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Chris Hughes Says It’s Time to Break Up Facebook

nytimes.com

131–140 of 308 posts

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

#131
post #102

Why is this article not being upvoted more? It's probably the most important piece that has ever been posted to HN; especially considering who the author is.

I don't know for others but personally, I think it's pure hysteria and scapegoating. If you don't like Facebook, don't use it. I don't think private property should be forcibly removed away because it is the current news cycle ennemy-of-the-day. The standards for overruling consent should be extremely high - if they should exist at all. I got fed up with Facebook a while ago and deleted my account. No problem. If Fac…

You are really not missing the forest for the trees. Facebook has grown so large that it's no longer an individual's decision to be there or not.

Your data is there whatever you do, growing as a phantom profile based on data you give to advertisers or what your friends share. It's become such a huge power that it's a huge part of social life. It influences our society in ways we coulndt even imagine before.

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

#132
post #64

"Mark Zuckerberg is a good guy. But his company is a threat to our economy and democracy." "Mark is a good, kind person. But I’m angry that his focus on growth led him to sacrifice security and civility for clicks." I always find it difficult to take an argument seriously when someone is defined simply as "good". It glosses over a lot of things, like what motivates a person and how we define "good". For example, if w…

Indeed!

Let's be clear, the issues go far beyond clicks, but the ways that Zuckerberg, Dorsey, and the others in similar roles in the industry have, at best, failed to notice (and thereby allowed) how their platforms to be exploited to manipulate society.

At best, Zuckerberg is a Useful Idiot (in the Vladmir Lenin sense), easily manipulated into tasks that, in this case undermine democracy and make the world safer for authoritarianism. He's also accepted non-trivial funding from RUS oligarchs with RUS mob links; make of that what you will, but as one learns more about the recent history of the oligarchs, one has far less room to consider it innocent.

The story related to Cambridge Analytica, the Russian Internet Research Agency, the Russian GRU is only being reported in a few place,s but it shows the tip of the iceberg that is a critical threat to our society and western democracies -- and a threat that specifically exploits platforms like FB, Twitter, Google, Youtube, etc.

To oversimplify for brevity: There is a very long history in the intelligence/counterintelligence world of Active Measures campaigns including dezinformatsiya (targeted disinformation) to influence the political situation of adversaries. These have now been adapted and target specifically the social media networks. The payoff per ruble spent has been enormous compared to straight military spending. The threat is simultaniously diffuse and hard to identify (lack of transparency at the SocMed companies doesn't help), and yet a potentially existential threat to society as we know it. Proper democracy is inherently unstable, and easy to tip into many failure modes.

Some useful sources to get basic familiarity with the problem: [1] quick overview: https://twitter.com/carolecadwalla/status/112502595179091558...

[2] More excellent coverage at the Guardian over the last few years: https://www.theguardian.com/news/series/cambridge-analytica-...

[3] Ex-US NSA Analyst, basic primer, and many other well-sourced articles: https://observer.com/2017/03/kremlingate-russia-spy-game-dis...

[4] Bill Browder 'Red Notice', chronicling the history of his fund investing in Russia, the RUS govt theft/fraud of $230million, murder, and continuing insights into how

[5] Garry Kasparov, 'winter is coming' former world chess champion, Presidential Candidate in Russia, now exiled, chronicling the resurgence of authoritarianism in Russia and how & why it is exported to undermine western democracies.

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

#133
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't break up with your stalker. If Facebook is building a data portfolio of you, which is highly likely, then you can't avoid them, which means the problems that arise from the practice still impact you, whether or not you want them to.

Its not stalking, they just know about you, this is not harassment. If you think stalking is having information about your existence you have big problem man, mental one. >which means the problems that arise from the practice still impact you making up logic to suit your arguments doesn't means you have a point

Having information about someone is fine. It's not stalking nor harassment when you're privy to their location, where they live and work, everyone they interact with, their conversation, every newspaper and article they read, and every purchase they make. But it's creepy especially if this information is collected surreptitiously. Why collect this information in the first place?

It becomes harassment when this information is used to target someone. It is stalking if this information is used to follow you around. It is literally "cyberstalking" when it does. If someone is tracking you, they are stalking you.

Every website owner who puts code from Google or Facebook is complicit in this tracking/stalking.

When everywhere you go banners are being put in your face with messages tailored prod your fears based on what is known about you. When psychological tests are carried out en-masse [0], this is harassment.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jul/02/facebook-...

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

#134

FB is the sacrificial lamb, popular scapegoat and effective distraction in this new era of SV policies shaping public opinion, ideas and as a result global politics. It seems misplaced, the amount of vitriol and negative press directed at facebook when from my perspective Google/Twitter/Amazon and even Reddit are far, far worse in terms of aggressively monopolistic behavior and negative effects on society and democra…

I agree with other companies being worse influences than FB. Though I'd guess that FB is the target for these articles just because of brand recognition in the publisher's target demographics.

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

#135
post #86
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Doesn't solve the same problem.

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

#136
post #30

Funny, what do you have to break up something that you are not even forced to use, and that is not even remotely necessary for benefiting from the internet? I must be missing something.

Even if people do leave, the data that Facebook possesses on both former users & never-users combined with their demonstrably dangerous & dishonest practices justifies some sort of regulatory intervention.

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

#137

Better than breaking up social networks would be to force them to interoperate on an open protocol. When I first signed up for Facebook I was disappointed that only other Facebook users could see my account. Then when Google+ came on the scene I thought they'd worked out a way to interoperate with Facebook, but instead Google just wanted their own silo. What we really need is for social networks to interoperate the w…

Are you suggesting that there be an API to access social network information? That is literally what Facebook had, and what people excoriate them over thanks to Cambridge Analytica. The Facebook haters are driving social network data into a silo; how else are you going to "keep control of your data"? You can have privacy (or at least the illusion of privacy), or you can have access. You cannot have both.

Specifically here you're right, but the hypothetical that came to my mind when reading GP was in similarity with email.

I want to reach my friend Pete through "media". But I don't really care about his ad-relevant personality matrix, I just want the endpoint. The profile metadata is the aspect created and mistreated by FB, and abused by CA. I suppose scraping the proposed hypothetical API would be akin to getting a large list of valid emails, but it's not as useful for targetted agitprop.

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

#138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because targeting is very profitable.

so effective advertising does require surveillance? Is there way to to know if companies like FB would be sustainable without surveillance or would they simply die out ? in other words, would banning surveillance business kill FB, Google ect? Would we still want that law if that was the case?

newspapers, have done just fine without it for several hundred years. Radio and TV likewise can't do it.

Duck Duck Go doesn't use it and they do okay. There is a lot more money in surveillance based advertising, but it isn't the only way.

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

#139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are they doing it then, if its not required.

Because targeting is very profitable.

Sure, but you don't have to watch the user to do that. Target indirectly via the content of the page. If I search for "Harley Davidson", it makes a lot of sense to show motorcycle ads. If I'm reading an article about curing cancer with apricot kernels, then show me ads for oncology centers or maybe for woo enhancer.

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

#140
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 basi…

> It's basically saying Google's next I don't think that answers GP's question though, why is facebook first? Why is facebook the chosen one. Surely it wasn't chosen using random number generator.

> why is facebook first?

> Why is facebook the chosen one. Surely it wasn't chosen using random number generator.

It's it obvious? It's been far more transparently shameless.

> I don't think that answers GP's question though,

It does. The op was asking a why/why not question. He didn't even mention the concept of sequence.

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