Facebook ad targeting if they also have all of your payment information?
chadmeister 7y ago
It's not any less evil and needs to be broken up just as quickly, but focusing on one giant and not trying to simultaneously fight both is probably a better idea. At the very least this sets precedent for splitting up the other.
jondubois 7y ago
Both should be broken up. They are both equally dangerous. It's just that Facebook's standards have been degrading faster and so it's been more noticeable.

naveen99 7y ago

advertisers and web masters wanting analytics can get together and share cookies on users they want to track weather Facebook or google enable them or not.

patwolf 7y ago

"Mark Zuckerberg is a good guy. But his company is a threat to our economy and democracy." "Mark is a good, kind person. But I’m angry that his focus on growth led him to sacrifice security and civility for clicks." I always find it difficult to take an argument seriously when someone is defined simply as "good". It glosses over a lot of things, like what motivates a person and how we define "good". For example, if we can agree that Facebook's privacy issues are bad, and that Mark was directly responsible for them, then it seems that either a) Mark selfishly disregards privacy for the growth of the company. (bad) b) Mark does care about privacy, but if he doesn't grow the company, he'll be forced out and someone less good will take the helm. (good) c) Mark thinks that all the good Facebook does outweighs the negatives, and therefore the sacrifice of privacy is a net positive. (good) For reference, that first quote is taken from the NYT front page summary, and the second from the body of the editorial.

oldjokes 7y ago
I'd be ok with calling Zuckerberg a good person if anything he has ever done has indicated he's honest or open to serious change. But he's not. The pattern is pretty clear. Ever since the Beacon fiasco he's been saying that privacy is important and that he's going to take it seriously and make changes, while every action he and those around him take moves blatantly in the opposite direction. He's been lying every time. Year after year, over and over again, just lying straight to our face. It's not innocent, it's not naive, he's not dumb. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_Beacon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_Beacon
- specialist 7y ago
  "... if anything [Zuckerberg] has ever done has indicated he's honest ..." By way of comparison: Look at Bill Gates' actions independent of Microsoft. If his foundation cures malaria, and so forth, all other sins are forgiven. I'm pretty conflicted about Gates. But I accept that people are complicated. eg Ruthless on the battlefield of business, humanitarian in retirement. I'm still chewing on Zuckerberg San Fran General Hospital's surprise billing. I know it was just a donation, not active control. But it now has his name. So I can't understand how someone with more money than god isn't giving away healthcare. If only for the PR. How is someone so insightful into human behavior simultaneously so oblivious? https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/1/7/18137967/er-bills-zuckerberg-san-francisco-general-hospital https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/1/7/18137967/er...

polskibus 7y ago

While you're at it, do the same for GOOG, AMZN and MSFT to avoid unbalancing the market and strengthening other tech behemoths. They could easily step in FB role.

panglott 7y ago

The whole business model of Silicon Valley is finding companies that can grow to become abusive monopolies, and then growing them into that. Cut off one head and two will take its place.

dragonwriter 7y ago
> The whole business model of Silicon Valley The thing you point to is the model for which Capitalism selects, not some local quirk of Silicon Valley.
- panglott 7y ago
  A lot of the infrastructure of capitalism is oriented around generating and sustaining small- and medium-sized businesses, and while large corporations will always want to increase market power most sectors have antitrust reasons to avoid outright monopoly. The tech sector feels free to aim for monopoly and generate monopoly rents.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > A lot of the infrastructure of capitalism is oriented around generating and sustaining small- and medium-sized businesses A lot of the infrastructure of modern mixed economies is dedicated to maintaining some space for such businesses against the natural forces of capitalism, as part of the broader purpose of modern mixed economies of providing sufficient mitigation of the clear adverse effects of capitalism to relieve pressure for more radical reform, sure. That is not inconsistent with the fact that the basic nature of the capitalist property system is to promote the creation of productive monopolies from which monopoly rents can be extracted. Actually, that fact is why that effort is necessary.
thrav 7y ago
In fact, Facebook’s first investor wrote the book on this idea.
- 7y ago

csberg4recess 7y ago

Coclsuckerberg better pay up. What a piece of skit you ass. Ducking juice.

