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You are very dismissive of Facebook, yet I'm not sure what insight should be gleaned from this simplification. I'm open to understanding your point, but it sou

You are very dismissive of Facebook, yet I'm not sure what insight should be gleaned from this simplification. I'm open to understanding your point, but it sounds like your point is that Facebook is a website. And I'm not sure what insight that simplification allows me to unlock. Beyond being a website, it's also a mobile app, marketplace, communication platform, hardware manufacturer, and cultural driver. (Not to mention that it's a research organization, crisis response tool, ally to law enforcement, etc.) Would you similarly describe the US Constitution as a piece of paper? Such a simplistic reduction doesn't seem all that useful to me.

pwdisswordfish2 6y ago
You write: "Beyond being a website, ..." This is what the author is upset about. He thinks Facebook believes it is something other than what it is, e.g., it behaves as if it were a nation state. When you continue: "it's also ...", you are simply referring to properties of computers, software, the internet and the www. This has been debated on HN before. Facebook is a website. If Facebook were implemented in distributed Rolodexes and analog photo albums I doubt you would be making such statements. As for the implication that a website, e.g., Facebook, can be compared to the US Consitution, this is the sort of thinking that sets off journalists and yields rants like the OP. Whereas you refer to my comment as "simplistic reduction", the author of the OP might refer to yours as "delusional thinking". The properties of the US Consitution that make it important do not come from the fact it is a piece of paper or the conveniences that paper allows. They come from what is written on the paper and the authors of the document. Facebook does not produce content. It manages a website full of content submitted by the public, then surveils and spams them to service advertisers and promoters, for a fee. The topic of the article is in fact how they purport to manage filtering that content. Much of the content on Facebook is very low quality. A website with billions of pages that takes submissions from the public, which has heaps of low quality content. Surprising. This is precisely what the web was designed for.
deleted 6y ago
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pwdisswordfish2 6y ago

You write: "Beyond being a website, ..." This is what the author is upset about. He thinks Facebook believes it is something other than what it is, e.g., it behaves as if it were a nation state. When you continue: "it's also ...", you are simply referring to properties of computers, software, the internet and the www. This has been debated on HN before. Facebook is a website. If Facebook were implemented in distributed Rolodexes and analog photo albums I doubt you would be making such statements. As for the implication that a website, e.g., Facebook, can be compared to the US Consitution, this is the sort of thinking that sets off journalists and yields rants like the OP. Whereas you refer to my comment as "simplistic reduction", the author of the OP might refer to yours as "delusional thinking". The properties of the US Consitution that make it important do not come from the fact it is a piece of paper or the conveniences that paper allows. They come from what is written on the paper and the authors of the document. Facebook does not produce content. It manages a website full of content submitted by the public, then surveils and spams them to service advertisers and promoters, for a fee. The topic of the article is in fact how they purport to manage filtering that content. Much of the content on Facebook is very low quality. A website with billions of pages that takes submissions from the public, which has heaps of low quality content. Surprising. This is precisely what the web was designed for.

deleted 6y ago

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