When your politicians put random employees and other paid shills in front of committees as proof that they’re being “tough on Facebook,” understand that it’s a giant charade. It’s only when they call the super-voting shareholders and the board that something serious is going on. These are the people who think you’re all too stupid to know how the game works.
Pro tip: citations, please!
https://www.reuters.com/article/idUS275871279920151202
> At Facebook, Zuckerberg’s stake, worth some $45 billion, comes with more than 53 percent of the votes in any shareholder poll, according to company filings. That rises to nearly 60 percent including stock owned by co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, which Zuckerberg usually gets to vote.
Note that there have been share sales since the time of this article (2015), so I would assume that the majority has become even more dependent on others voting his way (I wouldn’t know what the board has granted since then, which is a whole other topic...)
I try to spend only 1 or 2 minutes when I visit Facebook a couple of times a week. If everyone did that then their profits would tank. My bad for not just quitting but I am addicted to the Oculus Quest (a favorite toy).
I know many people whose digital life experience is always having Facebook open on their desktop. Productivity is almost a religion to me: aspects of peoples' digital lives that prevent us from long periods of single pointed concentration are bad. I use https://freedom.to to limit my use of HN, etc. to specific periods of the day when I am not working - I almost feel like that is a personal failure that I need to do that, but that is what it is.
You think Thiel and the Trump election was interesting? Go look at the largest donor to Biden’s “Future Forward PAC.”
Plenty of people here on HN have argued that the real problem is centralization, and I agree. Take whatever specific issue one might have with FB -- let's say disinformation, for instance. We have all these debates about censorship vs free speech vs accountability etc. But in fact, if FB wasn't the behemoth it is, much of this would be moot. In a world where there were _only_ smaller, more niche social media sites, fears around things like online radicalization would be much less, and any well-founded suspicions of actual criminal conspiracies would lend themselves to much more targeted warrant-backed investigations rather than privacy-destroying giant electronic dragnets. And if this example doesn't work for you, pick another one and think through how a world of smaller, less influential sites would change what you see as the problem with social media.
But you can't brute force your way to that world -- that's pushing against a very strong current. So long as the economic model is to create a large, targetable advertising market, you're going to have very strong incentives for centralization and invasion of privacy.
Contrast this with non-digital social hubs -- say, a pub. People come for the socialization, but the actual product being sold is food and drink. Social space becomes a side effect, one that complements and enhances the business model (a pub with a reputation as a good place to meet friends gets more business), but the business model isn't data-mining your audience.
I think a social media network that focused on extending offline hubs into social spaces, where the economic model is attracting an audience to gather and chat and then _selling them something_, would mitigate the incentives to centralization and invasion of privacy. We need to tie social media to the selling of actual products; users need to be customers, not the actual product.
I'm pursuing the idea of trying to better enable self-hosting of your online social presence with Haven[1], but it's difficult to get a framing that resonates quickly with people--in spite of the prevalence ofthese types of news stories.
I think some institutions might work -- a forward-thinking library whose website isn't just an announcements and catalog site, but an actual social media hub -- but I think that'd be rare.
I don't think, by and large, private individual sites as social hubs would really work, as there's not enough draw to bring in a sufficiently large userbase to become a social hub.
How so?
Coordinated large-scale propaganda (or advertising, but I repeat myself), as well as censorship, surveillance, and targeted manipulation, all benefit tremendously by a monopoly. These are in fact integral features of an information, communications, or media monopoly:
https://joindiaspora.com/posts/7bfcf170eefc013863fa002590d8e... (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24771470)
I'm not entirely sure what the consequences of a bunch of smaller, freestanding forums and discussions would be, but my sense is that it would be better at generating different specific subculures and beliefs (many of which could well independently be poorly-grounded in reality or factual basis) ... but it wouldn't be as subject to the degree of mass propaganda, surveillance, and targeted manipulation.
There's the risk though that such a system might well be asymmetric as to decentralisation. If it's structured such that adversaries could utilise the system but defenders / the general public cannot enact sufficient defences, then what exists is a false decentralisation. Arguably, this is presently the case with FB, where advertisers and propagandists have far more effective tools and capabilities than those defending against them. I'm concerned that this could also effectively be the case with more distributed protocols --- Usnenet, the Fediverse, Diaspora*, etc. (All of which I use / have used in the past.)
Non-profit would work great. The core functionality that people flock to these platforms for could be replicated on a shoestring budget as the stalker stuff is where the high $ engineering talents are focused (and pissing away our "best and brightest" on negative social outcomes).