jondubois 7y ago

Why is this article not being upvoted more? It's probably the most important piece that has ever been posted to HN; especially considering who the author is.

erwan 7y ago
I don't know for others but personally, I think it's pure hysteria and scapegoating. If you don't like Facebook, don't use it. I don't think private property should be forcibly removed away because it is the current news cycle ennemy-of-the-day. The standards for overruling consent should be extremely high - if they should exist at all. I got fed up with Facebook a while ago and deleted my account. No problem. If Facebook has influence it is because people voluntarily chose to give it to them.
- Jommi 7y ago
  You are really not missing the forest for the trees. Facebook has grown so large that it's no longer an individual's decision to be there or not. Your data is there whatever you do, growing as a phantom profile based on data you give to advertisers or what your friends share. It's become such a huge power that it's a huge part of social life. It influences our society in ways we coulndt even imagine before.
  - stvswn 7y ago
    This is insane. No, you don't have to use it. You can reset cookies and device identifiers whenever you want if you don't want "phantom profiles."
    - Jommi 7y ago
      We're at a point where you are massively crippled from the rest of society if you do not use it. There are so many uses that I just cannot afford to not be on the platform.
MangezBien 7y ago
Look at the comments here. This website is essentially a bunch of Ayn Rand novels come to life.

deleted 7y ago

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loudmax 7y ago

Better than breaking up social networks would be to force them to interoperate on an open protocol. When I first signed up for Facebook I was disappointed that only other Facebook users could see my account. Then when Google+ came on the scene I thought they'd worked out a way to interoperate with Facebook, but instead Google just wanted their own silo. What we really need is for social networks to interoperate the way email from different providers does. Same goes for chat and audio/video communication. Rather than breaking up Facebook, mandate that they must provide access to other social networks. Use an open protocol, say, Mastadon.

return1 7y ago
> What we really need is for social networks to interoperate the way email from different providers does. And then things will get way, way worse than facebook, because nobody is there to censor anyone, and then the nytimes will be asking to censor the entire internet because reasons. No, please. Let people stick to facebook where they can be herded appropriately.
dominotw 7y ago
sounds like terrible govt interference. Why would they give away their most valuable asset for free.
- Jommi 7y ago
  Because it creates an unfair advantage? If switching costs are high it enables monopolistic power just because of high amount of users, and not because of quality of the platform.
cjslep 7y ago
Nit: Mastodon isn't a protocol. ActivityPub[0] is the protocol. [0] https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub/ https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub/
- michaelbrooks 7y ago
  To add to this, anyone can turn their website into a social network using ActivityPub. For example, if you have a WordPress blog/site then you can use this plugin https://wordpress.org/plugins/activitypub/ https://wordpress.org/plugins/activitypub/. This then allows profiles from other networks such as Mastodon to follow, read and comment on your posts or statuses.

HNthrow22 7y ago

FB is the sacrificial lamb, popular scapegoat and effective distraction in this new era of SV policies shaping public opinion, ideas and as a result global politics. It seems misplaced, the amount of vitriol and negative press directed at facebook when from my perspective Google/Twitter/Amazon and even Reddit are far, far worse in terms of aggressively monopolistic behavior and negative effects on society and democracy. The fallout and effects of these platforms unparalleled power and influence is not well-researched yet. The key part that strikes me as disingenuous if these outlets and politicians who fling so much mud towards FB cared so much about privacy violations where were the billion dollar fines and string of hit pieces on Equifax (Who also collect and store your info without your consent)? The answer is there weren't any because they don't, and this is just a distraction from the real shit.

davemp 7y ago
I agree with other companies being worse influences than FB. Though I'd guess that FB is the target for these articles just because of brand recognition in the publisher's target demographics.
- jvagner 7y ago
  Aside from Equifax, I disagree. I think FB is getting what they deserve.
  - davemp 7y ago
    FB definitely deserves negative press, there are just a lot of other companies who should be getting blasted harder. IMO at least.
solipsism 7y ago
If you believe it, say it from your real account. This ubiquitous practice of commenting on contentious topics using throwaways reveals much of that's wrong with HN culture.
- 7y ago

