9 ms·

of course everything looks rosy with rose-colored glasses on, but facebook not only encouraged those glasses, but made you believe the glasses didn't even exist

of course everything looks rosy with rose-colored glasses on, but facebook not only encouraged those glasses, but made you believe the glasses didn't even exist. same with google. it only took a little perspective shift and foresight to realize the future dangers under a relentless profit motive. the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.

gkoberger 6y ago
The first time you loaded up TheFacebook in high school and saw your friend set his status to "Greg is making dinner!", you thought "ah yes, someday this will topple governments due to disinformation campaigns"? Are you sure you aren't conflating "it's obvious" with hindsight bias?
- rbanffy 6y ago
  We can call it a failure of imagination, but when you have a tool that knows a lot about your political views and your location, we should have predicted that information would be used to hypertarget political propaganda. And all advertising has the goal of swaying some election - which car you buy, where you get your groceries, what clothes you choose. You think you made those choices without external influence when you didn't.
  - gkoberger 6y ago
    That's my point, though – that wasn't true in 2006! Maybe, just maybe, I posted "Gregory is voting for ______" in 2008, but that's not how people used Facebook back then. There was no realtime location collection (no iPhones), no sharing of articles, no commenting on posts, no groups, no minifeed, etc. There wasn't any mechanisms for all the data to be used for targeting. When I started using Facebook, you literally had to go to a person's page to check on them. There was no newsfeed or algorithm or ads. There definitely weren't bots. It was pretty unimaginable that you could figure out who someone was voting for and influence them based on how FB was in 2006. Now, of course, it's different.
    - deckard1 6y ago
      > There wasn't any mechanisms for all the data to be used for targeting. Facebook's original pitch deck from 2004 disagrees with you. https://www.businessinsider.com/facebooks-first-ever-ad-sales-pitch-deck-2015-9#the-level-of-targeting-was-extremely-specific-even-at-this-early-stage-5 https://www.businessinsider.com/facebooks-first-ever-ad-sale... Look at the slide "Our Online Marketing Services" and the box labeled "Targeted Advertising" > This site allows for targeted advertisement on the basis of any of the parameters listed below. Then, of course, it lists gender, age, dating interests and... Political Views. I vividly remember 2002-2005, and I even had a website once about disinformation. Fake news was a thing during the Bush administration.
- clairity 6y ago
  > "Are you sure you aren't conflating "it's obvious" with hindsight bias?" no, i avoided facebook at the start because it was obvious what it was going to be. with google, it was 2005 or so (about a year after the gmail launch) that i started weaning myself off of google. that folks wore blinders willingly doesn't mean it wasn't easy to connect the dots.
- jfarmer 6y ago
  In 2008, I made an app go viral on Facebook by posting pro-LGBT / anti-prop-8 ads within a 20 mile radius of SLC. Hundreds of millions of dollars as been invested into the FB platform ecosystem by that point. Plenty of people understood the implications.

gkoberger 6y ago

The first time you loaded up TheFacebook in high school and saw your friend set his status to "Greg is making dinner!", you thought "ah yes, someday this will topple governments due to disinformation campaigns"? Are you sure you aren't conflating "it's obvious" with hindsight bias?

rbanffy 6y ago
We can call it a failure of imagination, but when you have a tool that knows a lot about your political views and your location, we should have predicted that information would be used to hypertarget political propaganda. And all advertising has the goal of swaying some election - which car you buy, where you get your groceries, what clothes you choose. You think you made those choices without external influence when you didn't.
- gkoberger 6y ago
  That's my point, though – that wasn't true in 2006! Maybe, just maybe, I posted "Gregory is voting for ______" in 2008, but that's not how people used Facebook back then. There was no realtime location collection (no iPhones), no sharing of articles, no commenting on posts, no groups, no minifeed, etc. There wasn't any mechanisms for all the data to be used for targeting. When I started using Facebook, you literally had to go to a person's page to check on them. There was no newsfeed or algorithm or ads. There definitely weren't bots. It was pretty unimaginable that you could figure out who someone was voting for and influence them based on how FB was in 2006. Now, of course, it's different.
  - deckard1 6y ago
    > There wasn't any mechanisms for all the data to be used for targeting. Facebook's original pitch deck from 2004 disagrees with you. https://www.businessinsider.com/facebooks-first-ever-ad-sales-pitch-deck-2015-9#the-level-of-targeting-was-extremely-specific-even-at-this-early-stage-5 https://www.businessinsider.com/facebooks-first-ever-ad-sale... Look at the slide "Our Online Marketing Services" and the box labeled "Targeted Advertising" > This site allows for targeted advertisement on the basis of any of the parameters listed below. Then, of course, it lists gender, age, dating interests and... Political Views. I vividly remember 2002-2005, and I even had a website once about disinformation. Fake news was a thing during the Bush administration.
clairity 6y ago
> "Are you sure you aren't conflating "it's obvious" with hindsight bias?" no, i avoided facebook at the start because it was obvious what it was going to be. with google, it was 2005 or so (about a year after the gmail launch) that i started weaning myself off of google. that folks wore blinders willingly doesn't mean it wasn't easy to connect the dots.
jfarmer 6y ago
In 2008, I made an app go viral on Facebook by posting pro-LGBT / anti-prop-8 ads within a 20 mile radius of SLC. Hundreds of millions of dollars as been invested into the FB platform ecosystem by that point. Plenty of people understood the implications.