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Facebook asks for a moat of regulations it already meets

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Re: Facebook asks for a moat of regulations it already meets

#251

Post by ch4s3 »

take_a_breath wrote: post #224
ch4s3 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as I dislike FB I think this gives their ad platform far too much credit. How do you go about connecting ads viewed to votes, or even poling data? Of those views how many users engaged with the content?

Some people are obviously making a connection between the two or else there wouldn't be political spending on Facebook.

Campaigns and PACs spend money on all kinds of useless things. The burden of proof is on the people claiming that Facebook ads are uniquely malevolent and effective. This is also not to mention that the money spent on Facebook pales in comparison to other channels.

From my perspective, it has all of the hallmarks of a moral panic, right down to the calls to "think of the children."

Re: Facebook asks for a moat of regulations it already meets

#252

Post by MockObject »

RealityVoid wrote: post #31
blunderkid wrote: post #16

There should be only one regulation for fb, display following warning on all pages/screens: Statutory Warning: This product is specifically designed to cause behavioral addiction so you are guided down a slippery slope of over consumption & that is how this company makes money. Overuse of this product is known to cause - anxiety, depression, low self esteem, constant craving for attention, short attention spans, inab…

I estimate about the same impact of this as cigarette pack warning.

Ironically, in the 1970s, people used pareidolia to discover scary skulls and crossbones in the smoke curls of cigarette ads. These were thought to be subliminal symbols of risk and danger, secretly engineered to appeal to smokers, who knew they were engaging in a deadly habit.

20 years later, governments mandated superliminal death symbolism.

Re: Facebook asks for a moat of regulations it already meets

#253

Post by andrekandre »

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #96
alexis_fr wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I view it the opposite way: We underestimated as a society how many people were feeling bad. Addictions to alcohol is horrible, but their harm doesn’t scale. With social networks, we suddenly see what we chose to ignore before: The swathes of MGTOWs, Incels, doubters, we also see the swathes of “scientific studies” which were provably wrong, the lies of the medias when you compare the scientific study and how the art…

> we should have taken better care of so many people we’ve put in such horrible situations... Rather than assuming they were just crybabies. It may seemed callused, but they _are_ just crybabies. Just because social media facilitates the formation of certain identity groups now does not mean that the cultures formed from those identities are good or productive. Just look at the increase in suicides, depression, schoo…

assuming that its true, "its online medias fault", then why havent we seen similar extremes forming in other countries?

it seems extreme student violence, incels, increased violence, depression and suicide

1. seems to be more of an anerican phenomena (incels, student shootings)

2. started to sharply increase after 2008 financial crisis when huge swaths of people went through huge personal and societal stresses [0]

so while online media can definitely be attributed to accelerating and manipulation of people being easier, i would posit that the seeds were already there in the culture and environment...

[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/report-2008-financial-crisis-in...

[edit] just to clarify: this isnt to mean i give fb a free pass of course... they are making money off of manipulating people with this kind of misery and extremism which i find reprehensible

Re: Facebook asks for a moat of regulations it already meets

#254

Post by Faark »

Dumblydorr wrote: post #122
matharmin wrote: post #104

Reading through the actual proposed regulations, most of them are regulations I'd like to have enforced on any social media tech company above some small threshold in size, and are not onerous to implement. Many of these proposed regulations cover exactly the type of issues that are often complained about on HN. Why does it matter so much that it's Facebook proposing it, and that they have already implemented it?

Because they are using it to prevent competitors from being able to take their market share. They're the market leader, they have resources and codebase already...

Or they have already implemented them cause they consider those measures to be important / effective. Recommending something you don't think is worth the effort would be stupid, just like not implementing good ones. If FB decides against adopting some measure, they obviously will use the same arguments for not recommending it.

As for FB recommending lower standards to govern the competition... would anyone here actually do this unless part of a brand? Evaluating recommendations is a politicians job, and I'd expect them to listen to more than just the few biggest companies.

Re: Facebook asks for a moat of regulations it already meets

#255

Post by kedean »

mgraczyk wrote: post #250
josephg wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On what basis are you claiming that that most teams at FB are optimising the product for well being as opposed to ‘engagement’ (addiction)? Do you have first hand knowledge? Do you know the people involved? Do you have citations? I stopped using FB a few years ago after I had an argument with a friend on the platform. The algorithm decided to keep showing us one anothers’ content - I assume so we would both write mor…

I'm not disagreeing with your point that FB sometimes ranks content more highly when it is likely to increase engagement at the expense of your long term happiness and continued use of the site. The point I am making is that FB is well aware, doesn't want that, and devotes far more resources to fixing it than to increasing "engagement". Also "engagement" is not the same as addiction. People who follow more close frie…

> Also "engagement" is not the same as addiction. People who follow more close friends are more engaged on FB, but they are not addicted.

