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Facebook Loses Top Executives, Including Chris Cox

nytimes.com

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Re: Facebook Loses Top Executives, Including Chris Cox

#241

Post by dang »

keepper wrote: post #123
mindgam3 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“if he felt like Facebook was bending things the wrong way he'd say so” I wish that were true, but this is a rather naive perspective. Facebook has a well documented history of requiring outgoing employees to sign non-disparagement clauses. For someone as high up as Chief Product Officer you’d better believe that they would have Chris sign something expressly forbidding any overt criticism of the company. Any severan…

"Facebook has a well documented history of requiring outgoing employees to sign non-disparagement clauses." You're basically lying here. They don't. Actually, the last few high profile departures were pretty disparaging. Think Brian Acton's comments[1], as well as Palmer lucky[2]. You obviously are overplaying your knowledge of Facebook, and the rapport you hold with Chris Cox. I get it, its in fashion to shit on fac…

This comment crosses into personal attack, which breaks the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

Can you please make your points neutrally and respectfully in the future? It's important for the survival of the community here.

Re: Facebook Loses Top Executives, Including Chris Cox

#242

Post by GuiA »

guntars wrote: post #209
GuiA wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the people who argue that these networks have an overall negative impact have plenty of examples to draw from - ranging from the last US election, to the genocide in Myanmar, the extremely fine ad targeting it enables perpetuating sociology economical discrimination, etc. People who argue for its value mostly point to the fact that grandma can see pictures of the kids and other pedestrian examples of things tha…

Sharing photos with your family and aquintances has been feasible since the invention of snail mail and photography, yet it wasn’t done at nowhere near this scale. Ultimately people get enough value out of Facebook to use it for a billion hours a day, but it’s easy to forget that and just focus on the negative effects.

Saying people “get enough value out of Facebook to use it a billion hours a day” is a gross oversimplication.

After all, don’t people get enough value out of cigarettes to smoke millions of them every day?

Re: Facebook Loses Top Executives, Including Chris Cox

#243

Post by infinite8s »

passn wrote: post #143
mindgam3 wrote: post #61

I've known Chris Cox since freshman year of college and he was an informal advisor to my first startup. The NYT article referenced in hashberry's earlier comment includes a key quote: “For over a decade, I’ve been sharing the same message that Mark and I have always believed: Social media’s history is not yet written, and its effects are not neutral,” Mr. Cox said in a note to employees on Thursday. “As its builders…

"Zuckerberg's vision of Facebook as a good thing for the world was a lie" - That is such a broad generalization. In the developing world where I live Facebook gives me the opportunity to maintain contact with my family who live on the other side of the world, as I walk the streets of São Paulo, for free. There are hundreds of millions of others like me who keep in contact with their family because of Facebook (and th…

The reason its free is also exactly the reason why people see it as bad - they aren't providing you a service, all your data is the service they are providing to others.

Re: Facebook Loses Top Executives, Including Chris Cox

#244

Post by eeeeeeeeeeeee »

joe_the_user wrote: post #193
eeeeeeeeeeeee wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yours is a broad generalization, too, about the impact Facebook has on society. You cheer all the good and mention none of the negative consequences of this model. Google also makes much about the internet less frustrating and easier for novices, but I also understand what is being given up in that compromise. I'm not even saying the "open" experience is not often without frustration. It absolutely is. Part of Fa…

I don't think that "broad generalization" fairly characterizes the gp. They are saying they observe a lot of benefit in Facebook - if you read the post, that's all they say. Maybe Facebook also produces a lot of ill. Any claim about the final impact of Facebook is claim to be able to sum up the good and the evil FB does and get a definite value. That's a pretty challenging argument.

Perhaps, but that person is responding to another about the impact Facebook has on society, good or bad, and that person only highlights the good essentially. I do think it's important to remember that Facebook is really doing nothing technologically amazing to allow that communication -- voice or text -- across geographical borders.

The internet forms the basis of this core technology and Facebook simply made it easier to use.

It's not like if Facebook goes away we're going to go back to SMS and expensive international phone calls. This method of communication was going to happen regardless. And there are clearly alternatives that exist today with different funding models.

