6 ms·

It's legally tricky to be anti-Facebook for the sake of being anti-Facebook, but I don't think it's morally tricky. The entire idea of anti-trust (and frankly,

• downandout 7y ago
  Facebook is the most powerful private entity on the earth right now, far more powerful than most nation states. This is hyperbole at best. Facebook does not have an army, weapons, or literally anyone that would be willing to die or even be physically put out to defend it. I’m no Facebook fan, but let’s not let Facebook hysteria overrun these comments.
  • TuringNYC 7y ago
    It is unrealistically limiting to think modern wars are fought only with armies. Most wars are quiet and fought with capital, thought, rhetoric, and policy. Armies only come into the picture if all else fails.
    • dantheman 7y ago
      Can you point me to a 'modern war' without armies? I'm interested in what you actually think a war is?
      • ismail 7y ago
        Not op but will take a stab. The comment was in response to: “This is hyperbole at best. Facebook does not have an army” Op was pointing out that power != war with guns “Facebook is the most powerful private entity on the earth right now” The comment was how power could be achieved via other methods of warfare-including the ability to shape conversations. Another word for this would be competition. He has a point.
        • denton-scratch 7y ago
          Negative, Spock. The ability to shape conversations or to compete is not the same as making war (or you are relying on an idiosyncratic definition of "war").
          • ismail 7y ago
            It seems we are splitting hairs here on the definition of "war" and missing the actual message. Since you brought it up again. War (Noun) " - a state of hostility, conflict, or antagonism - a struggle or competition between opposing forces or for a particular end - a struggle to achieve a goal: " War (Verb): " - to be in active or vigorous conflict - to carry on active hostility or contention " The point still stands. War is an isomorphism for competition, conflict and tension between parties. One could probably use something like category theory and prove it. References: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/war https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/war https://www.dictionary.com/browse/war https://www.dictionary.com/browse/war
      • degski 7y ago
        cyberwar springs to mind.
      • infominer 7y ago
        [edit/ downvote this all you like, pretending like warfare requires guns and armies when 2 different government elections have been attacked using social media, namely Facebook.] https://www.thegreathack.com/ https://www.thegreathack.com/ > Data has surpassed oil as the world’s most valuable asset. It’s being weaponized to wage cultural and political warfare. People everywhere are in a battle for control of our most intimate personal details. From award-winning filmmakers Karim Amer and Jehane Noujaim, THE GREAT HACK uncovers the dark world of data exploitation with astounding access to the personal journeys of key players on different sides of the explosive Cambridge Analytica/Facebook data scandal.
        • gdy 7y ago
          Yanks to the rescue: the secret story if how American advisers helped Yeltsin win http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19960715,00.html http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19960715,00.html Was that an act of war against democratic Russia?
      • AsyncAwait 7y ago
        Ask any country under crushing US sanctions.
  • sailfast 7y ago
    One could argue they have a higher GDP and population than most countries right now (all depends how you measure “power”) but I’m with you: if it went down tomorrow, I’m not sure what the world would actually be losing, nobody would die, and the world would keep spinning.
  • StreamBright 7y ago
    Yeah they only know everything about 1B people and can swing elections but other than these they are just a regular company selling stuff.
    • downandout 7y ago
      There is zero evidence that any activity conducted on Facebook has ever actually swung a single election. As far as I can tell, that is hyperbole as well.
