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This is a place where the founder-CEO-demigod like Zuck should able to make better decisions than a professional team like Twitter. The long term profit maximiz

This is a place where the founder-CEO-demigod like Zuck should able to make better decisions than a professional team like Twitter. The long term profit maximization strategy was to maximize profits only up to the point where you risk getting regulated by government. With all the fawning praise of him as a kid I don’t think Zuck envisioned that one day both Democrats and Republicans would be united in their desire to fuck him over.

zeruch 5y ago
"The long term profit maximization strategy was to maximize profits only up to the point where you risk getting regulated by government." That is correct, but as with Wall ST, the addiction to the gamble has long been unhinged by an environment that has been lax on regulatory options...so when the blowback actually hits, it will not be just painful it will likely come on the tail end of a ragnarok-grade event that will likely shank the whole industry for a generation because current C-suites are so far up their own asses they can take direct inventory of the last few days of meal plans.
nonfamous 5y ago
Zuck is desperate to be regulated: he asks for Congress to step in every time he’s asked. Regulation would be awesome for Facebook: not only would it be a fig leaf for all their social problems (“hey, it’s not our problem anymore”), it would also stifle any potential competitors out of their market. The costs of regulation are regressive: much more easily absorbed by BigCos than any startup.
- somehnacct3757 5y ago
  He also wants the legislation to be toothless or misplaced so Facebook can pay lip service and not be fundamentally altered. Haugen just offered congress more surgical solutions than they were drafting as well as valid critiques of their drafts. That's why this particular post from Zuckerberg comes with such a large side of koolaid.
- wpietri 5y ago
  Could be. Some of the proposed regulation I've seen for this specifically exempts companies under, say, $100m/year in annual revenues. So legislators aren't unaware of the problem. Another possibility is that Facebook knows that asking Congress to do something is either a) not going to increase the odds of them doing anything, b) actually decrease the odds by sounding contrite, or c) puts it in a place where Facebook's army of lobbyists and otherwise connected individuals make sure nothing meaningful will get passed into law. It's not a bad bet given how polarized Congress and the American electorate are. And gosh, who is a big enabler of that polarization?
  - intended 5y ago
    The base problem isn’t really solveable, and its as much of a public discussion on what we want to do with speech first, before its a question of how we want Social Media firms to act. In the end, there is no algorithm which can match the scale of bad content, no robust definition of bad content which can work without creating a flood of false positives. Every false positive is now someone who had something valid to say who is silenced. How are we going to decide which grey area speech is unwelcome (leaving out obvious things that are illegal). ———— The popular idea is increased human centric moderation, but thats still going to be 2k email escalations for one region per day, at a 10% escalation ratio from a base of 20k.
    - throwaway2048 5y ago
      its hard to say the problem isn't really solveable when nobody has really tried to begin with.
      - intended 5y ago
        People are trying, what are you referring to?
        zo1 5y ago
        Not OP. My impression is that a lot of the focus is around safety and specifically privacy. Both play right into social media giants' hands. Instead we need to target Ads. Almost all problems can be eventually traced back to ads. At the very least traced back to the money incentive that ads create, on any platform.
- davedx 5y ago
  That's an extremely pessimistic view of regulation. Somehow other industries manage to do fine despite it. In the EU, GDPR somehow hasn't snuffed out all small businesses.
  - pantalaimon 5y ago
    > In the EU, GDPR somehow hasn't snuffed out all small businesses. Simply because there was enough regulation in place in that area that they didn't exist in the first place
  - Hammershaft 5y ago
    I mean, the harmful effects of regulation are much less visible then the harmful effects of what is being regulated. We don't know to what degree the GDPR has snuffed out potential small businesses.
surfingdino 5y ago
Zuck started Facebook as Facemash, a site to judge attractiveness of students by other students. It was a creepy site then and has remained to this day. Sorry, but companies to take after their founders, because the founders set an example of what is OK, how to behave, what their values are, etc. While he may not be responsible for all of the actions of his employees, the buck stops with him.

zeruch 5y ago

"The long term profit maximization strategy was to maximize profits only up to the point where you risk getting regulated by government." That is correct, but as with Wall ST, the addiction to the gamble has long been unhinged by an environment that has been lax on regulatory options...so when the blowback actually hits, it will not be just painful it will likely come on the tail end of a ragnarok-grade event that will likely shank the whole industry for a generation because current C-suites are so far up their own asses they can take direct inventory of the last few days of meal plans.

nonfamous 5y ago

Zuck is desperate to be regulated: he asks for Congress to step in every time he’s asked. Regulation would be awesome for Facebook: not only would it be a fig leaf for all their social problems (“hey, it’s not our problem anymore”), it would also stifle any potential competitors out of their market. The costs of regulation are regressive: much more easily absorbed by BigCos than any startup.

somehnacct3757 5y ago
He also wants the legislation to be toothless or misplaced so Facebook can pay lip service and not be fundamentally altered. Haugen just offered congress more surgical solutions than they were drafting as well as valid critiques of their drafts. That's why this particular post from Zuckerberg comes with such a large side of koolaid.
wpietri 5y ago
Could be. Some of the proposed regulation I've seen for this specifically exempts companies under, say, $100m/year in annual revenues. So legislators aren't unaware of the problem. Another possibility is that Facebook knows that asking Congress to do something is either a) not going to increase the odds of them doing anything, b) actually decrease the odds by sounding contrite, or c) puts it in a place where Facebook's army of lobbyists and otherwise connected individuals make sure nothing meaningful will get passed into law. It's not a bad bet given how polarized Congress and the American electorate are. And gosh, who is a big enabler of that polarization?
- intended 5y ago
  The base problem isn’t really solveable, and its as much of a public discussion on what we want to do with speech first, before its a question of how we want Social Media firms to act. In the end, there is no algorithm which can match the scale of bad content, no robust definition of bad content which can work without creating a flood of false positives. Every false positive is now someone who had something valid to say who is silenced. How are we going to decide which grey area speech is unwelcome (leaving out obvious things that are illegal). ———— The popular idea is increased human centric moderation, but thats still going to be 2k email escalations for one region per day, at a 10% escalation ratio from a base of 20k.
  - throwaway2048 5y ago
    its hard to say the problem isn't really solveable when nobody has really tried to begin with.
    - intended 5y ago
      People are trying, what are you referring to?
      - zo1 5y ago
        Not OP. My impression is that a lot of the focus is around safety and specifically privacy. Both play right into social media giants' hands. Instead we need to target Ads. Almost all problems can be eventually traced back to ads. At the very least traced back to the money incentive that ads create, on any platform.
davedx 5y ago
That's an extremely pessimistic view of regulation. Somehow other industries manage to do fine despite it. In the EU, GDPR somehow hasn't snuffed out all small businesses.
- pantalaimon 5y ago
  > In the EU, GDPR somehow hasn't snuffed out all small businesses. Simply because there was enough regulation in place in that area that they didn't exist in the first place
- Hammershaft 5y ago
  I mean, the harmful effects of regulation are much less visible then the harmful effects of what is being regulated. We don't know to what degree the GDPR has snuffed out potential small businesses.

surfingdino 5y ago

Zuck started Facebook as Facemash, a site to judge attractiveness of students by other students. It was a creepy site then and has remained to this day. Sorry, but companies to take after their founders, because the founders set an example of what is OK, how to behave, what their values are, etc. While he may not be responsible for all of the actions of his employees, the buck stops with him.