Facebook launches petition feature, its next battlefield • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook launches petition feature, its next battlefield

#41

Post by trinkwallopy » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 3:08 PM UTC

jimmytidey wrote: post #21

This does seem like something of a hostage to fortune, I can't imagine how they intend to moderate it. Obviously people are going to poll their echo-chamber in support of toxic ideas. Even more alarming for Facebook, what if their polls come to be seen as having legitimate democratic force - what Government is going to be comfortable with that? I suspect a dogmatic belief in the goodness of Facebook triumphed over re…

At this point fb doesnt care about losing small authoritarian regimes. Heck it doesn’t and will never be allowed to have China. I think it’s attempting to fight for legitimacy in the US.. ie trying to raise its brand. Without holding the American cultural ground and inherent approval of Americans, a company based mostly on brand (I’m sure a small shop of extra talented engineers can hack a fb clone together using distributed cloud machines on awe and google), will suffer from user attrition both in the USA and worldwide, as anything not inherently “endeared by Americans themselves” will be seen by the world as the black sheep of America.

Re: Facebook launches petition feature, its next battlefield

#42

Post by JumpCrisscross » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 3:12 PM UTC

koboll wrote: post #40

I've given up on the idea that political engagement on social media can make society better. It seems to be a one-way ratchet toward political extremism, because it encourages people to immerse themselves in communities that respond with adulation whenever someone sinks deeper into their ideological wing and respond with cold silence whenever someone hesitates or questions the wing's narrative. In case this isn't alr…

> It seems to be a one-way ratchet toward political extremism, because it encourages people to immerse themselves in communities that respond with adulation whenever someone sinks deeper into their ideological wing

It's more nefarious than that. Social media lets you curate not only your message, but who sees and gets to react to your message. Anger is–by far–the most viral emotion. (Second place, if I remember correctly, is awe.) Previously, deploying anger in politics was constrained by the opposition objecting. But if they see your message long after your base has reacted, that's no longer a problem.

In a world with Facebook, if you want to get people to show up to a rally, you piss them off. How? Take exaggerated pot shots at a totem of your enemy.

The irony is all sides are hiring–and friendly with–similar people at similar lobbying and activist engagement shops. But on the ground level, hyper-targeted AE is (a) an effective way to re-position policy priorities (particularly at the state and local levels) and (b) more cost and time effective than traditional door-to-door knocking.

Re: Facebook launches petition feature, its next battlefield

#43

Post by torben-friis » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 3:15 PM UTC

koboll wrote: post #40

I've given up on the idea that political engagement on social media can make society better. It seems to be a one-way ratchet toward political extremism, because it encourages people to immerse themselves in communities that respond with adulation whenever someone sinks deeper into their ideological wing and respond with cold silence whenever someone hesitates or questions the wing's narrative. In case this isn't alr…

To be fair, all (minimally relevant) social media has been designed with goals to optimise that have nothing to do with the betterment of society - the variables to max out are retention of users, engagement/addiction, etc. A network with positive effects might be feasible, we've literally never tried.

Re: Facebook launches petition feature, its next battlefield

#44

Post by gnicholas » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 3:31 PM UTC

> Facebook is purposefully trying to focus Community Actions to be more narrowly concentrated on spurring government action than just any random cause.

So you can’t use this feature to ask FB to fix problems with its own platform? My first thought about this feature was: well, most organizations can ignore these petitions, but at least we can use them to get FB to quit doing bad/annoying stuff. Apparently not!

Re: Facebook launches petition feature, its next battlefield

#45

Post by michelb » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 3:34 PM UTC

philipodonnell wrote: post #35

> Community Actions could unite neighbors to request change from their local and national elected officials and government agencies. But it could also provide vocal interest groups a bully pulpit from which to pressure politicians and bureaucrats with their fringe agendas. Or, hot take here, Facebook really doesn't care too much what the petitions are about, but is mostly interested in gathering more data on its user…

Bingo. I'm going to have a really hard time taking any new development coming out of Facebook as genuine, honest or non-privacy invasive. I simply do not foresee my opinion of Facebook, Zuckerberg or anyone still working there changing radically in the near future.

