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Came to write the same thing. There's a PR effort to manufacture a PR crisis... But by and large, it has seemed rather ineffective outside the filter bubble.

Came to write the same thing. There's a PR effort to manufacture a PR crisis... But by and large, it has seemed rather ineffective outside the filter bubble. It seems like the news is trying to prescribe a reality, instead of describing it.

KarlKemp 5y ago
It seems you believe the Facebook spin. Congratulations! You're on of two people believing anything Clegg has said in the last decade or so, and the other one is Zuckerberg. FWIW, the problem with this idea, except from being an ad hominem of sorts in that it attacks the message via the messenger, is that the individual journalist doesn't actually hold the opinions that we ascribe to "the media". Some young writer at the New York Times isn't upset because Facebook robbed them of the position of power they once had and cut their income by 70% because they never had that power. And since they are the Times, they aren't exactly unhappy with their career, either. Every time there is an article about the privacy implications of ad tracking, something things it's a great indictment to point out how many trackers the article page loads. Yet that only proofs how independent journalists are. In that industry, getting some ad customer to boycott your publisher is almost as good as a Pulitzer, and if it means nobody gets a raise... well, at least you got the story.
jpe90 5y ago
> It seems like the news is trying to prescribe a reality, instead of describing it. Thanks for putting that into words. It perfectly describes the uncanny feeling that I often feel while reading both left-leaning and right-leaning American news media, and why I've made a large conscious effort to scale back my consumption as much as possible.
AlexandrB 5y ago
> “How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked. > “Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.” I'm curious which filter bubble you're referring to. The HN filter bubble (a lot of people don't seem to like Facebook)? The gamer filter bubble (many in that community were upset when Facebook accounts became required for Oculus)? The media filter bubble (as evidenced by this reporting)? There seem to be a lot of different filter bubbles that think Facebook is a shit company. Maybe these don't add up to much, or maybe they do. Time will tell.
- hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
  Thinking it's a shit company is one thing. Changing behavior is another. My argument is that all of the slow down in usage (i.e. Apple's iOS changes, younger demographics ditching FB and Instagram for TikTok) would all have happened even if none of this reporting happened. And, on a personal anecdotal level, I use Facebook less because the experience just has gotten so shitty and tiresome. Having lots of experience in the "usage optimization" industry, I think there is a real danger Facebook optimizes for the short term (outrage! scrolls! clicks!), but at some point many of us just get tired of outrage. Again, that trap was likely to happen even without any reporting.

KarlKemp 5y ago

It seems you believe the Facebook spin. Congratulations! You're on of two people believing anything Clegg has said in the last decade or so, and the other one is Zuckerberg. FWIW, the problem with this idea, except from being an ad hominem of sorts in that it attacks the message via the messenger, is that the individual journalist doesn't actually hold the opinions that we ascribe to "the media". Some young writer at the New York Times isn't upset because Facebook robbed them of the position of power they once had and cut their income by 70% because they never had that power. And since they are the Times, they aren't exactly unhappy with their career, either. Every time there is an article about the privacy implications of ad tracking, something things it's a great indictment to point out how many trackers the article page loads. Yet that only proofs how independent journalists are. In that industry, getting some ad customer to boycott your publisher is almost as good as a Pulitzer, and if it means nobody gets a raise... well, at least you got the story.

jpe90 5y ago

> It seems like the news is trying to prescribe a reality, instead of describing it. Thanks for putting that into words. It perfectly describes the uncanny feeling that I often feel while reading both left-leaning and right-leaning American news media, and why I've made a large conscious effort to scale back my consumption as much as possible.

AlexandrB 5y ago

> “How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked. > “Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.” I'm curious which filter bubble you're referring to. The HN filter bubble (a lot of people don't seem to like Facebook)? The gamer filter bubble (many in that community were upset when Facebook accounts became required for Oculus)? The media filter bubble (as evidenced by this reporting)? There seem to be a lot of different filter bubbles that think Facebook is a shit company. Maybe these don't add up to much, or maybe they do. Time will tell.

hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
Thinking it's a shit company is one thing. Changing behavior is another. My argument is that all of the slow down in usage (i.e. Apple's iOS changes, younger demographics ditching FB and Instagram for TikTok) would all have happened even if none of this reporting happened. And, on a personal anecdotal level, I use Facebook less because the experience just has gotten so shitty and tiresome. Having lots of experience in the "usage optimization" industry, I think there is a real danger Facebook optimizes for the short term (outrage! scrolls! clicks!), but at some point many of us just get tired of outrage. Again, that trap was likely to happen even without any reporting.