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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

#171

Post by deletefb »

herbst wrote: post #137
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.

Wait. No. Poor people don't have a direct choice. Fat people don't complain about beeing fat. And opiod addicts can get help easily. Nothing even remotely similar to just not using Facebook.

Sure, just stop using Facebook. I mean, you’ll miss your little cousin growing up, your sister’s wedding photos, invitations to fun events, and being able to easily communicate with most people you know, but yeah, it’s so easy to just stop. Network effects don’t exist at all. And hey, stop using your cell phone too. I mean, you have a choice. Don’t like your job? Might as well just quit. There certainly is no way to dislike your situation but continue in it anyway because you have to or it’s all you know.

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

#172

Post by clydethefrog »

dredmorbius wrote: post #164
ivix wrote: post #64

It's quite eye opening the way that this article paints Facebook as a clueless giant, unknowingly enabling revolutions, swinging elections and upending societies. I don't think there's any precedent for this.

I'd very strongly suggest you read media theory. The role of media -- the press, cheap paper, high-speed printing, widespread literacy, pamphlets, telegraph, radio, cinema, audio tape, public address systems, mass media, advertising, television, cable, talk radio, BBS systems, Usenet, the Internet, the WWW (versions 1.0, 2.0, and mobile), etc., in political and social matters is absolutely profound. And often quite u…

It's a depressing field if you go to deep I feel, especially if you read the most critical and pessimistic critical theorists in the field. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction by Benjamin and The Society of the Spectacle by Debord forever changed my vision on society. "My thoughts have been replaced by moving images..."

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

#173

Post by marcus_holmes »

wutbrodo wrote: post #159
beautifulfreak wrote: post #49

>Facebook can no longer deny its moral responsibility to try to understand how cyberspace, law, and politics collide in each of the countries where it operates, nor its responsibility to do something about it. That sentence doesn't make sense. Do something about what? How those things collide? It's very unclear what the author thinks Facebook is supposed to do, or what he thinks Facebook is actually responsible for.…

The whole article doesn't make any sense. It's clickbait for people whose brains have buzzword recognition swapped in for critical thinking. He talks about how falsehoods and doctored photos are being spread on Facebook, and that government officials are posted them on their pages. In the absence of Facebook, _only_ those government officials would have a platform. Why on earth would that be better? He even pays lip…

The author is a journalist. Facebook is anathema to journalists because without it only journalists would have a voice. With Facebook, everyone has a voice, but no-one has been trained in how to use their voice.

The author is also female. Not that that is relevant to any point except your use of pronoun.

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

#174

Post by narrator »

Zafira wrote: post #127
narrator wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes more sense when it is acknowledged that "Foreign Policy" is the official magazine of the Council on Foreign Relations, a group of people who are used to running the world. The CFR's main concern is that Facebook allows non-traditional actors, mainly not them or organizations which they do not have control over, to have some influence on the narrative that explains world events to the public at large in each…

> It makes more sense when it is acknowledged that "Foreign Policy" is the official magazine of the Council on Foreign Relations, a group of people who are used to running the world. You're thinking of "Foreign Affairs".

Oh whoops. I stand corrected. It sounded a lot like the tone of a "Foreign Affairs" article.

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

#175

Post by InternetOfStuff »

paradite wrote: post #111

I know this comment might attract a lot of hate, but I will put it here anyway. The main reason why Facebook is not in China is that Chinese government wishes to regulate Facebook while Facebook (like Google) refuses to obey. In some ways, Chinese government was right in the judgement that unfiltered and unregulated freedom of speech bring its own problems. And now the Western free world is starting to see these prob…

Interesting take, thank you.

There's still a big difference: for us, privately owned companies with whose publications we struggle have been with us for a very long time.

Germany, where I'm from, has a more nuanced concept of free speech than the US, legally banning a greater (but overall still very small) number of topics or expressions.

However, outright banning of a media company is essentially impossible: prosecutors can only go after individual publications. They are using the same regulations to go after Facebook posts as they use to go after newspaper articles, As you might imagine it's not working out, because of sheer volume among other factors. So they've recently created a new law to simplify oversight over social media.

However this is not really a surprising new development. We're not "starting to see these problems", we've struggled with these problems throughout the existence of the German Republic. Technology is currently changing their shape, as it has before (e.g with the advent of private TV), and we're changing our approach to match.

Nothing to see here, really.

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

#176

Post by wutbrodo »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #173
wutbrodo wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole article doesn't make any sense. It's clickbait for people whose brains have buzzword recognition swapped in for critical thinking. He talks about how falsehoods and doctored photos are being spread on Facebook, and that government officials are posted them on their pages. In the absence of Facebook, _only_ those government officials would have a platform. Why on earth would that be better? He even pays lip…

The author is a journalist. Facebook is anathema to journalists because without it only journalists would have a voice. With Facebook, everyone has a voice, but no-one has been trained in how to use their voice. The author is also female. Not that that is relevant to any point except your use of pronoun.

> The author is a journalist. Facebook is anathema to journalists because without it only journalists would have a voice.

Yea, at some level I don't expect honesty out of journalists: there's no sainthood exam to become a journalist; they're people, and people aren't generally honest. It's just bizarre to see how credulous HN is when it comes to swallowing stuff like this (relatively) uncritically.

> The author is also female. Not that that is relevant to any point except your use of pronoun.

Thanks for pointing this out. I commented on a separate post about Facebook which was written by a "Jim Davies" and I think there was a crossed wire in there.

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

#177

Post by dredmorbius »

clydethefrog wrote: post #172
dredmorbius wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd very strongly suggest you read media theory. The role of media -- the press, cheap paper, high-speed printing, widespread literacy, pamphlets, telegraph, radio, cinema, audio tape, public address systems, mass media, advertising, television, cable, talk radio, BBS systems, Usenet, the Internet, the WWW (versions 1.0, 2.0, and mobile), etc., in political and social matters is absolutely profound. And often quite u…

It's a depressing field if you go to deep I feel, especially if you read the most critical and pessimistic critical theorists in the field. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction by Benjamin and The Society of the Spectacle by Debord forever changed my vision on society. "My thoughts have been replaced by moving images..."

Thanks for the suggestions.

/me glances at the reading pile^Wstack^Wmountain^Wsingularity.

Um. Maybe ;-)

Actually, a friend has previously strongly recommended Guy Dubord, and I keep running across references. I do have ... something by him. Dense.

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

#178

Post by dredmorbius »

zerostar07 wrote: post #169
dredmorbius wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whilst true, the fact remains that it is Facebook, for now, and it's Facebook's place to admit, understand, and address this fact.

what i meant is that it is not possible to address this fact. this is the new world order.

Fair enough. Though I'd be interested in your expanding on what you see the consequences / results being.

I'm tending toward "unfavourable".

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

#180

Post by intended »

supercanuck wrote: post #116
beautifulfreak wrote: post #49

>Facebook can no longer deny its moral responsibility to try to understand how cyberspace, law, and politics collide in each of the countries where it operates, nor its responsibility to do something about it. That sentence doesn't make sense. Do something about what? How those things collide? It's very unclear what the author thinks Facebook is supposed to do, or what he thinks Facebook is actually responsible for.…

The article is a call to action for Facebook to work with local stakeholders in order to differentiate and treat differently local propaganda from genuine news. The author doesn't believe that Facebook commits enough resources to that effort and cites an email from Facebook that says there isn't a one-size fits all solution, which it seems, to the author, what Facebook is trying to do. The author is also saying that…

Hah. If face book did that it would enjoy the same fate as media firms around the world - entire worlds of fact checkers, staffing costs, HR costs - and their profitability would evapirate.
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