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Mark Zuckerberg Is Totally Out of His Depth

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Re: Mark Zuckerberg Is Totally Out of His Depth

#21

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

smhost wrote: post #18
oppositelock wrote: post #6

That article reeks of bitterness, hatred, and wealth envy. Really, it's not worth reading. The content is irrelevant, it's an incoherent rant against rich nerds.

This thread is very defensive. Being angry at the hubris of zuckerberg and other tech bros is completely appropriate and justified. When rich nerds try to solve large complex problems from within the algorithmic confines of their solipsism, they inevitably run into the endless irregularities of the real world until the only option they have left is to destroy every irrelgularity with force or implode because they can…

Referring to any successful male technologist as "tech bros" is just condescending on the face of it and really weakens your argument.

People (rightfully) don't go around referring to Sheryl Sandberg and Meg Whitman as "tech broads".

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Is Totally Out of His Depth

#22

Post by squarefoot »

jakelarkin wrote: post #11

Mark is 34. Sure must feel good to be all pedantic about his maturity, but that's not actually the problem. The problem is that the CEO of Facebook or Twitter, whoever it is, is in a Catch-22, they can't solve the disinformation/hate-speech/trolling problem without massively increasing costs on moderation, decimating some growth/engagement metrics and in the process destroying a ton of "shareholder value". If they do…

You're spot on. And I would add that if and when they finally succeed in removing Zuckerberg from the throne (I'm convinced they're working on that; bad press is step 1) just to make space for another king, Facebook won't change a dime because making it better would make it also less profitable, so it's just a matter of taking away his seat for someone else in exchange for X (votes?).

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Is Totally Out of His Depth

#23

Post by smhost »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #21
smhost wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This thread is very defensive. Being angry at the hubris of zuckerberg and other tech bros is completely appropriate and justified. When rich nerds try to solve large complex problems from within the algorithmic confines of their solipsism, they inevitably run into the endless irregularities of the real world until the only option they have left is to destroy every irrelgularity with force or implode because they can…

Referring to any successful male technologist as "tech bros" is just condescending on the face of it and really weakens your argument. People (rightfully) don't go around referring to Sheryl Sandberg and Meg Whitman as "tech broads".

from what i read, facebook was literally a frat house until they brought in a grown up to clean up their graffiti and beer cans, so i think the term is appropriate here.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Is Totally Out of His Depth

#24

Post by gfodor »

You can loathe the actions of these companies and also think it would be hilariously worse if typical 'leadership' were tasked with solving these very obviously novel, unprecedented, and truly challenging problems.

A good first step would be to get rid of the perverse incentives these companies have to manipulate and surveil their users due to their business models. I don't think these problems can be solved as long as the way these companies survive is by charging for the ability to manipulate people's views and actions.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Is Totally Out of His Depth

#25

Post by Digit-Al »

pnathan wrote: post #9

A bit of nerd-hate there, eh? Financial types must really hate that nerds have taken over 1/2 of the stock exchange. There's a solid argument past the flamebait though. When your company becomes the de facto public commons, a forum , and isn't, de facto, just a private brick and mortar shop(the usual concept of a private space that you can arbitrarily ban people from) anymore, what is the appropriate response? That r…

I agree. I have long said that they have a very difficult problem. The trouble is that too many people just say "oh they should do something about it" without having even close to enough knowledge to see what a hugely insurmountable problem it actually is to 'do something about it'.

When you consider the vast amount of words, pictures, and videos that are posted constantly, to check everything for 'bad' content would take a huge army of people working 24/7.

And then of course, people don't realise that checking everything means some stranger going through all their posts and making a decision as to whether to allow it or delete it.

And with these sites reaching so many jurisdictions, whose model of decency and legality do you use to decide what should be censored?

And finally we have the looming issue of 'Truth'. Who decides it? Truth can be a slippery thing in some cases. It is not always easy to ferret it out. Hell, if there was a law that journals could only publish established truth, every newspaper in every country would have to shut down immediately.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Is Totally Out of His Depth

#26

Post by bachbach »

deegles wrote: post #4

Assuming that there is a more intelligent, more capable person available is the optimistic outlook. What if the reality is that the current crop of CEOs are the best-equipped people available to deal with this problem and it's not enough?