TheRealDunkirk 7y ago

I got 2 words for you: regulatory capture. There's literally no chance that a guy who got invited to Bilderberg is going to have his company broken up (unless that were to somehow work to his advantage). He's made deals with the people that run the world. They won't touch him or his company.

mensetmanusman 7y ago

The real problem is that too many people who didn’t have a voice before can leverage centralized platforms to spread their views to too many people (according to the NYT). The internet has accelerated winner-take-all dynamics for good and bad. The day will come when there will be no local news covering high school sports events or community activities. People will rely on viewing participant posts on social media. What’s lost here is that it is so easy to game the system and spread BS...

deleted 7y ago
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jmastrangelo 7y ago

While we're discussing Facebook and anticompetitive practices, I'd like to bring the effects of FANG/Unicorns and their current compensation. I think we are seeing a drop in people leaving established tech to startups, but I think most of this is due to the _ludicrous_ amount of money an engineer/PM can make being a 9-5er at one FB/G. Engineers who meet expectations and get promoted at the minimum allowed rate can be an E5 engineer at facebook within 5 years of graduation where there's a median income of ~$300k. Engineers who are good can get promoted much faster/further than that and make absurd amounts of money. With Level 1 directors at FB making over a $1M a year. It really doesn't make sense for an individual engineer to ever join a small startup nowadays. Being the founder of a successful startup now still makes sense, but considering that much of the low-hanging fruit of the mobile/internet era has been picked, I think being a founder requires more domain/technological expertise than it did in the era when our current unicorns were born. I like the state of things as someone making good money relatively stress free at a FANG, but I hope a new fundamental technology wave comes soon and creates opportunity for a whole new set of companies, reigniting the startup scene's energy.

xiaolingxiao 7y ago
what's the median age (in your estimation) of a level I director at FB? and what's "absurd amount of money" for good engineers? Something like 400 - 600K?
- jmastrangelo 7y ago
  From my (likely poor) estimation, an internally promoted director likely has ~10 - 15 years of experience, and externally hired directors can range from that little to much much more. These are usually very talented people who could be C-suite executives at smaller companies so their compensation makes sense. When I said "absurd amount of money" it was more of a rhetorical device, I don't actually think that its unreasonable, and yeah I meant ~500k or so. Considering the value good engineering and leadership bring to a tech company, this pay makes perfect sense, hell it still may be lowballing the value they generate for the organization. But it is still a high amount of money for a 9-5 individual contribution job compared with other industries. I'm more making the point that tech used to pay middlingly compared to other professional jobs (doctor/lawyer etc.), and Mechanical/Electrical engineering for the most part still do pay middlingly. I think this encouraged the talented to strike out for startups far more often as the opportunity cost of doing so was lower, especially in times with new technology waves where there was a lot more "low hanging fruit". I'm not saying the pay is anticompetitive or a bad thing, I'm merely commenting on a trend that I've seen where startups make less and less sense for talented individual engineers and I wonder how that will affect the tech scene in the next decade.

username223 7y ago

> I don’t blame Mark for his quest for domination. He has demonstrated nothing more nefarious than the virtuous hustle of a talented entrepreneur. What a strange juxtaposition. It would be a shame if "entrepreneur" now only refers to the VC dream of either domination or flaming death. There are many trajectories in between. Zuckerberg's focus on "domination" in the company's early days, added to his famous "dumb f*s" comment, makes me even more certain that Facebook was rotten from the beginning.

driven20 7y ago

The problem with breaking up Facebook or any big US tech companies, is giving China tech companies a huge advantage. Tech is global market/competitive space.

stvswn 7y ago

This is Chris Hughes trading on the only credibility he has left, which is that he participated in Facebook as an undergad and Harvard (but never quit school to pursue it full-time), amd by virtue of luck and his early contributions gets the status as "Facebook cofounder." His real ambition has been to become a figure in liberal politics. He bought The New Republic as a vanity project and drove it into the ground in two years. He and his husband moved to NY so that his husband could run for office in a purple district, he lost in a landslide (in a winnable district, too). It's popular in liberal circles to blame Facebook for Trump, and so punishing them has become a cause celebre, but it will pass.

