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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

#281

Post by bacon_waffle »

chillacy wrote: post #246
bacon_waffle wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I got the impression that ebay employees understand how issues with their platform can result in real people having trouble putting food on the table.

Comments like some above make me think that facebook outages maybe aren't taken as seriously as they should be.

Re: Facebook Loses Top Executives, Including Chris Cox

#282

Post by MrOwen »

noelsusman wrote: post #152
o10449366 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Significant portions of NYT's reporting have been highly misleading, to the extent that it's difficult to conclude it wasn't intentional. "Facebook allowed Microsoft’s Bing search engine to see the names of virtually all Facebook users’ friends without consent, the records show, and gave Netflix and Spotify the ability to read Facebook users’ private messages." [0] Netflix and Spotify have Messenger plugins that allo…

I'm confused. Netflix and Spotify did have the ability to read anyone's private messages. That's what they reported, and as far as I know none of the involved parties disputed that. The point isn't that somebody at Spotify was sitting there reading everyone's messages. The point is that they could have been doing that, and Facebook had nothing in place to know if they were doing that, and none of the users sharing a…

Without regulatory oversight and third party auditing of certified access logs, you can't really be sure what was or was not accessed. Of course, if you imposed those kind of requirements on Facebook, that would take a significant amount of resources and therefore reduce their profit margins. Probably not very investor-friendly.

Re: Facebook Loses Top Executives, Including Chris Cox

#283

Post by _jal »

manigandham wrote: post #204
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…

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…

> The real issue is human nature.

So is theft, murder, and the intentional infliction of pain for amusement. You can't dodge responsibility that way.

You're also ignoring several aspects that makes FB different in kind than a lot of what came before it. As but one example, they are the world's largest blackmail machine. Maybe you trust Zuckerberg & pals now, what happens when they're gone? When FB goes in to decline? When an internal threat hacks them? When Singapore or Russia or worse approaches FB systems folks with carrots and sticks? Has that happened already? How would we know?

I'm personally of the opinion that it was a terrible idea to build it in the first place.

Re: Facebook Loses Top Executives, Including Chris Cox

#284

Post by beachy »

Pharmakon wrote: post #111
AceJohnny2 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone had told me 15 years ago that Bill Gates would become one the greatest philanthopists of our generation, I would've laughed in their face.

Why? Some of the most venal, greedy, and ruthless people in history made their money then turned to philanthropy to improve their image. I would argue that it was downright predictable, and so would Alfred Nobel. In fact using charity to either improve your public image (as in Gates and many others) is probably only matched by people like Jimmy Saville using charity to give themselves license to continue committing c…

That's a pretty dark view.

I imagine that Gates played to win in business, as many others do, it's just that he was particularly good at it.

Now he's playing hard and to win in philanthropy.

I doubt he gives 2 bits what the average person thinks of him, at least not enough to throw money at rehabilitating his image. If that was his goal, his philanthropy targets would be different.

Re: Facebook Loses Top Executives, Including Chris Cox

#285

Post by jrockway »

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…

> Facebook is hemorrhaging its best people as those on the inside finally start waking up to the fact that Zuckerberg's vision of Facebook as a good thing for the world was a lie

Or maybe they have acquired Enough money and have decided that sleeping in to noon every day is more valuable than making an app for people to share drunken photos of themselves?

My point is, there can be many reasons.

Re: Facebook Loses Top Executives, Including Chris Cox

#286

Post by Spooky23 »

resters wrote: post #179
en-us wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's all fine until some special interest with money wants to launch a targeted propaganda campaign in your country. That can and has lead to effects ranging from detrimental government policy to outright genocide. Nobody argues that Facebook keeping families in touch is a bad thing. It's the rest of it - the collecting and selling of data, the paid targeted propaganda campaigns, the intentional manipulation of use…

Ironically the fear-mongering about the propaganda campaign you are describing is intended to turn Facebook into an instrument of US government propaganda. Zuckerberg has been resisting that, which is why Facebook is being attacked from all sides at the moment.

The US government has unlimited resources. If they want to use Facebook as a propaganda platform, they would do so, and Facebook would happily accept their cash.

The Russian campaign that you’re dismissive of is consistent with the heritage of Russian intelligence services. Lenin’s newspaper was called “Iskra” (spark) in the context of “from a spark a fire will flare up.” The army of trolls is there to foment dissent, motivate nutcases on the right and left and create scenarios difficult for the battleship that is American democracy to navigate.

Facebook is being attacked because it’s controlled with an iron fist by a guy who is over his head and possess extreme power without the foresight and vision to be a steward of it or the humility to delegate it. The company is harming the republic and the world.

Re: Facebook Loses Top Executives, Including Chris Cox

#287

Post by asveikau »

shosko wrote: post #145

Why would anyone want to work for Facebook these days? When you are maintaining the largest advertising stream since TV while actively destroying society's discourse, I'm not sure what redeeming qualities it has. I think the most important thing any of us can do is get away from Facebook and move towards pursuits that fix problems, including the ones Facebook helped create.

Other commenters are saying money. I think they also have a lot of people who joined as a first job, so FB is all they know, and they are not (yet?) cynical. This is true of all the other megacorps as well.

Re: Facebook Loses Top Executives, Including Chris Cox

#288

Post by tathougies »

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.

I feel comparing big tobacco to a service that lets you talk with your friends and keep a timeline of your life is a bit disproportionate.

Re: Facebook Loses Top Executives, Including Chris Cox

#289

Post by qudat »

shosko wrote: post #145

Why would anyone want to work for Facebook these days? When you are maintaining the largest advertising stream since TV while actively destroying society's discourse, I'm not sure what redeeming qualities it has. I think the most important thing any of us can do is get away from Facebook and move towards pursuits that fix problems, including the ones Facebook helped create.

If you do front-end development then FB is one of the best companies to get on your resume, mainly because of React.

Re: Facebook Loses Top Executives, Including Chris Cox

#290

Post by Spooky23 »

manigandham wrote: post #276
GuiA wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 handl…

Humanity doesn’t need to adapt to Facebook. Imagine if you said this about cars in 1919... we could put up traffic lights or evolve to leap out of the way of cars.

If Facebook needs to enjoy an AT&T style monopoly on connecting people, they need to submit to being under a regulatory thumb.

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