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Facebook is absolutely full to the brim with “crap content”. Crap content happens to be what drives engagement, so hosting crap content is a large part of Faceb
by _vertigo 6y ago
Facebook is absolutely full to the brim with “crap content”. Crap content happens to be what drives engagement, so hosting crap content is a large part of Facebook’s business model.
You’re speaking with a pretty authoritative tone there as though you’re absolutely sure that Facebook has had a change of heart and only wants to host quality content, and there’s no other reason why the pages were removed. Do you have some sort of proof for that, or are you just speculating? If you’re speculating, don’t you think it would be a good idea to match the tone of your post to your true amount of confidence in what you’re saying, so as not to misinform people who might read your comment?
- blantonl 6y agoI stand by what I posted. I'm allowed to be authoritative as I want in my opinions and what I deem to be a personal analysis of what is a subjective issue. If you aren't in agreement with my assertions, you are free to click the down arrow to the left of the post.
- javajosh 6y agoAlthough I usually ignore responses like in the GP, I like what you wrote here. It implicitly names the unfair rhetorical attack (effectively the kind of strawman that treats you as if you spoke authoritatively, when you were clearly giving your opinion). But yeah, with the right audience you don't have to respond at all, we'll know wassup.
- aldarisbm 6y agoBut he did speak authoritatively, "Facebook decided..." Facebook didn't decide anything as far as we know, he's presenting his opinions as facts, they aren't.
- harperlee 6y agoAbsolutely. I just mentally add “in my opinion” to everything I read and its liberating; I think way few people do it. More people should see the good wife.
- anonymouse008 6y agoPeople (myself included) read these comments like a debugger — “How can that be?! I triple checked my ‘brain base’... that’s wrong, must fix”
- soperj 6y agoThat's not actually what the down arrow is for.
- ghastmaster 6y agoCitation please.
- NeutronStar 6y agoYou want us to cite HN's rules? You're supposed to know them.
- soperj 6y ago> Downvoting should not be used for simple disagreement. Used to be part of the guidelines. Seems as though they've removed it.
- santoshalper 6y agoYou're allowed to be anything you want. It's a free country. But 2c worth of advice - representing speculative things as high-confidence erodes your credibility. Unless you have some insight or information that everyone else here doesn't, you're really just full of it. "Facebook decided they don't want to be a part of this type of content distribution" - That is not stated as an implied opinion, it is stated as a fact with absolutely nothing to back it up. Certainly Facebook is just as filled with this kind of low-quality content today as it was yesterday or three months ago. There is just nothing to support your speculation that this is part of some movement by Facebook to improve quality of content.
- vosper 6y ago> representing speculative things as high-confidence erodes your credibility I wish you were right, but I actually think most of the time the exact opposite is true: appearing highly-confident about speculative things makes someone seem more credible, rather than less.
- faeyanpiraat 6y agoRight up until something you say gets proven to be wrong. The higher confidence you presented your wrong statement, the higher the hit to your credibility will be.
- chillacy 6y agoI very much want this to be true but it seems you’ll do fine if you can confidently spew off another explanation. https://religiondispatches.org/a-year-after-the-non-apocalypse-where-are-they-now/ https://religiondispatches.org/a-year-after-the-non-apocalyp...
- rootusrootus 6y agoYou could become the leader of the free world, even.
- lhorie 6y agoI thought the down arrow was supposed to be used to indicate that a post is of low quality or that it doesn't conform to guidelines, not to express disagreement; and that disagreement was meant to be expressed by posting arguments
- jolmg 6y agoEveryone votes by their own rules. There's no official guidelines on how to use the voting buttons.
- politician 6y agoYour comment inspired me to submit https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25636267 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25636267
- afpx 6y agoIt seems more common these days to use it on HN to express disagreement. That wasn't the case years ago. I suspect it has to do with the reddit / youtube generation becoming adults. Polite disagreement seems to be on the way out.
- lhorie 6y agoThat theory makes sense, though it's unfortunate, IMHO. Personally, I'd prefer for comments to rank higher based on quality (irrespective of which way they lean) than hivemind inclinations. Seek well-roundedness and all that.