Nothing.
Either shut it down or live with the impact but the time to 'do something' about Facebook was a long time ago. Before legislators in the US let it become this surveillance behemoth. Before it became a massive ad network.
Reining it in also presumes that legislative methods will work. I think it is already clear that they don't.
Shut it down.
How is it clear? What legislation has been attempted?
The simplest legislation--I could fit it on a page--would be to ban M&A by social media companies over a certain size and force break-ups of past mergers that would have violated that restriction had it been in place since, I don't know, February 4, 2004.
They were fined and they deliberately took a bigger fine to protect their CEO.
They ignored calls for their CEO to appear before parliament in the UK and Canada. Ignored.
I am not fully aware of the state of legislative action in the UK from the Cambridge/Brexit issue but that hasn't gone anywhere.
They are far too large to be legislated. They have too much money to fine. What possible options other than shutting the company down exist that Facebook wouldn't either pay with their 'spare change' fund or bury with lobbyists?
I don't think your problem with Facebook is that they bought a few companies.
You can't even effectively "mobilize" the populace for some sort of popular movement against social media because most of that sort of thing these days can only happen on social media. It's not even like we can have a revolution with 50k people and storm FB headquarters and "physically" stop the behemoth. It's headless for the most part. And good luck getting 50k people even. Pretty much All the platforms will stop you before you get anywhere because of "threats of violence".
I would point out that businesses should not be a privilege allowed to exist by legislators or allowed to grow to a certain size by the same.
Second, I'd suggest that having large centralized organizations can only benefit legislatures as they have few sources to work with when either requesting data or bringing them to speak in front of Congress for yet another show trial.
In a free society, people are allowed to surrender some freedom and privacy if they choose. It seems like what Facebook offers is worth the cost to the average person.
While the US didn't outlaw cigarettes, it did take a number of steps to reduce the usage because of the externalities they cause. I don't see any reason why we shouldn't treat Facebook the same way. Add taxes that go towards funding programs to warn of the dangers of anti-vax and other extremist content, keep kids under 13 off of their products, etc.
That is quite the platitude when being applied to an industry that is built on manipulating people and eroding "free will" at every turn.
>But in the normal world it doesn't seem like enough people care to me.
1. "normal" people lack a comprehensive understanding of just how much their privacy is being invaded and how manipulated they are. I'd guess that some of us on HN have the foresight to see exactly where this evil path leads. I am moderately technical and all this surveillance and manipulation tech (and its counters) are sometimes confusing to me.
2. Even where "normal" people are vaguely aware that their privacy is being invaded, they are being trained into a state of learned helplessness.
I don't. I'm still tracked. Also negatively affected by its effects. People are free to smoke cigarettes, but we will pass measures to limit its damage, particularly to innocent bystanders.
It's main objective is to influence, manipulate and subvert the user's judgment and convince them to buy something --- be it physical product or ideology. To further this objective, it has developed an incredibly detailed psychological profile of each individual user using deeply personal info willing surrendered by the user themselves.
It's skill at doing this is what it promotes to it's real paying customers --- mostly advertisers. Users are not their "customer", they are just the marks being manipulated.
As board member Peter Thiel put it, "I'd rather be seen as evil than incompetent". Evil is obviously more profitable.
Look, they’re not a propaganda machine! I’m so thankful we have them to “fight” against “misinformation”. I read that and my blood began to boil. Evil is the perfect description of such disgusting, deceitful pandering.
Extreme wealth and power has caused some self-appointed Deciders of Truth to band together and decide that anyone who does not pledge allegiance to anything they decide is true will be cast out of society as much as practically possible.
I remember reading Plato’s The Republic when I was young and coming away with the impression that arriving at the nature of truth was very complicated and nuanced. Apparently these tech CEOs and their buddies in government have decided to simplify everything for us proles.
The claim in this comment is that Facebook's business is to sell ads, but facebook users actually the thing being sold, rather than the customers. This has caused Facebook to become evil and do evil things.
However, if you think about it, almost any social "product" follows the same pattern.
Consider Bars and Clubs. On the surface it seems like their only purpose is to sell alcohol to the patrons, and in a way the patrons are just a way to make the club look more popular to attract more alcohol consumers. But most bars don't become propaganda organizations delivering ethanol via an IV drip. Bars want to create a fun environment that is sustainable in the long term, so they avoid strategies that are likely to harm their customers and prevent them from coming back. Some bars are undoubtedly evil, but it's usually pretty obvious and there are regulations to detect and limit misleading or dangerous behavior (spiking drinks, racial discrimination on entry).
