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Facebook Can’t Be Fixed, It Needs to Be Broken Up

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Re: Facebook Can’t Be Fixed, It Needs to Be Broken Up

#31

Post by Lionsion »

partiallypro wrote: post #16
panarky wrote: post #7

A good first step would be to force Facebook to let users easily take out their data in machine-readable form, including their social graph, posts and media.

They have done that voluntarily for years. It's under your settings. One thing they don't currently allow is a complete and utter, real, deletion of your profile and all of its assets. You can delete your account, but it's more or less just held in a suspended state.

> A good first step would be to force Facebook to let users easily take out their data in machine-readable form, including their social graph, posts and media.

> They have done that voluntarily for years. It's under your settings.

Only kinda sorta. I exported my data and the photos were clearly lower-res versions from the ones that are currently live on my profile. Also I doubt the export contains all the data they have linked to you, as I bet they have far more from their tracking, analytics, and shadow profiles that they won't export.

Re: Facebook Can’t Be Fixed, It Needs to Be Broken Up

#32

Post by ajdlinux »

matte_black wrote: post #15
panarky wrote: post #7

A good first step would be to force Facebook to let users easily take out their data in machine-readable form, including their social graph, posts and media.

What’s the next step exactly?

My problem is what exactly you do with that data, beyond being able to scrape email or phone contact details - there's no competing social network that allows you to import your Facebook data export.

Re: Facebook Can’t Be Fixed, It Needs to Be Broken Up

#33

Post by mlb_hn »

MediumD wrote: post #29

I don't see how breaking up Facebook changes the fact that companies are financially incentivized to track and sell as much information on their customers as possible. Whether a monopoly or a collection of small companies, people follow incentives.

That and one can't help notice the irony that on all these articles they're still trying to load the Facebook trackers in addition to the others (not to beat a dead horse).

Re: Facebook Can’t Be Fixed, It Needs to Be Broken Up

#34

Post by gibybo »

Mononokay wrote: post #26

That's the least rational thing I've ever seen. Look at what happened to Bell. Forced corporate breakups are the dumbest thing possible.

What would be a better way to deal with monopolies?

Surely the breakup of Bell is better than if they were allowed to continue as a monopoly right?

Re: Facebook Can’t Be Fixed, It Needs to Be Broken Up

#36

Post by sgtmas2006 »

apotheothesomai wrote: post #21
unicornporn wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Facebook will be irrelevant in a generation or less. A lot of harm can be done in one generation. Don't you think the history shows us that?

What history teaches us is that past generations have been ruined by serious things, like war, political upheaval, disease, and economic collapse, not by a frivolity in their social lives like FB. Modern marketing has ensured that everyone in the US born after the'80s has grown up in an environment of marketing saturation, but modern marketing/propaganda was invented in the early 20th century. (Thanks, Edward Bernays…

While they're only one of many players, they are a big player, and from experience it's mostly boomers that use Facebook. They have a lot of power, but I do not think they should be broken up. Things have been allowed to be this way, and I doubt they will change for the better.

Re: Facebook Can’t Be Fixed, It Needs to Be Broken Up

#37

Post by Lionsion »

wvenable wrote: post #24
saudioger wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could spin off an easy dozen companies out of existing Facebook services.

Seems somewhat ridiculous to allow companies to acquire other companies/services just to force them to spin them off. I'm for regulation, if you can come up with sensible ones. But targeting a specific company to be split up doesn't seem like it actually solved the problem in the long run. I mean look what happened with AT&T -- we're almost back to complete consolidation again.

> Seems somewhat ridiculous to allow companies to acquire other companies/services just to force them to spin them off.

Not really. If Facebook can answer "we're sorry, we'll change and fix it" to every problem, why can't a regulatory regime do the same? E.g. "We're sorry we allowed this acquisition to go through, but it turned out to actually be anticompetitive and our prior mistake doesn't change that..."

> I mean look what happened with AT&T -- we're almost back to complete consolidation again.

The unfortunate thing with AT&T is the regulators, over time and political changes, weren't consistent. I don't think we really want a politically lowest-common-denominator regulatory regime, but that's what we have.

Re: Facebook Can’t Be Fixed, It Needs to Be Broken Up

#38

Post by Lionsion »

mlb_hn wrote: post #33
MediumD wrote: post #29

I don't see how breaking up Facebook changes the fact that companies are financially incentivized to track and sell as much information on their customers as possible. Whether a monopoly or a collection of small companies, people follow incentives.

That and one can't help notice the irony that on all these articles they're still trying to load the Facebook trackers in addition to the others (not to beat a dead horse).

> That and one can't help notice the irony that on all these articles they're still trying to load the Facebook trackers in addition to the others

There's no irony here, just the fact that the author doesn't manage or control the website team that put the trackers there.

Re: Facebook Can’t Be Fixed, It Needs to Be Broken Up

#39

Post by mmsimanga »

MediumD wrote: post #29

I don't see how breaking up Facebook changes the fact that companies are financially incentivized to track and sell as much information on their customers as possible. Whether a monopoly or a collection of small companies, people follow incentives.

Agreed, I wish governments would ban something like diamonds in wedding rings instead. Like Facebook, we don't need diamonds to survive. Diamonds have been a the cause of much conflict in Africa.

Re: Facebook Can’t Be Fixed, It Needs to Be Broken Up

#40

Post by Mononokay »

gibybo wrote: post #34
Mononokay wrote: post #26

That's the least rational thing I've ever seen. Look at what happened to Bell. Forced corporate breakups are the dumbest thing possible.

What would be a better way to deal with monopolies? Surely the breakup of Bell is better than if they were allowed to continue as a monopoly right?

Not at all, actually! Ever heard of Verizon, AT&T, and Centurylink? All of them came from the Bell breakup. Bell used to do things that were cool as fuck; post-breakup, prices rose for everyone, and innovation stopped really happening.

Monopolies aren't inherently bad - especially not ones like Bell, where they're beneficial to everyone.

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