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I think the real problem that facebook leadership sees isn't that they're amplifying overly partisan posters, but that the popularity of these posters demonstra

I think the real problem that facebook leadership sees isn't that they're amplifying overly partisan posters, but that the popularity of these posters demonstrates that their userbase is increasingly low rent and heading toward an AOL/Yahoo style long goodbye.

xmprt 5y ago
Their solution to this is VR which is really smart but who know if it's too little, too late.
- mullingitover 5y ago
  The VR stuff has the same energy as "The Titanic's crew has announced the installation of an amazing collection of trendy new Louis Vuitton deck chairs with an exciting new arrangement, and insists that the minor iceberg collision will be resolved soon."
- jmcgough 5y ago
  Their solution to an aging userbase is buying out competitors (instagram, whatsapp) to prevent them from overtaking FB. FB bought Oculus because they're beholden to Apple and Google in the mobile space; if VR is the next major platform (Zuck thought it was 10 years away in 2015) and Oculus is the market leader, it weakens Apple/Google's control on them.
clairity 5y ago
no, their problem is simply greed. zuckerberg, sandberg, et al. want money, status, and power, and as long as they can distract from losing (or slowing down gains of) any of those by blaming problems on those bad users (or anything else), they're fat and happy. the leadership is the problem. from a systemic perspective, it's incentives (borne of societally-mediated values). you don't change systems by treating symptoms, but rather the incentives.
- hugosbaseball 5y ago
  "Leadership" (ie officers) serve at the pleasure of the board, who are elected by shareholders. Facebook intentionally focuses attention on Zuckerberg. "By all means, pump out memes about Android Zuck. Pay no attention to the inherent evil in our business model that cannot be fixed without destroying the company, or the shareholders behind the curtain who will keep right on pushing that business model because it makes them piles of cash."
  - mullingitover 5y ago
    That's where the attention belongs, Zuckerberg has controlling interest[1]: > According to an estimate from CNBC last year, that means Zuckerberg and insiders control about 70 percent of Facebook’s voting shares, with Zuckerberg controlling about 60 percent. So whatever shareholders are voting on, Zuckerberg and those closest to him get to have the final say. So the rest of the "leadership" are effectively Zuckerberg's proxies. Absolutely nothing Facebook does is beyond his control. [1] https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/5/30/18644755/facebook-stock-shareholder-meeting-mark-zuckerberg-vote https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/5/30/18644755/facebook-stock...
    - hugosbaseball 5y ago
      If you have more people trying to sell your stock than want to buy it, it doesn't matter how much controlling interest there is. The board has to keep the market happy. The market doesn't care about user privacy or ethics. The market only cares about making more money than was made before. They only care if the source of data (us) get so fed up we stop giving them our data.
      - mullingitover 5y ago
        > The board has to keep the market happy. With Zuckerberg controlling 60% of the votes (and thus able to remove any of them unilaterally), the board has exactly one person they need to keep happy. Zuckerberg could decide tomorrow that Facebook should be converted into a christian singles dating site, share price be damned, and the board would comply or they would be replaced.
esotericimpl 5y ago
This I think is the ultimate problem that will lead to facebooks downfall as a successful platform. Say what you will about the right wing echo chamber on facebook but the bottom line is that 70% of the GDP of this country was in "blue counties" won by Biden. If facebook continues going down this engagement path they're going to end up right where Yahoo ended up. With a bunch of poor losers using their platform and not the wealthy consumers of America.
potatolicious 5y ago
It's frustrating that the discussion around technology's effects on society is still stuck between the extremes of: - "tech has a causal effect on society" - "society has a causal effect on tech, tech is a mirror" At this point it seems pretty patently obvious that the reality is both? Technology is subject to pre-existing flaws in society, but also has the capability to amplify and worsen it. > the popularity of these posters demonstrates that their userbase is increasingly low rent It's worth considering if exposure to FB is what is causing the userbase increasingly "low rent". Yeah, FB didn't invent partisanship, misinformation, nor authoritarianism, but I think likely it is worsening it.
- mullingitover 5y ago
  > Yeah, FB didn't invent partisanship, misinformation, nor authoritarianism, but I think likely it is worsening it. Absolutely, Zuckerberg is basically a younger, less human version of Rupert Murdoch. He's going where the money takes him, and he's happy to exploit a profitable niche. My point though is that it's increasingly clear that Facebook's audience is becoming just that, an aging niche, and that's not a great place to be for a social media platform. We know what happens to those. Just like Rupert Murdoch's various tabloids, exposure does indeed affect the consumers of that media, and it becomes an ouroboros of tabloid-type hysteria. I don't think that's what bothers facebook though, just the fact that this type of niche audience is a loser in the long run.
  - fleddr 5y ago
    "My point though is that it's increasingly clear that Facebook's audience is becoming just that, an aging niche, and that's not a great place to be for a social media platform" A few counter points can be made here. Yours is a very US centric view. As one example, in several Central and South American countries, Facebook is everything. It's where everybody is, and this weird western idea that mingling with old people is "not cool" isn't a thing there. Facebook is nearing 3 billion ACTIVE users. Astonishing to call that a niche. It isn't shrinking or stagnating, it keeps growing. Last, the obsession with non-teenage users somehow being the death of a social network is ridiculous. Most people in this world are not teenagers. Adults have all the money, and all the political money. Who cares what teenagers think is cool? Teenagers are idiots and they don't have any money. They aren't going to grow up in your service, they'll dump it within 2 years.

