Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Facebook shares shoot up after strong Q4 earnings despite data breach

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 228 posts

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

#131

Post by product50 »

trophycase wrote: post #108
m0zg wrote: post #60

I hope this will pierce the HN anti-FB bubble somewhat. It's dangerous to believe one's own BS. FB is here to stay, although I do believe it will wither in the long term (5+ years).

It's really not a HN bubble. Facebook the site/app has peaked for the most part, both people I know who are currently in high school do not use it and have never made a "Facebook" page. Now Instagram is a completely different story of course.

This honestly has been true for the past 5 years! But it doesn't say anything about the same high schoolers start using FB when they come to college. These numbers which FB is showing wouldn't have been possible if people are not coming into FB at a large rate.

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

#132

Post by yihsiu »

yumraj wrote: post #116
nzbahz wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So your point is that people must care about it, and if they don't it doesn't matter because we'll take away Facebook anyway?

If we went by majority and popular opinion all the time there would still be slavery, segregation would still be a thing, same-sex marriages would be illegal, there would be no abortion rights and so and so forth.

I'm not sure about this. At least for the same-sex marriage, seems that majority in US approves it in recent years. I don't think a regulation can or should make that kind of change while like 80% people don't agree with it.

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

#133

Post by ilovecaching »

jseliger wrote: post #113
pavlov wrote: post #44

Facebook is a weird mass-market product because the average American tech industry pundit has very little visibility into how it’s actually used around the world. Take Facebook Watch. Ask a journalist or HN commenter, and they’ll tell you that it’s a content wasteland, a flop, a waste of investment. Here’s what Zuckerberg said about Watch on the earnings call: "There are now 400 million people who use it every month,…

In reality, it appears that there is a media scapegoating crisis, not an actual crisis, at or with Facebook: https://jakeseliger.com/2018/11/14/is-there-an-actual-facebo...

I’ve been saying it forever. The media hates new forms of advertising because that was their missed opportunity. The media had gotten out of control regardless. They are about as factual and unbiased as a state run news organization at this point.

Hopefully it will be possible to have reasonable discourse on HN again instead of the constant flaming.

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

#134

Post by kortilla »

adpirz wrote: 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…

Same conclusion could be made that people don’t care about cancer because tobacco companies print money.

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

#135

Post by saberience »

eanzenberg wrote: post #70
pavlov wrote: post #44

Facebook is a weird mass-market product because the average American tech industry pundit has very little visibility into how it’s actually used around the world. Take Facebook Watch. Ask a journalist or HN commenter, and they’ll tell you that it’s a content wasteland, a flop, a waste of investment. Here’s what Zuckerberg said about Watch on the earnings call: "There are now 400 million people who use it every month,…

I was super impressed on the recommendations from FB watch where I just kept it auto-playing the next and the next video. Their tech isn't as good, their videos are choppier than youtube and netflix, but their recommendations were insanely good.

I've never used FB Watch, but based off this comment I decided to go and see what it played for me.

Video 1: Sheet Pan Chicken Fajita Crunchwrap (recipe video). My comment: I basically never cook and I would never watch a cooking video.

Video 2: "THE NUN PRANK" (some young idiots doing a prank in an underground parking lot). My comment: I find this totally moronic.

Video 3: Banana Bread on a stick (another recipe video). My comment: Zero interest in this.

Video 4: Brave Boy Kills Giant Tiger (looks like a trailer for a cheesy Bollywood kind of movie) My comment: I don't watch this kind of thing at all and have zero interest.

Video 5: "Lilwin" (looks like an amateur video set in Africa with two people speaking an unknown language) My comment: I have no fucking clue why this was recommended to me.

Conclusion: FB watch is total shit.

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

#136

Post by czardoz »

saberience wrote: post #135
eanzenberg wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was super impressed on the recommendations from FB watch where I just kept it auto-playing the next and the next video. Their tech isn't as good, their videos are choppier than youtube and netflix, but their recommendations were insanely good.

I've never used FB Watch, but based off this comment I decided to go and see what it played for me. Video 1: Sheet Pan Chicken Fajita Crunchwrap (recipe video). My comment: I basically never cook and I would never watch a cooking video. Video 2: "THE NUN PRANK" (some young idiots doing a prank in an underground parking lot). My comment: I find this totally moronic. Video 3: Banana Bread on a stick (another recipe vid…

> I've never used FB Watch

> Conclusion: FB watch is total shit.

Did you expect it to just magically know your preferences?

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

#137

Post by saberience »

czardoz wrote: post #136
saberience wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never used FB Watch, but based off this comment I decided to go and see what it played for me. Video 1: Sheet Pan Chicken Fajita Crunchwrap (recipe video). My comment: I basically never cook and I would never watch a cooking video. Video 2: "THE NUN PRANK" (some young idiots doing a prank in an underground parking lot). My comment: I find this totally moronic. Video 3: Banana Bread on a stick (another recipe vid…

> I've never used FB Watch > Conclusion: FB watch is total shit. Did you expect it to just magically know your preferences?

Are you kidding? Are you somehow suggesting Facebook shouldn't be able to know anything about me given the amount of data they've sucked up over the last decade?

Given I first opened my Facebook account 10 years ago and I've been posting status update and liking various bands and TV shows, I would expect it to be able to have a fair guess of things I might like.

It's recommending videos that aren't even in ENGLISH! I mean, I have "liked" TV shows on Facebook, artists/bands, I've posted about books I've enjoyed, movies I've liked. It knows my age, gender, location, friends, job, etc. You'd think if they were as good at recommending as some people make out they could do a decent job.

There isn't a single piece of content in my top 20 videos I'd want to watch.

It's a joke. If this is the state of their AI recommending tech they need to fire their data scientists.

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

#138

Post by saberience »

danso wrote: post #114
eanzenberg wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was super impressed on the recommendations from FB watch where I just kept it auto-playing the next and the next video. Their tech isn't as good, their videos are choppier than youtube and netflix, but their recommendations were insanely good.

I wonder how much of that has to do with how much FB knows about you and your interests, and your friends and their interests? With YouTube, I honestly don't get any sense that it uses what Google surely knows of me via Search and GMail, e.g. anything related to Chicago, or germane to my political inclinations or personality. Instead, it seems wholly based on my viewing history. Which has some benefits, of course (I…

I've been using FB for more than 10 years and the Facebook Watch recommended videos are absolutely terrible and of no interest to me. So they're not doing a particularly great job as far as I'm concerned.

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

#139

Post by saberience »

gnahckire wrote: post #110
eanzenberg wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was super impressed on the recommendations from FB watch where I just kept it auto-playing the next and the next video. Their tech isn't as good, their videos are choppier than youtube and netflix, but their recommendations were insanely good.

Ooh that's interesting. I'm not surprised by how great their recommendations are; Facebook's AI research team is pretty top notch. I wonder what they're doing for recommendations.

Yeah the recommendations are absolutely horrible for me. They must know so much about me, yet two of the top ten videos were in foreign languages (which I do not speak). There wasn't one video in the top 20 that I would want to watch.

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

#140

Post by floatingatoll »

adpirz wrote: 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 talked to someone this morning who knew that people were vaguely worried about Facebook but was utterly horrified when I took the time to explain facebook/google and android/ios from a “privacy viewpoints” perspective. This is something the press doesn’t much do. It’s effective. Too bad :(
Post reply on HN