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Facebook Can’t Cope with the World It’s Created

foreignpolicy.com

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Re: Facebook Can’t Cope with the World It’s Created

#101

Post by barrkel »

felipeko wrote: post #58
deletefb wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, why don’t opioid addicts just stop? And why don’t fat people just lose weight and eat healthy? And why don’t poor people just stop being poor? Clearly every issue in society is a result of a lack of personal responsibility.

I'm all for people helping, looking for help or education. I'm against someone deciding that I cannot do something because it can be bad for me.

I'm against someone deciding that I cannot do something because it can be bad for me.

You don't live in a vacuum or a state with a population of one. If your actions have consequences - and most do, even if it's only through the socialized pooling effect of insurance - then there is a moral argument for society to regulate them.

Personally I'm more of a fan of utilitarian thinking that takes into account second and third order effects. It's not enough to regulate X because X is bad; you need to look at what X is currently displacing, black market effects, underlying demand. But it's just silly to deny the moral legitimacy of regulation in itself - we all live in a society and it's childishly selfish to think you can just do as you please. It's prohibitively expensive to capture all the externalities of our actions, so we regulate instead.

Re: Facebook Can’t Cope with the World It’s Created

#102

Post by Const-me »

felipeko wrote: post #25
richardknop wrote: post #12

Facebook has to be broken down to pieces. I think it has reached a state where it cannot be allowed to continue as a single company being able to observe/monitor public and private communication / social interaction of so many people and not being regulated and controlled by the government.

I don't understand why do you think that. The biggest problem of big companies is when they hurt consumers with predatory practices. With Facebook I fail to see how that's the case. Everybody is perfectly capable of not being hurt by their own accord by just no using it. If the problem is how it influences politics and government, I think that's even a point against letting the government mess with it, as it is a pow…

> With Facebook I fail to see how that's the case.

Here’s an example from couple of years ago: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/17/facebook-pro-k...

I think by blocking these people, Facebook violated the first amendment, and probably even conspired with a foreign totalitarian government.

In US laws however, Facebook is free to do whatever they want with the data stored on the servers they own. Also the blocked people have accepted EULA. So, according to the letter of law, FB probably did nothing wrong.

Re: Facebook Can’t Cope with the World It’s Created

#103

Post by amelius »

FreakyT wrote: post #27
john2x wrote: post #7

My idea for a quick fix is to remove likes/dislikes/emoji reactions. If people can't see how others feel about a post/article in an instant, they might have to read and decide for themselves how to feel.

Upvotes on HN/Reddit do essentially the same thing. I don't have the user statistics, but I'd imagine the typical HN reader only reads a sampling of the top-voted comments, which essentially allows them "to see how others feel about a post/article in an instant." If you want an example of the opposite approach, you can always look at 2009-era YouTube, when all comments shown were in a strict "newest" order. If you re…

How about collaborative filtering? [1]

I.e., the stuff that is upvoted by people who "upvote like you" is ranked higher. (I would like this feature on HN, as it would eliminate e.g. articles about CSS which I find boring; of course that is personal, but that's the point).

Otoh, there's a danger of "echo chambers"; not sure how to deal with that.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaborative_filtering

Re: Facebook Can’t Cope with the World It’s Created

#104

Post by colmvp »

stabbles wrote: post #45

I'm curious how many HN people still use Facebook. The overall sentiment here seems to be to just quit it.

I quit a little less than a year ago but honestly it’s a drop in the bucket as compared to the rest of the people in my social circle. I’m resigned to the fact that millions of people don’t care about whatever Facebook does, that Facebook not only won the social network wars but they are astoundingly profitable and lucrative, and that it kind of doesn’t matter what Facebook does people will still use them.

Re: Facebook Can’t Cope with the World It’s Created

#105

Post by cryptoz »

dasil003 wrote: post #98

I have no love for Facebook, but it's important to recognize that Facebook role in these problems is only incidental. If there was no Facebook, we'd have the same growing fake news, astroturfing and bot problem—these are inherent to social media and widespread internet access. I'm not against regulation of Facebook per se, but the broader question of how we contend with online misinformation and propaganda in an onli…

> Facebook role in these problems is only incidental. If there was no Facebook, we'd have the same growing fake news, astroturfing and bot problem

You don't know this. A major flaw of Facebook is that the CEO thinks his users are "dumb fucks", and who is hell-bent on growth without checks, who is a morality that does not include personal privacy or seemingly any human emotion for his users who made him rich. He has refused to acknowledge the problems on his platform that led to the issues with fake news today.

