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

Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

761–770 of 1001 posts

Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#761

Post by throwaway93132 »

mrfusion wrote: post #750
knzhou wrote: post #457

The degree to which “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” is in effect here is remarkable. If Facebook literally removes anything, then HN is outraged because it’s censorship, paternalism, all that. But if Facebook does not adopt an actively paternalistic attitude where it shows people content that they deem is “good for them” , then that’s outrageous too. Both complaints predictably rocket to the top of HN. Which…

Show all things posted in chronological order. Let users filter out things they don’t want. Done.

I don't think this would be a good idea. There's a lot of content created on Facebook at any given moment. If you show things only in chronological order, it would take an incredible amount of filtering (that the vast majority of users won't do) to get to anything reasonable.

Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#762

Post by pckhoi »

fpgaminer wrote: post #299

You know what the internet needs? User agents. We've got this idea stuck in our heads that only the website itself is allowed to curate content. Only Facebook gets to decide which Facebook posts to show us. What if, instead, you had a personal AI that read every Facebook post and then decided what to show you. Trained on your own preferences, under your control, with whatever settings you like. Instead of being tuned…

Or you could just be your own user agent. Problem solved!

Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#763

Post by todd_henderson »

Quick recap. Zuckerburg invited Roger McNamee to serve as an advisor. Stopped listening when he expressed ethical concerns about the business model.

Hired Yael Eisenstat right after the Cambridge Analytica scandal to help with ethics and oversight. Soon after, reduced role to primarily just optics.

Created new Oversight Board with many high profile individuals. Then they did this.

Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#764

Post by bobthepanda »

pwdisswordfish2 wrote: post #526
munificent wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fundamental flaw is this: The primary content no user wants to see any every user agent would filter out is ads . Since ads are the primary way sites stay in business, they are obligated to fight against user agents or other intermediary systems. The ultimate problem is that Facebook doesn't want to show you good, enriching content from your friends and family. They want to show you ads. The good content is just…

"The ultimate problem is that Facebook doesn't want to show you good, enrishing content from your friends and family." Well, it is someone else's website. What do you expect Zuckerberg has his own interests in mind. In 2020, it is still too difficult for everyone to set up their own website, so they settle for a page on someone else's. If exchanging content with friends and family (not swaths of the public who visit…

Email exists. Wordpress has free site hosting. SMS is ad free. If people wanted to create a free webpage for friends and family to see there are loads of options. The problem is that, generally speaking, most people do not find the value proposition as a Facebook replacement compelling.

Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#765

Post by esperent »

solveit wrote: post #697
stonogo wrote: post #687

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sure am tired of hearing about "the fundamental flaw" in empowering people. What you describe is not a flaw in empowerment, it's a flaw in their business model, and it's one that can that be fixed (i.e. "innovate a better business model"). Can we stop propagating the idea that people who do not want to use their limited bandwidth and processing power to rasterize someone else's advertising are somehow "flawed"? The…

The point is that fighting Facebook on Facebook is a losing game and "innovate a better business model" has been tried, is being tried, and is not working because it is hard . A plan that does not work is indeed "flawed", no matter how noble and natural the intentions.

Facebook is only 16 years old. The idea of social networks is only a few years older than that. Surely we can't have tried and failed at every possible alternative already?

Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#766

Post by prawn »

specialist wrote: post #316
supernova87a wrote: post #149

I really didn't realize until perhaps the last 2 years that Facebook fundamentally tapped some hidden human need/instinct to argue with people who they believe are incorrect. Specifically, and more importantly, combined with the human inability to actively decide to not pay attention when things are inconsequential or not yet worth arguing about. Sometimes, just shutting up about an issue and not discussing it is the…

"There is no vaccine yet for this." What would that look like? Given our current (social) media ecosystem, converting outrage into profit (per Chomsky, McLuhan, Postman, and many, many others), what does a non-outrage maximizing strategy look like? I currently favor a slower, calmer discourse. A la both Kahnemann's thinking fast vs slow, and McLuhan's hot vs cold metaphors. That means breaking or slowing the feedback…

I can't see that working for anything other than niche networks. A social network will make less money doing this, so what's their incentive? The bulk of people will stick with a network that gives them constant and instant feeding of their addiction. I think the "vaccine" would need to be broader to be effective or major networks would need to grow a serious conscience.

Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#767

Post by redwall_hp »

stonogo wrote: post #687
munificent wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fundamental flaw is this: The primary content no user wants to see any every user agent would filter out is ads . Since ads are the primary way sites stay in business, they are obligated to fight against user agents or other intermediary systems. The ultimate problem is that Facebook doesn't want to show you good, enriching content from your friends and family. They want to show you ads. The good content is just…

I sure am tired of hearing about "the fundamental flaw" in empowering people. What you describe is not a flaw in empowerment, it's a flaw in their business model, and it's one that can that be fixed (i.e. "innovate a better business model"). Can we stop propagating the idea that people who do not want to use their limited bandwidth and processing power to rasterize someone else's advertising are somehow "flawed"? The…

I can buy web hosting for less than a coffee per month that can sling thousands of static HTTP requests per second. In a world where something like Mastodon/GNU Social was the norm, any hobbyist could opt to run one fraction of a grand federated social network out of the goodness of their hearts, for spare change, or for a small fee to their users.

Centralized, siloed social networks are only expensive to run because they're centralized. Things were better when the norm was to start a blog instead of using someone else's walled garden.

Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#768

Post by int_19h »

bobthepanda wrote: post #764
pwdisswordfish2 wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The ultimate problem is that Facebook doesn't want to show you good, enrishing content from your friends and family." Well, it is someone else's website. What do you expect Zuckerberg has his own interests in mind. In 2020, it is still too difficult for everyone to set up their own website, so they settle for a page on someone else's. If exchanging content with friends and family (not swaths of the public who visit…

Email exists. Wordpress has free site hosting. SMS is ad free. If people wanted to create a free webpage for friends and family to see there are loads of options. The problem is that, generally speaking, most people do not find the value proposition as a Facebook replacement compelling.

That's because the real value of Facebook is in the social graph, and it's locked in there.

Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#769

Post by dimator »

throwaway93132 wrote: post #761
mrfusion wrote: post #750

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Show all things posted in chronological order. Let users filter out things they don’t want. Done.

I don't think this would be a good idea. There's a lot of content created on Facebook at any given moment. If you show things only in chronological order, it would take an incredible amount of filtering (that the vast majority of users won't do) to get to anything reasonable.

But this is how Reddit works. And HN actually.

Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#770

Post by int_19h »

ggggtez wrote: post #561
a1369209993 wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The primary content no user wants to see any every user agent would filter out is ads. Not that you're wrong, but: that's the fucking point ! Advertising delenda est.

Let's imagine for a moment that a decentralized social network actually took off. How long until those ads crop back up anyway? Instagram should give us some idea on how sponsored content might look in such a system. According to some random site, the average price for a "sponsored" instagram post is $300. You think your friends are above showing you an ad when real money is on the line? Maybe they won't be making th…

This played out in LiveJournal, and the outcome, generally speaking, was that paid promotions were too blatant to be effective outside of influencers proper (where it's part of the explicit contract between them and their audience).
Post reply on HN