- r00fus 6y agoIf I suspect something is flamebait (ie, responses are not discussion I think belongs on HN as it's redundant/religious/reactive) and the content's value doesn't exceed that flamebait characteristic, I'll downvote. ie, I downvote things that I feel have an aggregate S/N degradation multiplier. I kinda miss /.'s moderation qualifiers.
- dazc 6y ago
- _vertigo 6y agoThat’s not what the down arrow is for. This is what I’m getting at. Instead of treating the comment section as a dumping ground for your purely speculative opinions masquerading as authoritative takes, and pushing the burden of nuance onto readers by asking them to downvote if they disagree, I think one should clearly state their opinions in an intellectually honest way. Then there is no need for downvoting if others disagree.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- bosswipe 6y agoYou are misinforming the HN audience by making it sound like you know why FB took their action. In a way you are distributing crap content here.
- dang 6y agoPlease don't respond with this sort of indignation even when the feeling is justified. It takes the discussion way off topic and encourages worse from others.
- pwned1 6y agoI would go so far as to say that "crap content" is Facebook's entire business model.
- ianlevesque 6y agoHey now, my friends dogs and kids are very interesting! Or were when they used to go outside...
- ogre_codes 6y agoIf they could, they would eliminate dog/kid photos entirely because they don't make money off that stuff. They just show you enough of your friends dogs and kids to keep you around to view the profit generating crap.
- adamc 6y agoIt works because many FB users (probably the vast majority) don't fact-check anything. I've lost count of the number of times I did and found it to be untrue.
- munificent 6y ago> They just show you enough of your friends dogs and kids to keep you around to view the profit generating crap. This was the realization that finally tipped me over into getting off Facebook. I realized that every time I was posting pictures of my life to share with my friends, I was providing the bait that drew them in and forced them to watch ads and other drivel.
- unishark 6y ago> If they could, they would eliminate dog/kid photos entirely because they don't make money off that stuff. They just show you enough of your friends dogs and kids to keep you around to view the profit generating crap. Therefore it makes them money.
- ori_b 6y ago
- dang 6y agoPlease don't harangue another user like this. The site guidelines put it this way: "Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Curious conversation requires a certain lightness of touch. You can still make your same point that way; actually it will work better that way.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- dang 6y agoIt's obviously a judgment call but I don't think the GP comment was super pejorative. It was fulminating a bit (also against the guidelines), but not so much that we would post a moderation scolding. The issue with the comment I replied to is that it crossed into a personal harangue. That tends to degrade discussion much faster—note how with https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25634048 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25634048 the thread is already headed down the drain.
- blantonl 6y agoWho are you dang? Are you an official representative of HN? Because it appears that the vast majority of your comments are nothing but comments about other people's comments, or directives to follow guidelines. Frankly, it seems more positive for the community to vote with their feet on comments and posts vs one individual continuously navigating through posts and threads telling people how to behave. I'm serious about the first question...
- drtillberg 6y agoI read the earlier comment as making aggressive, common-sense inteferences from 'facts' sprinkled through the original posting-- FB ended direct engagement with shared.com a long time ago, the shared.com ads were placed through 3d party contractors (maybe this is less exceptional than it sounds) and the OP says the reason he's sure FB was ok with the whole thing was shared.com's transparency about its business model ... which sounds like an admission it's low quality, that FB initiated communications about quality in the past, and that the OP was aware the shared.com content had implications for FB business standards. Those might be incorrect inferences, but they seem fair from the OP's marketing release. An alternate hypothesis is that most of the spend referenced by OP is ancient and relevant only for old-time sake. Again. OP didn't say that exactly, but it's a fair thing to question based on how the OP wrote the posting and selected the relevant time period.
- spacechild1 6y ago> don’t you think it would be a good idea to match the tone of your post to your true amount of confidence in what you’re saying, so as not to misinform people who might read your comment? IMO, this should be part of the HN guidelines. HN would certainly be a better place if everyone followed this rule.