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Facebook shares shoot up after strong Q4 earnings despite data breach

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Re: Facebook shares shoot up after strong Q4 earnings despite data breach

#33
post #12

It’s hard not to look at this performance and take away from it that most people really don’t care about privacy. As upsetting as the thought may be to some, Mark’s hypothesis that privacy is no longer a social norm we value seems to be proven more and more right. Despite all the scandals and hearings, their DAU are more than the population of the largest countries on Earth. Short of serious legislation, what slows t…

I share your fears, but I do have some doubts about their metrics (see the link to a chart in another thread).

But maybe (just dumping some thoughts), after the scandals, DAU and MAU might not be anymore as relevant as in the past for Facebook's data collection if users, who are now (supposed to be) more aware of their data being shared and used actively for not only good stuff, just keep using it for only e.g. trivial posts (e.g. "I bought a bike today" instead of "I support/hate the president blahblah") or maybe make it more challenging for AI/aggregation using "irony" (algorithm would understand it as it's written, but the human interpretation would actually be the opposite), etc... . But maybe I'm just a desperate deluded optimist :)

Re: Facebook shares shoot up after strong Q4 earnings despite data breach

#35
post #27
post #12

It’s hard not to look at this performance and take away from it that most people really don’t care about privacy. As upsetting as the thought may be to some, Mark’s hypothesis that privacy is no longer a social norm we value seems to be proven more and more right. Despite all the scandals and hearings, their DAU are more than the population of the largest countries on Earth. Short of serious legislation, what slows t…

Since there's no real life downside to FB using your data to show you more relevant ads, people are making the rational trade-off. Privacy issues with FB are ideology based in nature.

There is research being done on targeted advertisement, and apart from the obvious effect of altering your behaviour and your attention, there has been research shown that it can go as far as changing self-perception.[1]

So to claim that there is no downside to targeted marketing is simply false. We have very little understanding what sort of effects it has on consumers, and as far as we know they're not all good.

There is no reason to believe any deliberation on part of consumers here is rational. The relationship between self harm and social media usage in adolescents are well documented as well.

So it is quite ironic to assert that being concerned about facebook's behaviour is 'ideological', when in fact advocates seem to willfully ignore evidence that suggests that we're playing dice with people's psychology here.

[1]https://hbr.org/2016/04/targeted-ads-dont-just-make-you-more...

Re: Facebook shares shoot up after strong Q4 earnings despite data breach

#36
post #2

> Facebook’s daily to monthly user ratio, or stickiness, held firm at 66 percent where it’s stayed for years, showing those still on Facebook aren’t using it much less. What are the precise definitions of daily and monthly active users? To be a daily user, do you literally have to use Facebook every day for a month?

Is there something that tracks the number of minutes a daily active user spends on the site? I still login to facebook but I barely post on it anymore and spend way less time than I used to a couple of years ago.

They certainly track it, so it may be telling that they are not reporting the trend in this measure.

Re: Facebook shares shoot up after strong Q4 earnings despite data breach

#37
post #25

Just continues to show, privacy issues don't matter to companies because it doesn't affect profitability and the stock price. Even with barrage of constant #deletefb and "I deleted my facebook" posts, it didn't actually matter. Essentially no change to daily active users and advertising revenue.

Yes, that is why you need regulation to drive change.

The change is already happening: People don't care about privacy that much anymore.

Any regulation introduced, would be to stop this change. But it will never work, you can't make people care about privacy through regulations.

Re: Facebook shares shoot up after strong Q4 earnings despite data breach

#38
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am curious what 'used' means. e.g. Does logging into a third party service via facebook login count as 'used' since you technically hit their servers?

No, if it were that tangential, investors wouldn't be reporting it and using it to make buying / selling decisions.

I think you overestimate how deep investors dig. I did find this from a few years ago which contains a bunch of rather fuzzy language: https://www.adweek.com/digital/monthly-active-users-definiti...

My interpretation of that would be that if, prior to that change, you logged to spotify with facebook and didn't uncheck the 'share' button you would have been counted, but after you would not have been.

I do find it rather curious that they simply count any user that logs in and 'visited' facebook. i.e. that no 'actions' need to take place or there isn't any metric for time on site required. Seems rather easy to game that number by just not going after bot accounts.

Re: Facebook shares shoot up after strong Q4 earnings despite data breach

#40
I’m growing more and more convinced that the only real way for employees to enact real change at their company is for them to become a significant, united group of shareholders and force changes from the top. Unions sure as hell aren’t being encouraged. Unfortunately this would not work in Facebook since Zuck still has a controlling interest but it might work for others. Does that make sense?
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