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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

#271

Post by joe_the_user »

civility wrote: post #265
passn wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

> 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. [...] The alternative (cel phone calls and sms) I use email to keep in contact with my family. CC everyone, then reply all. No Facebook required.

Well, as I far as I can tell, a significant portion of negative qualities attributed to Facebook also can be, have been, attributed to email.

It seems like the situation of Facebook-anger today involves some people looking at particular interface of details that allegedly make Facebook in particular "more addictive" than email (or whatever unspecified social activity) but with this group with this narrow critique being joined by those with a broader critique of social media that essentially calls for nothing but face-to-face contact.

We face a difficult question of "at what point is a communication medium a tool of its users and at what point does a communication medium merely act on the users without them being truly conscious agents". I don't think we can really address this question by demonizing Facebook (the problem has existed since the dawn of mass media, with nearly all these media forms accused of doing terrible things and with the accusations at least have some support). Just for example, Zuckerberg may indeed have made some terrible choices but Facebook seems to signal a desire to take on this difficult question.

Re: Facebook Loses Top Executives, Including Chris Cox

#272

Post by [deleted] »

mullingitover wrote: post #268
DataJunkie wrote: post #71

I used to be a fan of Facebook, but I was never obsessed with it. I even used to work there. I'm over it. It's useful for groups, some of the ads really are useful, it's nice to sometimes keep up with people that are far away, but the news feed has had done way more harm than good for our society, including my own life. After the 2016 Election, Facebook posts lead to so much drama in my family that certain "branches"…

> There is no way to turn this part of the feed off. Unfollow everyone, and you don't get sucked into interacting with the facebook feed. Use it for Messenger, groups, and events. I've been doing that, and facebook is a perfectly good communication utility without any of the grief. Honestly, we as users should demand a simple switch that entirely disables the feed. It turns facebook from a socially messy skinner box…

[deleted]

Re: Facebook Loses Top Executives, Including Chris Cox

#273

Post by AsyncAwait »

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…

> Yet you seem to make it sound like it's FB's fault.

I judge Facebook by its actions and the intent of the Free Basics program is clearly shady, I was responding to a parent who was presenting it as a god thing full stop, so am simply pointing out that there is more to FB's motivation here.

> Social network has enormous benefit because we human being are social animal. Simple as that.

I was talking more about the various free data deals Facebook has set up in developing countries, which effectively make it so that a lot of people see only Facebook when they first get online. I was not talking about "social networks" as a concept being bad.

> I'm surprised that you only "understand somewhat why it's working". Just because there are bad sides of it doesn't make it a mistake.

I understand it has short-term benefits, however over the long term, do you really want billions of people to assume that Facebook is the internet, to have everything they ever said, every picture ever taken stored there? Maybe even more, considering a lot of them are unlikely to have access to timely information on internet privacy, given they're pretty much limited to FB, a party not known for its strong stance on such matters?

And how about startups from the very countries affected? You're hardly going to compete against FB in such a situation.

> Condemn FB for their shady tactics, but don't forget the positive effect.

I am doing precisely that; condemning shady tactics. The benefits of FB are achievable without these tactics, or even without FB itself for that matter.

Re: Facebook Loses Top Executives, Including Chris Cox

#274

Post by joe_the_user »

eeeeeeeeeeeee wrote: post #244
joe_the_user wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 eas…

"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."

But that's the structure of any logical argument. If someone says X is only A, I will describe how I see plenty of B in X, which by itself doesn't say there is not plenty of A in X too. IE, One person makes a generalization, another points to an exception or several exceptions.

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.

Indeed, Facebook pretty much only amalgamates blogs, chat, forums and such. But given it's only making technological steps of some small-to-medium degrees, if the love isn't justified, then neither should the hate be justified? Currently, Facebook gets both.

Re: Facebook Loses Top Executives, Including Chris Cox

#275

Post by matchbok »

GuiA wrote: post #261
matchbok wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Is perpetuating an international public health crisis for short term financial gain any less myopic or childish?

People like smoking. People like drinking. Humans will be humans.

Re: Facebook Loses Top Executives, Including Chris Cox

#276

Post by manigandham »

GuiA wrote: post #251
manigandham wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not clear at all, you just picked a random example of grandma when the reality is billions of people have and connected to each other and there are many examples of people avoiding censorship, exposing crimes, finding loved ones, getting help, and spreading news that otherwise wouldn't have happened. The real issue is human nature. Social media is just a new medium that facilitates instant (and optionally public…

There is no magic solution to preventing people from being people, but it’s still a good thing to not build systems that allow any entity with an internet connection to find, connect, and share content instantly to anyone and everyone all over the world. Mark Zuckerberg has long held the belief that a more connected world is a better world - and 10 years ago, I was as optimistic as he was. Today, I know for a fact th…

You need to separate the communications medium from the corporation providing it. Facebook is not the only social network. There are hundreds of them and when one falls, another takes its place. Technological progress is unending.

There's no use in trying to argue why something shouldn't be done when it inevitably will be and already has, what we need is to think of ways we can adapt as a species and society to handle it with the proper care and concern.

Re: Facebook Loses Top Executives, Including Chris Cox

#277

Post by iscrewyou »

streblo wrote: post #256
x3n0ph3n3 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife has been doing taxes for a few people at Facebook (including engineers and PMs) -- many of them make an absurd amount of money. (>$800k / year)

I'm not sure if it's a fiduciary duty of an accountant not to disclose this kind of stuff, but it should be.

As long as she doesn’t associate names with those salaries in the conversation, i don’t think it’s unethical. Or she doesn’t act on those salaries and commit some kind of security fraud, it’s just a conversation.

Re: Facebook Loses Top Executives, Including Chris Cox

#278

Post by DesiLurker »

DataJunkie wrote: post #71

I used to be a fan of Facebook, but I was never obsessed with it. I even used to work there. I'm over it. It's useful for groups, some of the ads really are useful, it's nice to sometimes keep up with people that are far away, but the news feed has had done way more harm than good for our society, including my own life. After the 2016 Election, Facebook posts lead to so much drama in my family that certain "branches"…

>> The only reason I want it to succeed is because I own stock from when I worked there.

I know the feeling as I HAD the same situation with amazon. The problem with such thinking is that yes you'll make some money off of it by enhancing human misery but when I sell the stock I will still be a human being.

Fortunately, when you are not a part of the company there is a easy justification to sell, its that you are no longer have a 'better sense' than market about the direction of the stock. so for me the question then becomes of the universe of stocks available out there why hold on to this (& if you have a good reason then why not invest more of your 'own' money into it). IMO its just endowment effect.

Re: Facebook Loses Top Executives, Including Chris Cox

#279

Post by mirimir »

joe_the_user wrote: post #274
eeeeeeeeeeeee wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 eas…

"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." But that's the structure of any logical argument. If someone says X is only A , I will describe how I see plenty of B in X, which by itself doesn't say there is not plenty of A in X too. IE, One person makes a generalization, another points to an exception or…

> ... then neither should the hate be justified?

The hate is because they collect so much data, and share and sell it so carelessly. Google collects at least as much data, for sure. But as far as I know, they just monetize it through their ad services, and don't actually provide it to others.

Re: Facebook Loses Top Executives, Including Chris Cox

#280

Post by memory_grep »

mlboss wrote: post #192
notJim wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have some of the highest salaries, according to levels.fyi. They've also produced cool tech like React. Developers I know who work there seem pretty happy. Plus, most people seem less concerned about the negative effects and/or basically believe they can be fixed or mitigated.

Not to mention Pytorch. Hottest deep learning framework.

Pytorch is great. Best thing to come out of Facebook IMO.
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