      • StreamBright 7y ago
        Absolutely. A $5 billion USD hyperbole. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook–Cambridge_Analytica_data_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook–Cambridge_Analytica_d... "The governments of India[30][31] and Brazil[32][33] demanded that Cambridge Analytica report how anyone used data from the breach in political campaigning, and various regional governments in the United States have lawsuits in their court systems from citizens affected by the data breach.[34] On April 25, 2018, Facebook released their first earnings report since the scandal was reported. Revenue fell since the last quarter, but this is usual as it followed the holiday season quote. The quarter revenue was the highest for a first quarter, and the second overall.[35] In early July 2018, the United Kingdom's Information Commissioner's Office announced it intended to fine Facebook £500,000 ($663,000) over the data scandal, this being the maximum fine allowed at the time of the breach, saying Facebook "contravened the law by failing to safeguard people's information".[36] In March 2019, a court filing by the U.S. Attorney General for the District of Columbia alleged that Facebook knew of Cambridge Analytica's "improper data-gathering practices" months before they were first publicly reported in December 2015.[37] In July 2019, the Federal Trade Commission voted to approve fining Facebook around $5 billion to finally settle the investigation to the scandal, with a 3-2 vote.[38] Facebook established Social Science One as a response to the event."
        • downandout 7y ago
          Nothing you provided is evidence that any Facebook activity has ever swung any election. The very people that paid Cambridge Analytica for their services in 2016 said that the company’s strategies were ineffective at best, referring to it as “snake oil” [1]. You have provided evidence that people attempted to use Facebook to swing an election. Those two things are not the same. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/03/23/four-and-a-half-reasons-not-to-worry-that-cambridge-analytica-skewed-the-2016-election/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/03/2...
• dantheman 7y ago
  Yet, western democracies have been centralizing more and more power every year. It's more that a premise is that western democracies want to increase the power of the government and no one else.
  • kevingadd 7y ago
    Well, on the bright side most democracies are not explicitly about profit-making and/or cost-cutting as their first priority, even if it's the first priority of individual politicians.
    • FillardMillmore 7y ago
      I would agree with your statement that most western governments are not explicitly motivated by cost cutting and profit seeking. It would seem evident when we look at the trajectory of the US national debt in the past 40 or so years. However, I do not know if this is a good or bad thing. Will the national debt ever be paid off? And if not, what will the consequences be?
      • AsyncAwait 7y ago
        A nation paying its debt would actually not be as beneficial as you think, considering today's society runs on debt, having it is actually beneficial to an extent for relations, trade, to avoid war etc. Now whether things should be this way am not sure, but a nation simply paying its debt off without significant changes to the role debt plays is not the answer.
    • erikpukinskis 7y ago
      The U.S. being the major exception?
  • FillardMillmore 7y ago
    Is it only western democracies that you think have been centralizing power? What about countries like China, Iran and Russia? Western democracies historically have been party to increasing the power of private companies through government protection from competition (corporate welfare). The first example that popped in my head was the provision of prison labor for U.S. Steel through convict leasing. There are numerous examples though, link below from Mises (admittedly a source with a conservative bias, but theres still good info there). https://mises.org/wire/government-created-monopolies-are-everywhere https://mises.org/wire/government-created-monopolies-are-eve... It would seem to me that governments provide preferential treatment to private companies when it is beneficial for the government and they provide roadblocks and difficulties to companies who would be detrimental to the government. This is of course a generalization and not a hard-and-fast rule that explains every instance of government behavior when viewed in respect to a private company.
• skinnymuch 7y ago
  Why is Facebook more powerful than Google/Alphabet? > I'm not sure that we as a society have ever dealt with a non-state actor this powerful before. Amazon and Google being of somewhat similar or greater power at least tempers down that statement. And unlike Facebook they have really good reputations outside specific parts of circles like the tech circle.
  • kevingadd 7y ago
    Facebook has way more control over the social fabric and distribution of information than Google does. We've seen violence-inciting disinformation campaigns spread through Facebook and rack up a literal death count to the point that governments have angrily demanded intervention from FB with the result of FB shrugging their shoulders and going 'our bad, we didn't hire enough moderators'.
    • jacobwilliamroy 7y ago
      I still remember back in the late-noughties when the DOD was inviting arabs to come to the U.S. and attend workshops teaching how to use facebook to organize insurgencies. That stuff is out of fashion now, but we were oddly okay with it back during the Arab Spring.
