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Facebook Hits 2 Billion Users

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Re: Facebook Hits 2 Billion Users

#221
post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of this other thread from a post about a CRM for keeping track of personal associations: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14498633 Facebook has a huge opportunity to help people stay connected with those closest to them -- and keep track of a wider circle of friends and family members -- in ways that actually evoke empathy and care, rather than jealousy and attention-seeking. But I suppose that would r…

How would they make money doing that?

Legitimate problem, and legitimate question. This is the kind of thing I come to HN to see asked and answered. Too bad no one's taken a stab at it. Maybe that's what the "Facebook killer" will get right. Or Facebook themselves, to prevent being "killed."

Re: Facebook Hits 2 Billion Users

#222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think it is an overreach to go from 'access to' to 'influence over' Facebook is a lot of people's primary source of news or even communication. Humans are a social species and massively influenced by what they hear from others.

I don't disagree, but I don't think Facebook is responsible for 'fake news' or even 'hate news'. As with any community there are actors within it which self select to group together and communicate. Now what it does do is allow what might be a dispersed group to become a 'local community' but Facebook's role in that is providing the access, not in influencing what those people do or say. One need only step between ra…

See the comments below regarding Facebook's algorithms about what gets presented in people's feeds. Facebook is absolutely a principle player in what people see, by virtue that their algorithms can be gamed in particular ways, and their promotion of news and products can be bought. To think that Facebook isn't selling outsized influence over people's feeds for obscene amounts of money would be naive.

EDIT: I believe this is also the secret to Reddit's success...

Re: Facebook Hits 2 Billion Users

#223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree, but I don't think Facebook is responsible for 'fake news' or even 'hate news'. As with any community there are actors within it which self select to group together and communicate. Now what it does do is allow what might be a dispersed group to become a 'local community' but Facebook's role in that is providing the access, not in influencing what those people do or say. One need only step between ra…

See the comments below regarding Facebook's algorithms about what gets presented in people's feeds. Facebook is absolutely a principle player in what people see, by virtue that their algorithms can be gamed in particular ways, and their promotion of news and products can be bought. To think that Facebook isn't selling outsized influence over people's feeds for obscene amounts of money would be naive. EDIT: I believe…

I see it differently. I see people gaming Facebook's algorithms just like people have worked to game search engine algorithms for years, in order to push their message in front of people who would be receptive to it. I don't see Facebook as the agent of that gaming which is perhaps an insignificant point as far as some in the discussion would consider but for me it is the essential point.

I see Reddit, Facebook, Topix, Google+, HN, all providing "watering holes" or a place for a community to form, and these days there is always an algorithm connected to a mechanism for the community to use to signal its approval and disapproval. In "broad" community sites like Facebook and Reddit there is an explicit 'hands off' policy on how those communities operate (until there isn't). That supports a wide number of communities and optimizes for high user counts. In "narrow" community sites like HN and various forum sites, there is an explicit 'hands on' policy which drives the community to a particular place. That optimizes for content/discussion that is highly aligned with the owner's editorial goals even at the cost of ejecting users who don't align with those goals.

The way I think about it, for a multi-community site to actively "influence" its users, the site operator would have to apply some mechanism for shaming or promoting specific communities within it. Further it would associate users with that level of compliance which would signal to them if they were 'betting better' or 'being worse'. The signalling is needed to help the users understand which way they are "supposed" to go, without that signalling it is much harder.

So multi-community sites don't (and won't) do that because it results in users leaving and taking their eyeballs with them. And ultimately the point of such sites is to collect as many people there as possible with as wide a demographic as possible, so that people can advertise goods and services to them.

Re: Facebook Hits 2 Billion Users

#225
post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google's profile counts -- Android, Gmail, Youtube, and G+, mostly, in about that order, topped 3 billion a while ago. http://archive.is/zi4Uw (Origin site appears down.)

Only active users should be counted.

An upstream comment menttioned total accounts.

I've some awareness of G+ active users.

https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/naya9wqdemiovuvwvoyquq

There may also be other concerns or interests.

https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/3hp41w/trackin...

Re: Facebook Hits 2 Billion Users

#226
post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they crossed 3 months ago when I still worked there but didn't want to share it broadly because they thought it was a temporary spike due to some political unrest in SE Asia. Safe to assume they are over the hump by now.

Just curious, what political unrest in SE Asia? Are you talking about the Jakarta election?

something in India actually I think.

Re: Facebook Hits 2 Billion Users

#227
post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PHP uses 64-bit integers on 64-bit systems. Of course they have some compiled variant of PHP which might do anything...

They scrapped the compiling to C++ part long ago, HipHop is now HHVM.

/me duckduckgo's that

Hmm, JIT but only to bytecode it seems, not to machine code. Interesting!

Re: Facebook Hits 2 Billion Users

#228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

for OSX blocking at DNS level: Posted a year ago in hn https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11793855 for linux use: https://github.com/tbds/FreeContributor/tree/master/data https://www.perpetual-beta.org/weblog/blocking-facebook-on-o...

> for linux use: https://github.com/tbds/FreeContributor/tree/master/data This appears to be broken.

https://github.com/evilneuro/FreeContributor

Re: Facebook Hits 2 Billion Users

#229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook censors content, such as nipples. Facebook put a giant banner across their site for Indian users to promote a specific public policy matter.

> Facebook censors content, such as nipples But leaked documents from their internal policy allows for displaying the Female nipple under certain circumstances. See => https://hyperallergic.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/fb-art-... Source: Leaked Document Lays Out Facebook’s Policy on Sex and Nudity in Art => https://hyperallergic.com/380911/leaked-document-lays-out-fa... How do they / their algorithm decide if the n…

I saw a vice piece which showed that they used human content filters, at least for some stuff.

In any case the rules determined for their human or algorithmic content filters are culturally arbitrary, and Western-biased. For example, if Facebook was a Saudi company, you can bet more than nipples would be banned.

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