drngdds 7y ago

>But there is no constitutional right to harass others or live-stream violence. Pretty sure the Supreme Court would disagree with you on that one, bud. They aren't fond of adding new categories of unprotected speech. See Trope #3 in this article: https://www.popehat.com/2015/05/19/how-to-spot-and-critique-censorship-tropes-in-the-medias-coverage-of-free-speech-controversies/ https://www.popehat.com/2015/05/19/how-to-spot-and-critique-...

davemp 7y ago
The trope "But there is no constitutional right to [blah]" is blatantly ignoring the 9th amendment. [1] [1]: https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-9 https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-9

deleted 7y ago

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mindgam3 7y ago

Chris Hughes noticeably pulled a few punches regarding his old friend Zuck’s character: 1. “I don’t blame Mark for his quest for domination. He has demonstrated nothing more nefarious than the virtuous hustle of a talented entrepreneur.” 2. “I don’t think these proposals [Zuck finally asking for regulation] were made in bad faith.” It’s pretty naïve at this point to say that Zuckerberg has done nothing more than a “virtuous hustle”. And Zuck asking for weak regulation is such an obvious ploy to stave off stronger action like a breakup that would threaten dominance. Having made those nitpicks, this is a fairly bombshell article for someone so early at FB to come out swinging. You can expect more power players to take up this cause in the next quarter or two as early execs start waking up from what basically amounts to Facebook brainwashing.

ThrustVectoring 7y ago
>And Zuck asking for weak regulation is such an obvious ploy to stave off stronger action like a breakup that would threaten dominance. Regulation can often help incumbent businesses by raising the barrier to entry for competition, which allows higher monopoly rents.
- mindgam3 7y ago
  Fair point. Also I just LOLed after reading the NYT editorial board reaction to this piece - apparently we disagree on whether any punches were pulled. The first line: “Chris Hughes, a co-founder of Facebook, pulls no punches in his essay for The Times Privacy Project...” https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/09/opinion/chris-hughes-facebook.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/09/opinion/chris-hughes-face...
TAForObvReasons 7y ago
This is all posturing. Different people are putting different proposals to create the spectrum of possibilities. No one is talking about 100B fine because FB already pegged the fine at ~5B

anticensor 7y ago

It is time to tear the Face Book down.

blunderkid 7y ago

Useless idea. Social networks esp FB should come with a statutory warning: Excessive vanity can cause permanent brain damage leading to a dysfunctional real life with real friends/family who may actually give 2 fux about you.

ycombonator 7y ago

Deleted Facebook a month ago. Didnt seem to miss anything. Still share pictures and memes and statuses on iMessage with friends relatives. And those that are not on ios using whatsapp by holding the nose. Didnt miss a thing.

thallavajhula 7y ago

While I agree with most of what Chris has said in the video (& the article), it's hard for me to consider his intentions as purely objective. Chris Hughes has always been a democrat and has been part of Obama campaign and endorsed Hillary. Democrat leaders blame Facebook for how much it has contributed to their loss in the 2016 elections. To me, all of this makes sense. But, Chris being on the side of the democrats and coming up with these points, IMHO, makes it less objective. This also seems like a good time to come up with something like this, especially, when the candidates from both the wings have begun campaigning for 2020.

paulcole 7y ago

Common rich person move. Something only becomes unethical and awful after you get rich off it.

Calib3r 7y ago

Chris Hughes is right on a lot of things. But to create a new Federal Agency that can write blank-check laws is not a good idea. What ever happened to the Schoolhouse rock song "I'm just a bill?" What happened to laws being written through approval of house and congress? We are pushing for laws to be written by people who do not have the citizen in mind (FCC killed Net Neutrality ring a bell?). Why is it so crazy to expect the House and Congress to do their diligence and vet all laws? Why must we create federal entities to do the heavy lifting for us at the cost of removing representation?

manigandham 7y ago

Ironic and hilarious how many ex-Facebook employees call for changes while greatly enjoying the wealth they've received from it. Talk is cheap. When are they going to do anything other than write op-eds?