    • subroutine 7y ago
      > We've seen violence-inciting disinformation campaigns spread through Facebook and rack up a literal death count To me that signals they have less 'control' of the distribution of information on their own platform. It's debatable who could wield more social influence, Google or Facebook. On me, it'd certainly be Google, since I use about a dozen google products (Chrome, Gmail, Search, Mesh, Calendar, Analytics, Voice, Android, Scholar, Cloud, Maps, etc.), and zero Facebook products.
    • pmart123 7y ago
      Not really though. Apple and Alphabet effectively could cripple Facebook. We are already seeing some of this take place with Apple banning Facebook's VPN apps, options on data shared with apps and by rolling out its new app sign in with Apple feature. There are benefits and drawbacks to social media/everyone has a voice. On a benign level, the NYTimes released a story misinforming its readership that Apple was proactively promoting its own apps. This was cleared up on Twitter by @drbarnard whose view was promoted via Stratechary. I realize there is a lot more complexity to nation-states creating false narratives around China or Hong Kong protests, but on a basic level, I believe social media allows a quicker iteration cycle to correct misinformed views with the drawback of initial misinformation traveling at a greater velocity. In many ways, you can get a more informed and accurate view of the situation in Hong Kong today if you have the propensity to avoid overreacting to the first piece of information and developing a skillset for finding the right person to listen to.
• Smithalicious 7y ago
  >Facebook is the most powerful private entity on the earth right now No it isn't, not even close. At most it's the third most powerful tech company, after Alphabet and Amazon.
  • h0h0h0h0111 7y ago
    Amazon is surely big and rich, but do they really exert the same psychological/social power on you? You don't read your news on Amazon, you don't send messages to your closest friends on amazon, you don't go down reading rabbit holes from following links on Amazon (not really, anyway). Certainly purchase data is very powerful (ask supermarkets!), but I think it pales in comparison to the breadth of data Facebook and Google collect.
    • Smithalicious 7y ago
      I guess Amazon is maybe not as powerful as Facebook, yes. I was thinking about it also in terms of AWS and such, but I guess that Amazon can't really convert that into an evil master plan in any way. I might also be biased towards underestimating Facebook since nobody in my social circle actually uses Facebook or Instagram. I guess Facebook is more powerful than I gave it credit for, though it still pales in comparison to Alphabet.
      • h0h0h0h0111 7y ago
        While I agree that Google is more powerful, remember that even if you or your friends don't use Facebook, many of the sites you visit do - so unless you've got pimped out tracking protection (which as a HN user you probably do, but maybe your friends don't!), Facebook still have a good idea where you're moving throughout cyberspace
• grawprog 7y ago
  >I'm not sure that we as a society have ever dealt with a non-state actor this powerful before. The east India trading company and the hudson's bay company as well as I'm sure some others were as large as or larger than some state actors of their time.
  • wavefunction 7y ago
    A fine point and two significant examples that illustrate the dangers of unfettered corporations.
• ismail 7y ago
  Some people are questioning: “Facebook is the most powerful private entity on the earth right now, far more powerful than most nation states” Op did not clarify his reasoning. Though I have thought about this and here are mine. If strip down a “nation state” to its bare essence, it is an idea. Lines drawn on a map, and symbols(flags, anthems etc). Add in the government directing education, and we end up with masses that can be influenced to behave in specific ways. i.e socialisation and sense of identity. Now, we know that government plays a significant part in the country and in the world. Now let’s consider FB. FB has by far the largest network of people that are connected in one massive network. I suspect Information (memes) could spread much faster on Fb, Whatsapp and insta than they could prior to these. Even email was never as fast. Since FB has control of the network without over sight on the algorithms and filtering, they wield significant power to shape global conversations. Shaping global conversations fundamentally can lead to over throwing of leaders with out ever a bullet being shot, it could lead to genocide, nationalism etc etc. It’s no surprise that the EU is on high alert. Edit: I think this requires more exploring. This is fundamentally a war against a new form of influence & control of masses of people. See previous wars: religion vs state, state vs monarchy etc etc. Has anyone considered this perspective before? Would appreciate any links