4 ms·

ELI5 why facebook is exceptionally evil. (Of course I'm inviting downvotes, but please give me a comment too; ideally a reason that isn't also applicable to 'in

by elwell 6y ago

ELI5 why facebook is exceptionally evil. (Of course I'm inviting downvotes, but please give me a comment too; ideally a reason that isn't also applicable to 'internet as a whole').

Syonyk 6y ago
They're not much more evil than any other publicly traded, advertising supported content repackager (so the bulk of "social" media these days), but they're far worse than a lot of other places on the internet because of their power as the "default location" for a lot of people to go when bored. Facebook, long ago, stopped being about connecting people (except that claiming this gets more people to join), and more about "keeping people on Facebook as long as they possibly could" - because that means more ad impressions, which means more money for Facebook. They rely on every quirk in human psychology to keep people addicted ("engaged") and scrolling as long as possible. Intermittent reward, randomized ordering (the refresh throbber followed by "new" content), and driving people into toxic emotions and rabbit holes. Anger, outrage, and conspiracy rabbitholes are /great/ for keeping people on the site. They're terrible for the people involved (one could offer the handwaving parallel of a grocery store offering free heroin if you buy stuff there to keep people shopping), but profitable for Facebook. They believe the entire internet is theirs to scrape user activity from (the "like" buttons were turned into data collection elements long ago, against the original promises made about them), so they can offer better-targeted advertisements to anyone who has a valid credit card. Foreign actor, scammer, seller-of-medical-nonsense, it's all fine - as long as they pay up properly. And in a wide variety of cases of Facebook being fingered as directly responsible for enabling reprehensible behavior like genocides, their responses are consistently, "We are so, so sorry that you caught us doing that, and we promise to try harder not to get caught in the future." Genocide is extremely engaging, and as long as they can sell ads to people othering their neighbors and calling for violence against them, well, what's wrong? The guiding principle of Facebook has been clearly demonstrated to be, "What's Good for Zuck is Good for Zuck!" Anything else is secondary (and mostly a concern in that if you don't do anything, people might get around to cancelling their accounts or no longer using Facebook). I can, and do, apply these criticisms to a number of other properties on the internet, but the social media companies (companies who take user-generated content, repackage it, and algorithmically deliver it in optimally engaging order to other people, interleaved with ads) are the parts of the internet that are demonstrably ruining just about everything that people care about.
- elwell 6y ago
  Thanks for the thorough response. > They're not much more evil than any other publicly traded Ok, that's basically my point, but people seem adamant that they are somehow exceptionally evil. > content repackager > companies who take user-generated content, repackage it What do you mean by taking user-generated content and repackaging it? I understand that users often do this themselves, but what exactly is Facebook repackaging? > "default location" for a lot of people to go when bored For me this is HN > keep people addicted This does seem evil, if the product is causing the user harm. > They believe the entire internet is theirs to scrape user activity I could see how this bothers people, though it doesn't bother me that much personally. Follow-up question: do you view Fullstory as evil? > Facebook being fingered as directly responsible for enabling reprehensible behavior To me, this is a sad misuse of a tool. But yes, efforts should be made to limit the tool's possibility for evil usage.
  - Syonyk 6y ago
    > ...but people seem adamant that they are somehow exceptionally evil. They are more directly responsible for keeping people in a mentally toxic {outraged, angry, upset} state than most other companies. Their reach far exceeds Twitter (2.5B active users vs about 180M for Twitter), so I'll consider them "more evil" in that they have a far greater reach. While I may have plenty of bones to pick with Google, Amazon, etc, they don't directly influence mental state for their own profit like Facebook does. > What do you mean by taking user-generated content and repackaging it? Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, etc, do not (meaningfully) generate their own content (yes, you'll see an occasional Facebook blog post usually saying "We're sorry for getting caught this time..." but that's not their primary purpose). They take content that their end users generate (photos, posts, links, etc), and repackage it, reorder it, inject ads, and deliver it to other people. This is distinct from other content producers (news sites, blogs, etc) in which the site owners/employees/etc are the primary generators of material. I write content for my blog, and while I host and deliver the occasional user comment, the primary purpose of my blog is for me to communicate my thoughts to other people. I also, after several years of experimentation, now do so in an ad-free manner, because the small returns weren't worth the hassle, and I'm increasingly opposed to an ad-supported internet, so I now self-host my content and pay my hosting fees out of pocket. > For me this is HN Yes, but HN doesn't matter. It is also neither ad supported or, to the best of my knowledge, a public company (at least the HN interface). It's exceedingly low bandwidth and I quite like it as a remnant of an old style of internet that no longer really exists. > Follow-up question: do you view Fullstory as evil? I don't know what Fullstory is, so have no opinion on it. > But yes, efforts should be made to limit the tool's possibility for evil usage. Or to respond meaningfully when it's demonstrated that the tool is being used for it. Facebook tends to the minimum required to look like they've done something, and when someone else points out that the people the filters are aimed at have trivially bypassed them by changing the spelling of a word, Facebook throws up their hands and says, "Well, moderation is hard, we can't afford humans, and AI sucks, so... sorry!" If you're too big to have meaningful human moderation that can understand nuance, maybe you're just too big as a forum/site/community/etc.

by elwell 6y ago

ELI5 why facebook is exceptionally evil. (Of course I'm inviting downvotes, but please give me a comment too; ideally a reason that isn't also applicable to 'internet as a whole').

