5 ms·

The rate of bad news for Facebook and Google seems to be accelerating by the day…

by shoto_io 5y ago

matheusmoreira 5y ago
Good news for us.
Tenoke 5y ago
That might be more due to what type of news sell rather than Facebook or Google becoming worse.
- kwertyoowiyop 5y ago
  It might also be due to people getting increasingly tired of their crap.
  - izacus 5y ago
    "People" in this case being their competitors for ad placement in traditional media which is writing these articles. :) Remember that you're reading this on newssites which have 100+ trackers installed so they can extract revenue from you as well... and they get paid more when they write these articles. It's not like they're poor innocent parties which won't benefit when FB/Google get cut down to size. (Many news-site traffic went up by as much as 30% when FB went down the other week.) Heck, when Apple added their "privacy" changes, their own advertising has profited massively: https://9to5mac.com/2021/10/18/apples-ad-business-windfall/ https://9to5mac.com/2021/10/18/apples-ad-business-windfall/ It's all black kettles yelling at other kettles.
    - reaperducer 5y ago
      "People" meaning insiders and former employees ready to spill the beans. In the real world, not everything is a conspiracy.
    - kwertyoowiyop 5y ago
      True. But the non-monopolistic kettles get MY vote.
- harry8 5y ago
  You're really suggesting these stories were being suppressed by the media until now when they started to sell news? The media who hate Facebook and Google as usurpers of their ad revenue and talk about their own industry as being in collapse as a result? Maybe there's more of these stories because more is getting out? Or maybe Facebook Google are actually getting worse over time in the manner of most companies and industries where ethical & legal corruption is unchecked? I'm struggling to see a valid argument for this is a trend based on changes to what works as clickbait, however ironic that would be.
  - Tenoke 5y ago
    >You're really suggesting these stories were being suppressed by the media until now when they started to sell news No, I'm suggesting it incentivizes journalists to work more on them, whistleblowers to whistleblow more, editors to prioritize them etc.
    - harry8 5y ago
      Where has any incentive changed meaningfully at all for the past decade? The clickbait incentives have existed for more than 15 years at least. The "bash the competition" ones, well WSJ, NYT, MSNBC, CNN they all lost a bazillion dollars from internet advertsing and have tried to demonize their competitors in that space since forever, usually to comically silly effect. (And the fact that google were falsely demonized does not mean that there wasn't also a separate very strong case to make that their surveillance was evil and that wasn't being made so often). I can't see the incentives being any different now, the stories do have a bit more substance to them. Maybe you can make the argument that the next generation of journalists understand what the damn on switch is and are slightly less inclined to have their brain fall out of their ear as soon as they see a verb followed by "with a computer" to explain it? Is it the current administration and their tame media brandishing a big stick to get facebook and youtube to censor their opponents more? [1] Possible although I'd like more evidence myself. [1] In the manner of the suppression of the story of Hunter Biden's laptop and emails - removed from facebook feeds, tweets with links to the story not posted, did youtube do stuff here too? The reason given is that it was disinformation (ie false), but we now know it was factual reporting with emails verified with counter-parties etc. Reporting that you can then interpret as to its meaning and gravity? So they will go there just before an election which is quite worrying and should be equally so for those of us who were happier with the outcome than the alternative.
- kryptiskt 5y ago
  In this case it's because a lot of documents in one antitrust case has been unredacted, and there a ton of smoking guns in those filings.
StevePerkins 5y ago
When was the last time you read any good news about oil companies, tobacco companies, Nestle, etc? All the noise doesn't necessarily translate into action.
- yborg 5y ago
  Exactly. Once you have market control it doesn't matter what people think, c.f. Comcast.

The rate of bad news for Facebook and Google seems to be accelerating by the day…

matheusmoreira 5y ago

Good news for us.

Tenoke 5y ago

That might be more due to what type of news sell rather than Facebook or Google becoming worse.

kwertyoowiyop 5y ago
It might also be due to people getting increasingly tired of their crap.
- izacus 5y ago
  "People" in this case being their competitors for ad placement in traditional media which is writing these articles. :) Remember that you're reading this on newssites which have 100+ trackers installed so they can extract revenue from you as well... and they get paid more when they write these articles. It's not like they're poor innocent parties which won't benefit when FB/Google get cut down to size. (Many news-site traffic went up by as much as 30% when FB went down the other week.) Heck, when Apple added their "privacy" changes, their own advertising has profited massively: https://9to5mac.com/2021/10/18/apples-ad-business-windfall/ https://9to5mac.com/2021/10/18/apples-ad-business-windfall/ It's all black kettles yelling at other kettles.
  - reaperducer 5y ago
    "People" meaning insiders and former employees ready to spill the beans. In the real world, not everything is a conspiracy.
  - kwertyoowiyop 5y ago
    True. But the non-monopolistic kettles get MY vote.
harry8 5y ago
You're really suggesting these stories were being suppressed by the media until now when they started to sell news? The media who hate Facebook and Google as usurpers of their ad revenue and talk about their own industry as being in collapse as a result? Maybe there's more of these stories because more is getting out? Or maybe Facebook Google are actually getting worse over time in the manner of most companies and industries where ethical & legal corruption is unchecked? I'm struggling to see a valid argument for this is a trend based on changes to what works as clickbait, however ironic that would be.
- Tenoke 5y ago
  >You're really suggesting these stories were being suppressed by the media until now when they started to sell news No, I'm suggesting it incentivizes journalists to work more on them, whistleblowers to whistleblow more, editors to prioritize them etc.
  - harry8 5y ago
    Where has any incentive changed meaningfully at all for the past decade? The clickbait incentives have existed for more than 15 years at least. The "bash the competition" ones, well WSJ, NYT, MSNBC, CNN they all lost a bazillion dollars from internet advertsing and have tried to demonize their competitors in that space since forever, usually to comically silly effect. (And the fact that google were falsely demonized does not mean that there wasn't also a separate very strong case to make that their surveillance was evil and that wasn't being made so often). I can't see the incentives being any different now, the stories do have a bit more substance to them. Maybe you can make the argument that the next generation of journalists understand what the damn on switch is and are slightly less inclined to have their brain fall out of their ear as soon as they see a verb followed by "with a computer" to explain it? Is it the current administration and their tame media brandishing a big stick to get facebook and youtube to censor their opponents more? [1] Possible although I'd like more evidence myself. [1] In the manner of the suppression of the story of Hunter Biden's laptop and emails - removed from facebook feeds, tweets with links to the story not posted, did youtube do stuff here too? The reason given is that it was disinformation (ie false), but we now know it was factual reporting with emails verified with counter-parties etc. Reporting that you can then interpret as to its meaning and gravity? So they will go there just before an election which is quite worrying and should be equally so for those of us who were happier with the outcome than the alternative.
kryptiskt 5y ago
In this case it's because a lot of documents in one antitrust case has been unredacted, and there a ton of smoking guns in those filings.

StevePerkins 5y ago

When was the last time you read any good news about oil companies, tobacco companies, Nestle, etc? All the noise doesn't necessarily translate into action.

yborg 5y ago
Exactly. Once you have market control it doesn't matter what people think, c.f. Comcast.