xmprt 5y ago

Their solution to this is VR which is really smart but who know if it's too little, too late.

mullingitover 5y ago
The VR stuff has the same energy as "The Titanic's crew has announced the installation of an amazing collection of trendy new Louis Vuitton deck chairs with an exciting new arrangement, and insists that the minor iceberg collision will be resolved soon."
jmcgough 5y ago
Their solution to an aging userbase is buying out competitors (instagram, whatsapp) to prevent them from overtaking FB. FB bought Oculus because they're beholden to Apple and Google in the mobile space; if VR is the next major platform (Zuck thought it was 10 years away in 2015) and Oculus is the market leader, it weakens Apple/Google's control on them.

clairity 5y ago

no, their problem is simply greed. zuckerberg, sandberg, et al. want money, status, and power, and as long as they can distract from losing (or slowing down gains of) any of those by blaming problems on those bad users (or anything else), they're fat and happy. the leadership is the problem. from a systemic perspective, it's incentives (borne of societally-mediated values). you don't change systems by treating symptoms, but rather the incentives.

hugosbaseball 5y ago
"Leadership" (ie officers) serve at the pleasure of the board, who are elected by shareholders. Facebook intentionally focuses attention on Zuckerberg. "By all means, pump out memes about Android Zuck. Pay no attention to the inherent evil in our business model that cannot be fixed without destroying the company, or the shareholders behind the curtain who will keep right on pushing that business model because it makes them piles of cash."
- mullingitover 5y ago
  That's where the attention belongs, Zuckerberg has controlling interest[1]: > According to an estimate from CNBC last year, that means Zuckerberg and insiders control about 70 percent of Facebook’s voting shares, with Zuckerberg controlling about 60 percent. So whatever shareholders are voting on, Zuckerberg and those closest to him get to have the final say. So the rest of the "leadership" are effectively Zuckerberg's proxies. Absolutely nothing Facebook does is beyond his control. [1] https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/5/30/18644755/facebook-stock-shareholder-meeting-mark-zuckerberg-vote https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/5/30/18644755/facebook-stock...
  - hugosbaseball 5y ago
    If you have more people trying to sell your stock than want to buy it, it doesn't matter how much controlling interest there is. The board has to keep the market happy. The market doesn't care about user privacy or ethics. The market only cares about making more money than was made before. They only care if the source of data (us) get so fed up we stop giving them our data.
    - mullingitover 5y ago
      > The board has to keep the market happy. With Zuckerberg controlling 60% of the votes (and thus able to remove any of them unilaterally), the board has exactly one person they need to keep happy. Zuckerberg could decide tomorrow that Facebook should be converted into a christian singles dating site, share price be damned, and the board would comply or they would be replaced.

esotericimpl 5y ago

This I think is the ultimate problem that will lead to facebooks downfall as a successful platform. Say what you will about the right wing echo chamber on facebook but the bottom line is that 70% of the GDP of this country was in "blue counties" won by Biden. If facebook continues going down this engagement path they're going to end up right where Yahoo ended up. With a bunch of poor losers using their platform and not the wealthy consumers of America.

potatolicious 5y ago

It's frustrating that the discussion around technology's effects on society is still stuck between the extremes of: - "tech has a causal effect on society" - "society has a causal effect on tech, tech is a mirror" At this point it seems pretty patently obvious that the reality is both? Technology is subject to pre-existing flaws in society, but also has the capability to amplify and worsen it. > the popularity of these posters demonstrates that their userbase is increasingly low rent It's worth considering if exposure to FB is what is causing the userbase increasingly "low rent". Yeah, FB didn't invent partisanship, misinformation, nor authoritarianism, but I think likely it is worsening it.

mullingitover 5y ago
> Yeah, FB didn't invent partisanship, misinformation, nor authoritarianism, but I think likely it is worsening it. Absolutely, Zuckerberg is basically a younger, less human version of Rupert Murdoch. He's going where the money takes him, and he's happy to exploit a profitable niche. My point though is that it's increasingly clear that Facebook's audience is becoming just that, an aging niche, and that's not a great place to be for a social media platform. We know what happens to those. Just like Rupert Murdoch's various tabloids, exposure does indeed affect the consumers of that media, and it becomes an ouroboros of tabloid-type hysteria. I don't think that's what bothers facebook though, just the fact that this type of niche audience is a loser in the long run.
- fleddr 5y ago
  "My point though is that it's increasingly clear that Facebook's audience is becoming just that, an aging niche, and that's not a great place to be for a social media platform" A few counter points can be made here. Yours is a very US centric view. As one example, in several Central and South American countries, Facebook is everything. It's where everybody is, and this weird western idea that mingling with old people is "not cool" isn't a thing there. Facebook is nearing 3 billion ACTIVE users. Astonishing to call that a niche. It isn't shrinking or stagnating, it keeps growing. Last, the obsession with non-teenage users somehow being the death of a social network is ridiculous. Most people in this world are not teenagers. Adults have all the money, and all the political money. Who cares what teenagers think is cool? Teenagers are idiots and they don't have any money. They aren't going to grow up in your service, they'll dump it within 2 years.