Re: Facebook Loses Top Executives, Including Chris Cox

#245

Post by YeahSureWhyNot »

passn wrote: post #143
mindgam3 wrote: post #61

I've known Chris Cox since freshman year of college and he was an informal advisor to my first startup. The NYT article referenced in hashberry's earlier comment includes a key quote: “For over a decade, I’ve been sharing the same message that Mark and I have always believed: Social media’s history is not yet written, and its effects are not neutral,” Mr. Cox said in a note to employees on Thursday. “As its builders…

"Zuckerberg's vision of Facebook as a good thing for the world was a lie" - That is such a broad generalization. In the developing world where I live Facebook gives me the opportunity to maintain contact with my family who live on the other side of the world, as I walk the streets of São Paulo, for free. There are hundreds of millions of others like me who keep in contact with their family because of Facebook (and th…

the way you keep up with your family across the globe using Facebook tools could be replicated easily with alternative tools, some of which were available for free even before the Facebook came out

Re: Facebook Loses Top Executives, Including Chris Cox

#246

Post by chillacy »

bacon_waffle wrote: post #25
sgt wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Luckily it's not a critical service, nor is Instagram. WhatsApp is probably the most critical as a lot of people depend on it every day, even for business purposes.

Here in New Zealand, facebook handles a lot of the smaller scale commerce (like craigslist or gumtree might in other places), also many organisations and businesses only have presences on facebook. It's unfortunate, but there certainly are people here who are impacted by facebook outages. I've heard that ebay's culture has a sense of responsibility to the people who make a living on their platform. As an outsider to…

Ebay’s incentives are at least aligned with their sellers in that they don’t directly compete with them like Amazon does. However in any disputes they take the buyer’s side nearly always.

Re: Facebook Loses Top Executives, Including Chris Cox

#247

Post by matchbok »

yaseer wrote: post #168

Facebook is big tobacco. Intelligent people generating profits that knowingly harms society (even if you do get some joy from a cigarette, that doesn't justify working for a tobacco company). I really hope the smart people at Facebook see the obvious parallel, and choose another career. History will judge you.

Shaming people who work for tobacco companies is childish and myopic.

Re: Facebook Loses Top Executives, Including Chris Cox

#248

Post by praneshp »

ficklepickle wrote: post #240
praneshp wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, the then world's richest started a charitable trust purely so he could improve his public image.

What else is he going to do? At that level of wealth, the marginal returns on greed have diminished to almost zero. So one must find another way to feed ones ego. What is left apart from fulfilling the god complex and saving the world? Edit: has->have

> What is left apart from fulfilling the god complex and saving the world?

Well one thing I can think of is wanting to make the world better

Re: Facebook Loses Top Executives, Including Chris Cox

#249

Post by _underfl0w_ »

_bxg1 wrote: post #229

I don't see how they can make money on truly private communications channels. If they aren't gathering data, and they aren't showing ads (who would put up with ads in IM?), where does the money come from? Is it just a way to hold on to users for future monetization?

I think it's actually just a red herring. I think one could better define "private" in this context to mean "between two individuals", with the false implication that they mean "away from advertisers". Facebook has proven itself an exception to Hanlon's Razor by this point, so I'd say its probably deliberate.

Re: Facebook Loses Top Executives, Including Chris Cox

#250

Post by Jedi72 »

jryle70 wrote: post #239
AsyncAwait wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook is certainly not doing it out of the goodness of their heart. What they want to do is essentially exploit the fact that data is so expensive in so many countries, in order to make Facebook equal 'the internet' there. I understand somewhat why it's working, but still find it kind of depressing that it's being actively cheered on.

"not doing it out of the goodness of their heart" is such an irritating cliche that makes me cringe. FB was founded in 2004 as a crappy for-profit startup. How many for-profit businesses born out of the goodness of the owner's heart? Yet you seem to make it sound like it's FB's fault. > I understand somewhat why it's working, but still find it kind of depressing that it's being actively cheered on. Social network has…

What is the point of this comment? You cant justify the bad by pointing at the good. Murderers dont get let off just because they do charity work. ExxonMobile are still responsible for supressing climate change awareness even though oil is a useful commodity.
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