That was my point too. If such people can be found then by all means this is a testable proposition. I had another idea though.

Give these journalists what they ask for and attach betting markets to news articles as bets on media bullshit - then we'll see what happens next. I'm sure it will be illuminating.

The bets could come in many forms from "Is X true?" where X is measurable to more complex bets like "If X then Y result" where Y objectively measurable. This incentive will balance against the clickbait incentive of journalists and the bookmaker will make more money if more people accept the terms of the bet - so the third party has an incentive to resolve for good quality propositions. Sports bookmakers already slice up complex scenarios into betting proposals so I'm sure this can be accomplished in a way reasonable to all partisans.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Is Totally Out of His Depth

#27

Post by bachbach »

mberning wrote: post #16
oppositelock wrote: post #6

That article reeks of bitterness, hatred, and wealth envy. Really, it's not worth reading. The content is irrelevant, it's an incoherent rant against rich nerds.

Agree completely. They mention that they were "arbitrarily chosen" and list luck, timing, etc. The fact of the matter is that it isn't arbitrary at all and hard work, talent, risk taking, etc. are all very strong filters. Sure, there is always some element of luck and timing, but give me a break. They make it sound as if building facebook is only slightly more difficult than finding $5 on the ground. This was clearly…

That many competitors did exist - Bebo, Orkut, MySpace goes against the luck/timing story. I think what Mark Zuckerberg hit on is that people like to belong to an exclusive club - so Facebook started out behaving like a night club to give the platform a feeling (now forgotten) of sophistication.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Is Totally Out of His Depth

#28

Post by mizay7 »

gfodor wrote: post #24

You can loathe the actions of these companies and also think it would be hilariously worse if typical 'leadership' were tasked with solving these very obviously novel, unprecedented, and truly challenging problems. A good first step would be to get rid of the perverse incentives these companies have to manipulate and surveil their users due to their business models. I don't think these problems can be solved as long…

Agree in principle. But in practice, what is the alternative business model you propose?

Also, changing the business model away from surveillance capitalism, in my eyes, is not a first step but a massive and complicated (though perhaps very necessary) end goal.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Is Totally Out of His Depth

#29

Post by gfodor »

mizay7 wrote: post #28
gfodor wrote: post #24

You can loathe the actions of these companies and also think it would be hilariously worse if typical 'leadership' were tasked with solving these very obviously novel, unprecedented, and truly challenging problems. A good first step would be to get rid of the perverse incentives these companies have to manipulate and surveil their users due to their business models. I don't think these problems can be solved as long…

Agree in principle. But in practice, what is the alternative business model you propose? Also, changing the business model away from surveillance capitalism, in my eyes, is not a first step but a massive and complicated (though perhaps very necessary) end goal.

Yeah I didn't mean to imply this first step would be easy or result in the survival of these companies. To me it probably looks like the government stepping in, either threatening legislation or imposing it immediately that forces companies to transition off these business models if they meet some criteria which defines them as a public forum of a certain scale. (Of course this is full of potential negative unintended consequences, like cementing their dominance, so my guess is things will end up worse before they get better if this happens.)

Hopefully companies do this on their own accord before we get there. A model where a subset of users pay for the services would be a healthier model. This would likely result in a major loss of market cap and head count for these companies, but I'd imagine it would be sustainable in terms of keeping the services available and would enable these companies to charter a positive future for their users without having a conflict of interest.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Is Totally Out of His Depth

#30

Post by pnathan »

Digit-Al wrote: post #25
pnathan wrote: post #9

A bit of nerd-hate there, eh? Financial types must really hate that nerds have taken over 1/2 of the stock exchange. There's a solid argument past the flamebait though. When your company becomes the de facto public commons, a forum , and isn't, de facto, just a private brick and mortar shop(the usual concept of a private space that you can arbitrarily ban people from) anymore, what is the appropriate response? That r…

I agree. I have long said that they have a very difficult problem. The trouble is that too many people just say "oh they should do something about it" without having even close to enough knowledge to see what a hugely insurmountable problem it actually is to 'do something about it'. When you consider the vast amount of words, pictures, and videos that are posted constantly, to check everything for 'bad' content would…

Oh, it's a terribly difficult issue, requiring a deep education in the humanities.
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