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

Chris Hughes Says It’s Time to Break Up Facebook

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 308 posts

Re: Chris Hughes Says It’s Time to Break Up Facebook

#81

Post by panglott »

saintPirelli wrote: post #61
Nextgrid wrote: post #14

It’s time to outlaw stalking-based business models. If you just break up Facebook but don’t outlaw the underlying scummy business model something else will just take its place.

I don't think it's possible to outlaw what Facebook does without unforeseen consequences. Facebook is fast-food for the mind. You know it's bad for you, you know you shouldn't do it, you know there are healthier alternatives, the fact that corporations profit off of making people fat and sick is outrageous, but you can't very well outlaw the concept of beef in a bun.

People aren't mad because Facebook runs a social network or presents users with a newsfeed or provides a messaging service or stores users photos. Lots of companies do those things without complaint. People are mad at Facebook because the company constantly lies about privacy issues, makes one agreement with its users about their privacy and then does something else, and just generally treats the privacy of its users with complete contempt.

Re: Chris Hughes Says It’s Time to Break Up Facebook

#82

Post by neuronic »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #54
Nextgrid wrote: post #14

It’s time to outlaw stalking-based business models. If you just break up Facebook but don’t outlaw the underlying scummy business model something else will just take its place.

It's the advertising market that drives all of this. As you rightly point out, history is proof that the ad dollars don't care what the platform or who the messenger is, as long as they are easy to use and effectiveness can be measured.

And it will keep driving all of this because aside from enthusiasts and privacy focused people, nobody is willing to pay for Internet services such as FB, WhatsApp or IG. Few people are willing to pay for news.

How many subscriptions am I supposed to have anyways if my go-to information consumption mode is to cross check several websites?

I don't want to be confined to NYT, Der Spiegel, Wired or WSJ. I want all of them whenever I please. The Internet made this possible and now we are on the road to taking this away again.

At the very root of all of this is the Internet's financial reliance on advertisements. Advertisement based business models need to die but at the same time we cannot lose the free, accessible Internet as it used to be.

Re: Chris Hughes Says It’s Time to Break Up Facebook

#83

Post by orbifold »

craigsmansion wrote: post #70
kmlx wrote: post #3

“Chris Hughes, a co-founder of Facebook, says the company is so big and powerful that it threatens our democracy.” considering how flawed democracies are, i say let democracy die. adopt democracy 2.0 (no parties, no president/pm, no cabinet ministers, elected speaker, continuous citizen participation) and that’s that.

Sounds like a great idea, so: - How do you feel about the minimal training of seafarers and the existing directives to that end? - Also, the use of vehicles hired without drivers for the carriage of goods by road? - Amending the regulations contracts for sales of goods? - Postal services directive? - Sustainable urban mobility? - and, of course, cableway installations, how about those? "Well", you might say, "If you'…

Have you read any of these reports? Are you sure they are truly necessary? There have been written reports on the human rights situation of Woman all over the world since the 70s. Do you think those reports contributed to anything? Their formulation is extremely formulaic, the people writing them are underpaid interns or overpaid politicians, that got that cushy job by years of mingling in their respective home countries party system. They don't truly represent the will of the people. In the UN it is especially egregious, you have cousins of African strong men, sitting next to sons of Saudi rich men.

Re: Chris Hughes Says It’s Time to Break Up Facebook

#86

Post by dageshi »

istjohn wrote: post #71
Nextgrid wrote: post #14

It’s time to outlaw stalking-based business models. If you just break up Facebook but don’t outlaw the underlying scummy business model something else will just take its place.

People are waking up to the importance of privacy. If FB had competing social networks, consumer choice would matter. As it is, we have false choices like FB vs. IG.

Twitter?

Re: Chris Hughes Says It’s Time to Break Up Facebook

#87

Post by ardy42 »

saintPirelli wrote: post #61
Nextgrid wrote: post #14

It’s time to outlaw stalking-based business models. If you just break up Facebook but don’t outlaw the underlying scummy business model something else will just take its place.

I don't think it's possible to outlaw what Facebook does without unforeseen consequences. Facebook is fast-food for the mind. You know it's bad for you, you know you shouldn't do it, you know there are healthier alternatives, the fact that corporations profit off of making people fat and sick is outrageous, but you can't very well outlaw the concept of beef in a bun.

> I don't think it's possible to outlaw what Facebook does without unforeseen consequences.

You don't have to outlaw it, just tax revenue from the undesirable behaviors to dis-incentivize them. In Facebook's case (and also that of much of the web), most of what people object to is the practices that support personal profile-targeted ads. So tax those until page context-targeted ads become attractive.

Re: Chris Hughes Says It’s Time to Break Up Facebook

#89

Post by dragonwriter »

kmlx wrote: post #3

“Chris Hughes, a co-founder of Facebook, says the company is so big and powerful that it threatens our democracy.” considering how flawed democracies are, i say let democracy die. adopt democracy 2.0 (no parties, no president/pm, no cabinet ministers, elected speaker, continuous citizen participation) and that’s that.

> adopt democracy 2.0 (no parties, no president/pm, no cabinet ministers, elected speaker, continuous citizen participation) and that’s that.

That's not “Democracy 2.0”, that's either 1.0 or a pre-release version, with modern liberal Western democracy spread out across something like the 4.x major version range (not every one on the same minor version.)

The version you are talking about doesn't work well with large, diverse, or otherwise complex societies, though it's fine for small hunter-gatherer bands.

Re: Chris Hughes Says It’s Time to Break Up Facebook

#90

Post by ardy42 »

josh2600 wrote: post #51

I have trouble understanding why we should break up Facebook but not google. Is it because we think google is less evil than Facebook?

> I have trouble understanding why we should break up Facebook but not google. Is it because we think google is less evil than Facebook?

The article does not argue against breaking up Google, in fact it says:

> Finally, an aggressive case against Facebook would persuade other behemoths like Google and Amazon to think twice about stifling competition in their own sectors, out of fear that they could be next.

It's basically saying Google's next if it doesn't mend its ways.

Post reply on HN