Syonyk 6y ago

They're not much more evil than any other publicly traded, advertising supported content repackager (so the bulk of "social" media these days), but they're far worse than a lot of other places on the internet because of their power as the "default location" for a lot of people to go when bored. Facebook, long ago, stopped being about connecting people (except that claiming this gets more people to join), and more about "keeping people on Facebook as long as they possibly could" - because that means more ad impressions, which means more money for Facebook. They rely on every quirk in human psychology to keep people addicted ("engaged") and scrolling as long as possible. Intermittent reward, randomized ordering (the refresh throbber followed by "new" content), and driving people into toxic emotions and rabbit holes. Anger, outrage, and conspiracy rabbitholes are /great/ for keeping people on the site. They're terrible for the people involved (one could offer the handwaving parallel of a grocery store offering free heroin if you buy stuff there to keep people shopping), but profitable for Facebook. They believe the entire internet is theirs to scrape user activity from (the "like" buttons were turned into data collection elements long ago, against the original promises made about them), so they can offer better-targeted advertisements to anyone who has a valid credit card. Foreign actor, scammer, seller-of-medical-nonsense, it's all fine - as long as they pay up properly. And in a wide variety of cases of Facebook being fingered as directly responsible for enabling reprehensible behavior like genocides, their responses are consistently, "We are so, so sorry that you caught us doing that, and we promise to try harder not to get caught in the future." Genocide is extremely engaging, and as long as they can sell ads to people othering their neighbors and calling for violence against them, well, what's wrong? The guiding principle of Facebook has been clearly demonstrated to be, "What's Good for Zuck is Good for Zuck!" Anything else is secondary (and mostly a concern in that if you don't do anything, people might get around to cancelling their accounts or no longer using Facebook). I can, and do, apply these criticisms to a number of other properties on the internet, but the social media companies (companies who take user-generated content, repackage it, and algorithmically deliver it in optimally engaging order to other people, interleaved with ads) are the parts of the internet that are demonstrably ruining just about everything that people care about.

elwell 6y ago
Thanks for the thorough response. > They're not much more evil than any other publicly traded Ok, that's basically my point, but people seem adamant that they are somehow exceptionally evil. > content repackager > companies who take user-generated content, repackage it What do you mean by taking user-generated content and repackaging it? I understand that users often do this themselves, but what exactly is Facebook repackaging? > "default location" for a lot of people to go when bored For me this is HN > keep people addicted This does seem evil, if the product is causing the user harm. > They believe the entire internet is theirs to scrape user activity I could see how this bothers people, though it doesn't bother me that much personally. Follow-up question: do you view Fullstory as evil? > Facebook being fingered as directly responsible for enabling reprehensible behavior To me, this is a sad misuse of a tool. But yes, efforts should be made to limit the tool's possibility for evil usage.
- Syonyk 6y ago
  > ...but people seem adamant that they are somehow exceptionally evil. They are more directly responsible for keeping people in a mentally toxic {outraged, angry, upset} state than most other companies. Their reach far exceeds Twitter (2.5B active users vs about 180M for Twitter), so I'll consider them "more evil" in that they have a far greater reach. While I may have plenty of bones to pick with Google, Amazon, etc, they don't directly influence mental state for their own profit like Facebook does. > What do you mean by taking user-generated content and repackaging it? Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, etc, do not (meaningfully) generate their own content (yes, you'll see an occasional Facebook blog post usually saying "We're sorry for getting caught this time..." but that's not their primary purpose). They take content that their end users generate (photos, posts, links, etc), and repackage it, reorder it, inject ads, and deliver it to other people. This is distinct from other content producers (news sites, blogs, etc) in which the site owners/employees/etc are the primary generators of material. I write content for my blog, and while I host and deliver the occasional user comment, the primary purpose of my blog is for me to communicate my thoughts to other people. I also, after several years of experimentation, now do so in an ad-free manner, because the small returns weren't worth the hassle, and I'm increasingly opposed to an ad-supported internet, so I now self-host my content and pay my hosting fees out of pocket. > For me this is HN Yes, but HN doesn't matter. It is also neither ad supported or, to the best of my knowledge, a public company (at least the HN interface). It's exceedingly low bandwidth and I quite like it as a remnant of an old style of internet that no longer really exists. > Follow-up question: do you view Fullstory as evil? I don't know what Fullstory is, so have no opinion on it. > But yes, efforts should be made to limit the tool's possibility for evil usage. Or to respond meaningfully when it's demonstrated that the tool is being used for it. Facebook tends to the minimum required to look like they've done something, and when someone else points out that the people the filters are aimed at have trivially bypassed them by changing the spelling of a word, Facebook throws up their hands and says, "Well, moderation is hard, we can't afford humans, and AI sucks, so... sorry!" If you're too big to have meaningful human moderation that can understand nuance, maybe you're just too big as a forum/site/community/etc.