That's debatable. I think people who spend hours pouring through pictures from thousands of acquaintances and commenting can be considered addicted, especially when it becomes difficult to get their attention from it. I see it with people over 50 most often, I think because of an internal desire to feel connected with people who they drifted apart from years ago, or to live vicariously through others.

Re: Facebook asks for a moat of regulations it already meets

#256

Post by take_a_breath »

ch4s3 wrote: post #251
take_a_breath wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people are obviously making a connection between the two or else there wouldn't be political spending on Facebook.

Campaigns and PACs spend money on all kinds of useless things. The burden of proof is on the people claiming that Facebook ads are uniquely malevolent and effective. This is also not to mention that the money spent on Facebook pales in comparison to other channels. From my perspective, it has all of the hallmarks of a moral panic, right down to the calls to "think of the children."

==Campaigns and PACs spend money on all kinds of useless things.==

Do you have a citation for this? It seems like a failure in the free market if organizations spend $55 billion [1] on Facebook advertisements with no benefit.

==From my perspective, it has all of the hallmarks of a moral panic, right down to the calls to "think of the children."==

What data is that perspective based on or is it just your gut feeling (aka bias)?

[1] https://martechtoday.com/despite-ongoing-criticism-facebook-...

Re: Facebook asks for a moat of regulations it already meets

#257

Post by blotter_paper »

crocodiletears wrote: post #222
fbelzile wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of regulation, maybe have browsers give you a warning on how the site your about to visit treats your personal data? We already have warnings in one way or another for: expired SSL certificates, lack of HTTPS, potential malware sites, if your account may have been breached (at least in Firefox), requests for your location or to show notifications, etc. The next logical step is to have our user agent warn us a…

I don't like the idea of my browser trying to protect me from social problems. I'm fine with my browser warning me that a site may be a risk to my machine, but I wouldn't trust my browser to display content to me reliably if my vendor was using it as a platform for any activism that isn't narrowly focused on keeping web standards open. Perhaps I'd tolerate it as an opt-in, but even then, I'd be leary and start lookin…

Browsers are already opt-in; you can download another. Laws are a bit more difficult to change.

Re: Facebook asks for a moat of regulations it already meets

#258

Post by ch4s3 »

take_a_breath wrote: post #256
ch4s3 wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Campaigns and PACs spend money on all kinds of useless things. The burden of proof is on the people claiming that Facebook ads are uniquely malevolent and effective. This is also not to mention that the money spent on Facebook pales in comparison to other channels. From my perspective, it has all of the hallmarks of a moral panic, right down to the calls to "think of the children."

==Campaigns and PACs spend money on all kinds of useless things.== Do you have a citation for this? It seems like a failure in the free market if organizations spend $55 billion [1] on Facebook advertisements with no benefit. ==From my perspective, it has all of the hallmarks of a moral panic, right down to the calls to "think of the children."== What data is that perspective based on or is it just your gut feeling (…

Do you need a citation to know that lots of PACs engage in polling using worthless methodology? Surely you've seen expensive TV spots that have no clear messaging and make the candidate they support look awful. A whole lot of campaign spending seems like grifting, but maybe I'm wrong.

Look, I'm not say that FB ads are totally useless in general, just that there's some burden of proof when you claim they swayed an election.

> What data is that perspective based on or is it just your gut feeling (aka bias)?

People have literally used the phrase "think of the children," or some variation.

Re: Facebook asks for a moat of regulations it already meets

#259

Post by blackrock »

gargron wrote: post #92
macspoofing wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Like maybe, a social network that doesn’t manipulate us, or scan our faces without permission, or build dark profiles of everyone, or read our personal messages, or Heh. Fat chance. The next generation of social networks will be coming from China because China is the perfect incubator for this category of software. You'll yet wish for Facebook.

The next generation of social networks is already here. It's decentralized and open-source. Mastodon, Pleroma, PeerTube, loads more, all part of the same network, the fediverse.

I’ve never been to any of those sites, but Mastodon and PeerTube sounds like shady porn sites.

Re: Facebook asks for a moat of regulations it already meets

#260

Post by sub7 »

warkdarrior wrote: post #249
sub7 wrote: post #76

It'll probably be too hard to regulate every unethical dark pattern and shitty default on the site. What you can do is force Facebook to allow the user to 1 click export their graph and all friend data with it in a standardized format. Once you force them to give me MY friends email addresses, phone numbers, and birthdays in a list, they're fucked because better products can then emerge. Similar to the idea of regula…

I can see Cambridge Analytica or other companies offering $100 for your Facebook data export. Are you sure your friends or your friends' friends will not sell your data?

No, but if they did I'm kind of the one at fault for making them my "friend". The old world analogy is you go around the world collecting business cards. That address book is yours - you can burn it, sell it or do whatever you want with it - most importantly use it to contact the people who trusted you with the info. People just became more judicious about who got what info.

Similar correction needs to happen here. When I add someone to a digital platform, instead of a 1 click process it needs to be a 1 click + select what info to share process.

Then the data needs to be portable.

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