For a lot of people, Instagram is more like a Bar than a physical product. It's a place you go to interact with people and have fun or catch up. Facebook wants people to enjoy themselves and keep coming back. Sometimes people have a bad time or are harmed, but it's in Facebook's best interest to understand that and change things to make Instagram safer and more enjoyable, so people will keep coming back and "buying drinks".
Bars earn all their income from serving individual patrons. Facebook earns nothing from their individual patrons. All their income is earned serving those seeking to manipulate and take advantage of their patrons.
It's easy to see where the allegiance lies in either case --- just follow the money.
1) Stop hiring ex-Facebook employees. Unless they come clean about the company, they're willingly working at a corporation designed to destroy people. Why would you want people that sacrifice morals for money at your company?
2) Pass legislation requiring that algorithmic / amplified social media displays a "Surgeon General's" warning at the top that can't be dismissed. 12px white on black font: "This product is designed to be emotionally disruptive"
3) Disallow companies from targeting or onboarding children. If kids can have an account, there must be no adds or PII used in analytics or big data. No studying them. No manipulating them.
I might be in the minority but Instagram is still awesome. It’s gotten more ads but most of them are quite interesting.
I’ve found made in USA goods from IG ads like this: https://psudo.com/
Twitter is actually useful if you limit who you follow to the right people. My experience of Twitter is a bunch of academics promoting their articles. Lior Pachter trashing tSNE and UMAP is about the spiciest it gets.
But even if Twitter were pure outrage, that is far from the most serious social media damage to society. Twitter, for all its faults, is relatively low on mis- and dis-information because people call it out. It's all one conversational space. Facebook, which is much more fragmented, enables flourishing niches of bonkers thought. Some of those niches are just wild-type insanity, but many more are gardens of crazy cultivated by people with a financial or political need for that.
I firmly believe that without Facebook, we wouldn't have a situation where thousands of people are dying per day of a preventable disease, with 95+% of those because of mis- and dis-information about the disease and the necessary countermeasures.
Several more equal competitors would feel pressure to outdo each other. Some other fix is needed (probably in addition to breakup).
Also, it doesn’t seem like their position in the market has really encouraged Facebook to “hold back” on anything. Growth is their only goal.
Sure, there is the anti-competitive aspect to it. But wrt to the divisiveness and polarization, the exploitation by political actors, it would not make a difference. Something else would just rise up to fill that void. It's the digital equivalent of junk food. Banning Coke, would do nothing to solve obesity.
The textbook case for the Sherman Act was Standard Oil. Built up by Rockefeller in the late 19th century, Standard Oil came to effectively control the extraction, refining, distribution and sale of kerosene (in particular). This is when oil pipelines began, interestingly to break up another monopoly: the railroads (for distribution).
Standard Oil split into a bunch of companies, many of which still exist today (eg Chevron, Exxon-Mobil). This break up actually made Rockefeller (even more) fantastically wealthy.
The key point is that Standard Oil could (and did) use its significant market power to squash competitors.
Another example: the Paramount decision that split film studios, distribution and theaters.
Personally I think very few Big Tech companies would warrant this kind of government action and top of that list for me would be Amazon, whose stranglehold on logistics, delivery and online storefronts is near-total. Amazon's delivery prices (FedEx, UPS, USPS primarily) cannot be matched. The barrier to entry is so huge, no one could reasonably compete.
But Facebook? Let's look at the last 10 years. FB bought IG when (IMHO) IG represented an existential threat to FB. So if you're going to argue market dominance, you're going to have to explain how a company a few years old with 13 employees (at the time of acquisition) could possibly threaten FB.
Another is TikTok.
Can we stop applying standards developed for 19th century oil producers to Big Tech where distribution is essentially free and said companies exist only so long as the users want them to?
I know it's trendy for lawmakers to bang their drums about an issue as a kneejerk reaction to grab some headlines and that they must hurry to do so before the market just solves the problem anyway but still.
Disclaimer: Ex-Facebooker. Opinions are my own.
This looks like an argument for antitrust. The component companies' political influence was reduced. Consumers saw better prices [1]. And apparently, shareholders also won.
[1] David I. Rosenbaum, Market Dominance: How Firms Gain, Hold, or Lose it and the Impact on Economic Performance
Whatsapp, OTOH is a completely different issue and probably should have to be divested.