Perhaps a different company, run by a different person or group of people, will be less intentionally vile and evil.

Re: Facebook Can’t Cope with the World It’s Created

#106

Post by chadgeidel »

BurritoAlPastor wrote: post #100
saas_co_de wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it is interesting that the author sees no place in the modern world for the kind of free speech enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. They are happy with a giant global monopolist controlling all speech, as long as they use that power to enforce their political agenda. That is an incredibly dangerous mindset and one that seems to be becoming more pervasive in respectable circles.

The Constitutional guarantee of free speech mandates the behavior of the government to not interfere with the rights of private actors . When a private actor (such as Facebook) chooses to publish or suppress content from a third party, that is a voluntary exercise of Constitutionally protected speech . Social media services have neither a moral nor legal obligation to publish hate speech.

This is so true and something that is confused all the time by “free speech advocates”. It’s quite frustrating actually.

I’m not happy about the amplification of speech that social networks offer, but l’m even more unhappy about the attitude of “smart” techies who shrug their shoulders and say “free speech - cant do anything about that”.

We can do something about that, but that would mean solving hard problems and not creating another way to type a few hundred words into a text box.

Re: Facebook Can’t Cope with the World It’s Created

#107

Post by dwaltrip »

Retric wrote: post #85
jorvi wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I've noticed a lot on sites like HN and Reddit is that there's always heavy 'tilting'. If any comment ever drops below +1 (or below that of a different viewpoint, so +10 vs +1), people just blindly start ramming the downvote button without any thought, as if they aren't capable of analyzing the comment on its own merit because 'the crowd' has already decided for them and they take the path of least resistance in…

I am not sure how true that is. I have had many comments go negative and still end up positive. I think people are more likely to think about voting when they see a downvoted post. PS: I also feel some net negative posts are a good sign that someone is not simply voicing the crowd's opinions.

I've caught myself before sometimes being more careless with the downvote button if the comment was already grayed out. After I realized this risk, I now attempt to be more mindful.

So it is a thing that happens, at least to a certain extent.

Re: Facebook Can’t Cope with the World It’s Created

#108

Post by johnchristopher »

heurist wrote: post #82
john2x wrote: post #7

My idea for a quick fix is to remove likes/dislikes/emoji reactions. If people can't see how others feel about a post/article in an instant, they might have to read and decide for themselves how to feel.

I think they should remove the media content they add to external links and only show URLs. If people had to click a link to see the title, summary, images, or other clickbait meta content they'd be less likely to share links thoughtlessly. They might also see that the URL is untrusted and choose not to click through. Facebook could charge brands to show their content alongside click bait media. It would be a lot eas…

They'd just be less likely to click which isn't going to go well with marketing teams using facebook for their campaign.

Re: Facebook Can’t Cope with the World It’s Created

#109

Post by dgudkov »

Facebook didn't create that world -- it has always existed. Facebook only exposed some previously underrated features of the human society. It's very naive to expect that it can fix it. A social network (or any other technology) can't fix humans just like telephone or television couldn't. Like any massive technology shift it requires new social education. For instance, be very mindful about what you post and who can read/see it, beware of social bubbles and bots, employ critical thinking. The process of education will take time but eventually new online social norms will be formed and the early adopter problems will fade away.

Re: Facebook Can’t Cope with the World It’s Created

#110

Post by johnchristopher »

codingdave wrote: post #41
monort wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you apply the same logic to government? Government has to be broken down to pieces. I think it has reached a state where it cannot be allowed to continue as a single government being able to observe/monitor public and private communication / social interaction of so many people and not being regulated and controlled by market forces.

Aside from the federal/state/local split, which has already been mentioned, the Constitution split Executive/Legislative/Judicial branches out at the federal level. We may have weakened the intent of those checks and balances in our current environment, but they certainly were designed into the system. So yes, to answer your question - I would definitely would apply the same logic to government.

Going along on that idea, in what part should Facebook be broken down into ?
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