Re: Facebook launches petition feature, its next battlefield

#46

Post by shay_ker » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 3:43 PM UTC

It feels like no matter what Facebook does, its brand will impede the efforts of any new product they build. TBH, if I were Snapchat, I'd see this as a huge opportunity, since I'd doubt Instagram would get into the political space.

Another option for Facebook would be to have something similar to Google X, where projects can eventually spin out to separate companies and own their brand.

Re: Facebook launches petition feature, its next battlefield

#47

Post by oddevan » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 3:52 PM UTC

gnicholas wrote: post #44

> Facebook is purposefully trying to focus Community Actions to be more narrowly concentrated on spurring government action than just any random cause. So you can’t use this feature to ask FB to fix problems with its own platform? My first thought about this feature was: well, most organizations can ignore these petitions, but at least we can use them to get FB to quit doing bad/annoying stuff. Apparently not!

What if we started a FB petition for the government to regulate FB?

Re: Facebook launches petition feature, its next battlefield

#48

Post by Jaruzel » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 3:58 PM UTC

In the UK at least we already have official petitions - the UK one is https://petition.parliament.uk/

This is the ONLY one that impels the UK government to debate, and ultimately vote on each petition (providing the petition has garnered enough signatures).

However a LOT people in the UK use the change.org system, which has absolutely NO legal standing, and they get upset when the government ignores them. I can see this Facebook system being exactly the same. If Facebook REALLY cared about fair democracy, they'd just highlight and link to each countries existing online petition systems (if one exists) instead of building their own system. Of course they can't data mine the official petition systems can they...

Re: Facebook launches petition feature, its next battlefield

#49

Post by dmitriid » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 4:02 PM UTC

mogadsheu wrote: post #37

The general sentiment of the thread is pretty negative. I’d offer the contrary and say that this (provided that it’s moderated with some integrity) feature is one of the great potentially empowering uses of the platform. Bringing people together and connecting them to other likeminded individuals who would otherwise be strangers, I love that.

The negative sentiment can be described by "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on you".

How many time Facebook has been found to use its platform for activities that are illegal and nefarious in all but name?

Re: Facebook launches petition feature, its next battlefield

#50

Post by adventured » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 4:10 PM UTC

torben-friis wrote: post #43

koboll wrote: post #40

I've given up on the idea that political engagement on social media can make society better. It seems to be a one-way ratchet toward political extremism, because it encourages people to immerse themselves in communities that respond with adulation whenever someone sinks deeper into their ideological wing and respond with cold silence whenever someone hesitates or questions the wing's narrative. In case this isn't alr…

To be fair, all (minimally relevant) social media has been designed with goals to optimise that have nothing to do with the betterment of society - the variables to max out are retention of users, engagement/addiction, etc. A network with positive effects might be feasible, we've literally never tried.

> A network with positive effects might be feasible, we've literally never tried.

I'd argue that Hacker News and Stack Exchange are two clear examples of relevant social networks with overwhelmingly positive effects (neither is without flaws of course). Github might very reasonably make the list as well.

I think the line is functional networks vs general networks. Not all functional networks are net positive, LinkedIn for example went negative in my opinion after initially being a positive. However I think functional networks tend to rapidly fail (competition) or erode if they go negative (eg Experts Exchange), rather than persist (with LinkedIn being one of the few exceptions).

HN does very little to ensure max engagement or retention. To the extent HN self promotes Y Combinator, it's quite modest compared to the number of stories passing through the front page. The type of content that might drive a huge spike in engagement via comments (overt senationalism, anger-baiting articles, political flaming), is frequently kept off the site because it's fundamentally anti what HN is about. And of course you can use HN mostly anonymously.