Users Abandon Facebook After Cambridge Analytica Findings • Hacker News Board

Re: Users Abandon Facebook After Cambridge Analytica Findings

#211

Post by chatmasta » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 9:26 AM UTC

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #136

shiado wrote: post #31

I have a bad feeling that like the Snowden revelations and Occupy Wall Street these findings will actually embolden companies like Facebook and Cambridge Analytica the same way the NSA and Wall Street banks were likely emboldened because it will once again prove that after a short outburst of moral outrage people will go back to being complacent without substantive change being enacted. They will get away with it and…

In and of itself that's a signal that for some reason things like this don't seem to make the general public change their behavior en masse? I'd love to see some kind of reporting/study on why on average the general public does not respond to events you mention like Snowden/Manning/OWS/Bank Bailout and others. I mean at one point in time social movements in the US got things done like Temperance Movement, Womens Voti…

Because people are too busy trying to survive until their next paycheck. Nobody has time to waste thinking about some vague overreach by a government agency.

Re: Users Abandon Facebook After Cambridge Analytica Findings

#212

Post by haywirez » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 9:27 AM UTC

d--b wrote: post #54

cyberferret wrote: post #13

The question is - will this be just a minor blip to Facebook and then normal services will resume after the indignation wears off? Or will it the beginning of the end of the social media dominance of the platform? For me personally, I use FB primarily to keep in touch with friends, family and old colleagues who are spread all over the world. It is purely a contact tool, and not really used to market products of servi…

I hope I'm wrong but I think this in no way bringing facebook down. Keeping in touch with friends & family is too important to ditch entirely, and having everyone switch to a different platform is very hard. That said, my whole extended family uses whats app nowadays...

I haven't logged in for about five-six months now, and FB started bothering my friends to hit me up on messenger to lure me back in.

Re: Users Abandon Facebook After Cambridge Analytica Findings

#213

Post by SJetKaran » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 9:36 AM UTC

eric_b wrote: post #47

I've had a dormant FB account for years. I don't like the site and I never add content. I believe that social media has become a net detractor to quality-of-life for many (most?) humans who use it. I think Mark Zuckerberg is either incredibly naive, or a sleaze bag, but in either case should suffer some consequences from this. That said, I probably won't delete my account. It remains the only way many of my friends p…

I'm in same boat like you. I use Facebook occasionally when I need to post/look at posts in rental listings groups.

Re: Users Abandon Facebook After Cambridge Analytica Findings

#214

Post by sigi45 » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 9:36 AM UTC

Its time to regulate this. Make facebook and all other social media platforms to open up connectivity to other platforms.

It can't be, that one company has so much power.

Re: Users Abandon Facebook After Cambridge Analytica Findings

#215

Post by vog » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 9:38 AM UTC

chatmasta wrote: post #211

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In and of itself that's a signal that for some reason things like this don't seem to make the general public change their behavior en masse? I'd love to see some kind of reporting/study on why on average the general public does not respond to events you mention like Snowden/Manning/OWS/Bank Bailout and others. I mean at one point in time social movements in the US got things done like Temperance Movement, Womens Voti…

Because people are too busy trying to survive until their next paycheck. Nobody has time to waste thinking about some vague overreach by a government agency.

While I agree in general, I don't buy this argument with regard to Facebook.

People aren't "too busy" to waste a lot of time on Facebook. If anything, tight time constraints would make people not use Facebook in the first place.

Re: Users Abandon Facebook After Cambridge Analytica Findings

#216

Post by tanu057 » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 9:46 AM UTC

Today I switched off the location tracking for Facebook on my Phone. I never enter the correct birthday on Facebook. Unfortunately we cann't trust any of the tech companies.There are a lot of people working and keeping track of security for now seems impossible. Anyone in the company can put in code with a security hole. May be AI in future can help in making systems secure. For now, none of the apps is secure. There are companies that can unlock any iphone. Would you leave apple for that?

Re: Users Abandon Facebook After Cambridge Analytica Findings

#217

Post by phonebucket » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 9:47 AM UTC

This whole comments is full of people talking about FB in general, and not this specific article.

As far as the article goes, it's hardly suprising. There are a few specific people who have left, and others who are thinking of leaving. Picking out individual cases like this is hardly any evidence of a mass exodus.

Also, it's interesting to note that lots of people who are leaving say things like 'I more or less stopped using it, but Cambridge Analytica was the last straw'. It's almost like those users were going to leave FB anyway.

So is there really any exodus to speak of, or not?

Re: Users Abandon Facebook After Cambridge Analytica Findings

#218

Post by lu11 » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 10:01 AM UTC

I deleted my Facebook in 2012 because I don't like it. However, scraping user profiles is a privacy problem? What about archive.org that will scrape your personal website so you are never able to get rid of your previous version?

Re: Users Abandon Facebook After Cambridge Analytica Findings

#219

Post by te_chris » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 10:02 AM UTC

Key point to remember: A user in the developed world is MUCH more valuable to FB, so even if only westerners quit, each westerner is worth up to 35x what someone from the developed world is worth, in terms of ad income.

They may have '2 billion' users, but they're super vulnerable to an exodus of even 5% of them in terms of income, if they're from the right regions.

(This is based on my hazy recollection of stats which had a US FB user worth $35USD to FB in income, where someone from the developed world drew in <$1USD)

Re: Users Abandon Facebook After Cambridge Analytica Findings

#220

Post by Moodles » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 10:27 AM UTC

cyberferret wrote: post #13

The question is - will this be just a minor blip to Facebook and then normal services will resume after the indignation wears off? Or will it the beginning of the end of the social media dominance of the platform? For me personally, I use FB primarily to keep in touch with friends, family and old colleagues who are spread all over the world. It is purely a contact tool, and not really used to market products of servi…

> The question is - will this be just a minor blip to Facebook and then normal services will resume after the indignation wears off? Or will it the beginning of the end of the social media dominance of the platform?

I'd bet my house it is the former.

I think on HN we understandably make assumptions about the general population due to the bubble we live in. The reactions to other privacy scandals e.g. wikileaks or Snowden was actually pretty muted. John Oliver did a great piece when he met Snowden for example: literally pointing out that almost everyone he asked on the streets of New York had no idea who he was (https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/4x3pvm/john-olive...). So the idea of a mass exodus from Facebook is extremely unlikely.