Chris Hughes Says It’s Time to Break Up Facebook • Hacker News Board

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

#191

Post by fcantournet » Thu, May 09, 2019, 3:14 PM UTC

decasteve wrote: post #28

I disagree. But I'm not on any, nor use any, of Facebook's services. "It's Time to Break Up with Facebook" is a better title. > We already have the tools we need to check the domination of Facebook. We just seem to have forgotten about them. That evokes different ideas with me and I'm sure it does for many users of this site. We have the tools and capability to employ them to make alternatives. We're so focused on th…

Let's get something straight : you don't get to use the word "naïve" to qualify anybody but yourself after you've essentially said : "Facebook doesn't impact my life because I'm not on it".

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

#192

Post by throwayEngineer » Thu, May 09, 2019, 3:15 PM UTC

josh2600 wrote: post #93

throwayEngineer wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook won't have much of an impact on the 2020 election imo. Users are already Leaving. I don't see why we can't let FAANG grow big and fail like every other company.

You are crazy if you think Facebook won't have much of an impact on the 2020 election... It's the ad targeting platform of choice for people who want to target specific demographics. Why wouldn't Facebook have a deep impact on the 2020 election? Do you really think a company of Facebook's scale will be able to detect and somehow neutralize all of the political ads that are introduced into their targeting systems even…

As mentioned, their users are leaving

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

#193

Post by criddell » Thu, May 09, 2019, 3:16 PM UTC

c0vfefe wrote: post #181

criddell wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But it's more profitable to store multiple user interests & behaviors in a database to be exploited in any number of ways, including selling. The aggregation even lets you infer other valuable information about the user, such as the scandal with Target inferring pregnancies several years ago.

Sure, it's generating an incredible amount of profit for a few companies in California.

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

#194

Post by tremon » Thu, May 09, 2019, 3:17 PM UTC

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 effectiveness can be measured

I don't think this is a prerequisite at all. Isn't most marketing focused on the persuasiveness of the seller, instead of the effectiveness of the product?

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

#195

Post by codr7 » Thu, May 09, 2019, 3:17 PM UTC

hodgesrm wrote: post #162

jmastrangelo wrote: post #149

While we're discussing Facebook and anticompetitive practices, I'd like to bring the effects of FANG/Unicorns and their current compensation. I think we are seeing a drop in people leaving established tech to startups, but I think most of this is due to the _ludicrous_ amount of money an engineer/PM can make being a 9-5er at one FB/G. Engineers who meet expectations and get promoted at the minimum allowed rate can be…

It's not clear that many of the people you are describing would have joined a startup anyway. There's big difference in the personalities who thrive in startups and those that thrive in large bureaucracies. An alternative view is that Silicon Valley and other tech centers are increasing dominated by the latter type of person.

I'd go further and note that online software discussions in general seem increasingly dominated by complete beginners who couldn't care less about code except as a stepping stone to money and fame.

How this is all going to lead anywhere worth going is anyone's guess...

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

#196

Post by basch » Thu, May 09, 2019, 3:18 PM UTC

istjohn wrote: post #58

anonu wrote: post #7

I agree to breaking up Facebook. But the message falls flat when the suggestion is to spin off WhatsApp and Instagram into separate companies. This doesn't really do anything. When standard oil or Bell telephone broke up, they were broken across geographic lines or "horizontally" in situations where the business was vertically integrated (separating extraction, refining or transport in the case of standard oil) FB, I…

I disagree. Many people have moved away from FB to IG after all the bad publicity FB has had. If IG was an independent company that consumer choice would mean something. As it is, any privacy conscious social network that mounts any threat to FB will simply be bought as happened with WhatsApp.

IG was like a 13 person company, do you think they would have successfully scaled without FB? Thats a pretty pretty big if. Had they not sold, its possible FB would have just murdered them.

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

#197

Post by hellllllllooo » Thu, May 09, 2019, 3:19 PM UTC

HNthrow22 wrote: post #123

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…

> this is just a distraction from the real shit

Facebook is not all of the problem but it's definitely part of it. Facebook has clear privacy issues an implications and everyone uses it and knows about it. If highlighting its issues is a viable path to better privacy legislation and is the example that allows the bigger problems to be demonstrated to everyone, even non technical people, why not use it?

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

#198

Post by ImprovedSilence » Thu, May 09, 2019, 3:19 PM UTC

patwolf wrote: 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…

Life is a lot more grey than “good” and “bad” people. This isn’t a Marvel movie. Sometimes a persons actions are a positive, sometimes a negative, and perhaps the outcome doesn’t match the intention. So I’ll withhold judgment on a persons character of whom I’ve never met. I won’t ever fully trust a corporation though, and I use Facebook minimally. That said, this breakup Facebook monopoly shit has to stop. It’s not a monopoly as far as ads or marketing go. And that’s what they sell.

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

#199

Post by Kalium » Thu, May 09, 2019, 3:22 PM UTC

specialist wrote: post #190

Kalium wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that he donated millions of dollars to fund public healthcare, often delivered for free by a public entity, what should he have done instead that would qualify as giving away healthcare? Bearing in mind that he is not pesonally a medical professional.

I have no idea. I'm just saying how it looks from the peanut gallery. If I were Scott Galloway advising Zuckerberg, I'd probably say better PR, damage control, more puff pieces (below). Once "Zuckerberg General" hit the press, I'd swoop in, apologize to everyone for the oversight & misunderstanding, forgive the debts, set up financial aide for students & other hardships, host a press conference to announce a new stud…

I suspect a good PR advisor would tell him to keep quiet with SF shitting the bed. There's nothing for him to gain by publicly involving himself in the matter and shockingly little he can do except maybe try to point out that it's not actually his hospital in any way. Any misunderstandings, oversights, or debts are in no way his to have any involvement with.

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

#200

Post by dwaltrip » Thu, May 09, 2019, 3:24 PM UTC

stickfigure wrote: post #122

loudmax wrote: post #108

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.

One would still need authorization to view a private profile...