This just in: Ex-FB employee says Amazon, not FB, is the problem.
¿Por que no los dos?
https://www.cablefax.com/technology/how-at-amp-t-became-a-mo...
It sounds more like, look we give users more control over data, but please let us do the meta verse project.
From what I see there, it will get even worse. Fb collects data and sells ads based on that data, meanwhile the users are undergoing gamification aka incentivized to spend as much time as possible on the platform.
The best governance would be if people simply stopped using it, but people do want to share and like, they think it adds value to the life.
So what can be done to reign in Facebook? Nothing.
I feel that this is the only effective way to counter FBs network effect monopoly.
While I understand that at this point it will probably take some regulatory action to fully deal with Facebook and its abuses, there's a huge cognitive dissonance among many people when it comes to Facebook. Lots of the people who complain about how evil the company's behavior is use the company's products frequently. Lots of criticism of Facebook is published on websites that have Facebook Like and follow buttons, and use Facebook tracking pixels.
Stop feeding the beast.
A lot of businesses, social clubs, schools/daycare centers, etc use Facebook as their primary online presence. Your option is to either sign up or not participate.
2. Communicate with the business through some other means (all local businesses I deal with have a phone), and if they don't provide one, then stop doing business there, too, and find a way to tell them why.
3. If your friends won't communicate with you simply because you won't use a Facebook-owned communication channel, then I have bad news for you: They might not really be great friends.
Sorry to be rude, but this idea that "you don't have a choice to use Facebook properties" is ridiculous. We all have a choice. I haven't used Facebook for close to 10 years now, and I never signed up for any of their other properties like Instagram and WhatsApp. I had an Oculus and stopped using it when the Facebook purchase happened. You do have a choice.
You literally have to pay to avoid Facebook with Swoop.
It has to start somewhere...
"Just say no", is wonderful advice but the reality is somewhat more complicated.
Which is why we're surprised it's not in the article.
Applying that advice is complicated, but we should still push for it, and there's is a very strong network effect. If in reaction to new a lot of people stopped using Facebook, then Facebook would be that much easier for others to stop using.
..Also send the whistleblower to the Ecuadorian embassy
In other countries, there are power centers awarded by other than cash accumulation. Xi, Putin, and MBS aren't particularly worried about Facebook.
Europe is the only place making an attempt, but that's because they have a post-WWII extra-capitalist social consensus sponsored (and enforced) by US military spending. Any real flexing by the US, and Europe either backs down or turns to China.
This article is typical Guardian legislative fanfiction, where we pretend that rules are put into place based on how well they might work to achieve liberal philosophical aims, rather than by power. If any politician or movement amassed the power to do any of these things, the Guardian would devote all of its energy to attacking them.
In terms of misinformation, it was just a couple a weeks ago that the mainstream media was pushing the narrative that the Border Patrol was whipping immigrants, which was completely false.
Maybe that is just the way you want to see it? The article is clearly talking about recent revelations about the impact of Instagram on teens. Not sure how you are getting to 'censor views the mainstream media disagrees with' but it must have been a serpentine road.
From https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2021/border-patrol-hai...
Ratje said he saw a Border Patrol agent swing his horse’s rein in the air while migrants were in the river. One migrant who was holding bags of food fell backward.
As some migrants tried to get past Border Patrol agents, Ratje took photos, including one that would later go viral. Ratje saw the agent swing his rein vertically, spot a Haitian migrant in a black shirt carrying bags of food, and then pursue him
The Border Patrol agent “is grabbing the Haitian with his right hand and has his reins in his left hand. The rein swings up,” Ratje said. The migrant then “got swung around,” Ratje said, but the agent eventually let go.
A separate video tweeted by John Holman, a correspondent for Al Jazeera, showed a Border Patrol agent yelling at Haitian migrants as they crossed the Rio Grande with food. A video showed a Border Patrol agent in the river yelling at migrants: “Hey you use your women? This is why your country’s s—, because you use your women for this!”
>Ratje told PolitiFact that his photographs didn’t show signs of agents whipping any migrants or using anything as a whip to strike them.
>"Nobody saw a Border Patrol agent whipping," he said. "What we did see was a Border Patrol agent swinging the rein in like a circle. It looked pretty threatening. Nobody saw him strike the migrant with that thing, the reins.
>"I asked other colleagues, ‘Did you see him whipping?’ No," he added. "That stuff got misconstrued.
Truth is there was no whipping of immigrants. That part was completely misinformation.