Ad Boycott of Facebook Keeps Growing • Hacker News Board

Re: Ad Boycott of Facebook Keeps Growing

#91

Post by Veen » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 3:02 PM UTC

ciarannolan wrote: post #46

Veen wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about gaffes like the 1619 Project, the shortcomings and errors of which the NYT steadfastly refused to correct in the face of criticisms from historians. At a certain point, when the gaffes all line up in one direction, one might reasonably suspect an underlying motive.

What were some of the issues with the 1619 Project?

Curiously, the World Socialist Website has some of the best content about this:

- https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/11/28/wood-n28.html

- https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/11/18/oake-n18.html

Glenn Loury and John McWhorter have spoken about 1619 shortcomings at length:

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hWQmzgiKXQ

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xym3kFuBX3Y

As have many historians of the period:

- https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/174140

Re: Ad Boycott of Facebook Keeps Growing

#92

Post by SketchySeaBeast » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 3:03 PM UTC

searchableguy wrote: post #58

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It surely feels like it at least when every single major javascript framework has a #BLM header. Isn't that expressing free speech? Or do you believe those headers have been coerced, and they feel forced to post one? I'm dubious that's the case, and I doubt it'll affect the frameworks future success whether they post one or not.

> do you believe those headers have been coerced, and they feel forced to post one? https://twitter.com/aweary/status/1267893460423462912 https://twitter.com/aweary/status/1267895488205869057 Not taking any sides here.

I'm not aware of the who's who in the JavaScript world - is Brandon Dail of considerable influence? Because it looks the same guy asks questions twice, and in your second example the top comments are rebuking his insistence. I didn't see the original post as the user has limited who can see their tweets.

Re: Ad Boycott of Facebook Keeps Growing

#93

Post by code4tee » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 3:03 PM UTC

For better or worse money talks. Advertiser pullouts have been an effective change mechanism in many other cases. TV personalities doing controversial things were typically done in when the advertisers pulled their money. Until then nothing happened.

Facebook does a lot of cool things but it’s only sustainable as a business if the advertising dollars keep flowing. Shut that off in any appreciable quantity and things will get ugly there real quick.

Re: Ad Boycott of Facebook Keeps Growing

#94

Post by neya » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 3:04 PM UTC

tech-historian wrote: post #64

Serious questions: Are the people that work at Facebook proud to work there? What is morale like inside that place? When someone asks you what you do, and you say "I work for Facebook," what is their typical reaction? Not trying to be snarky. I'm genuinely curious how these perceptions/feelings might have changed over the past few years.

In Singapore, most of them are actually proud. I've been to their office a bunch of times and in fact, people treat it as something super prestigious, especially considering the office space is really nice with a beautiful view of the Marina. Sometimes, their employees will sound extremely arrogant and even look down upon you if you don't work for another equivalent giant (like Google Singapore).

I guess different parts of the world have different moral standards. It is the way it is.

Re: Ad Boycott of Facebook Keeps Growing

#95

Post by mathattack » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 3:04 PM UTC

tech-historian wrote: post #64

Serious questions: Are the people that work at Facebook proud to work there? What is morale like inside that place? When someone asks you what you do, and you say "I work for Facebook," what is their typical reaction? Not trying to be snarky. I'm genuinely curious how these perceptions/feelings might have changed over the past few years.

The folks I know there don’t have issues. The adtech folks would otherwise be at other adtech companies. The product managers would otherwise be at other large tech companies. Nobody is 100% clean, and I don’t see many folks in Silicon Valley struggling with their conscious.

Re: Ad Boycott of Facebook Keeps Growing

#96

Post by jjice » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 3:04 PM UTC

aphextron wrote: post #59

rootusrootus wrote: post #10

While it might affect Facebook’s bottom line for a short while, until users start moving away from FB nothing really will change. Advertisers will come back.

>"While it might affect Facebook’s bottom line for a short while, until users start moving away from FB nothing really will change. Advertisers will come back." Counterpoint: users already have moved away, and that's why advertisers are able to do this without hesitation now. FB is still growing in the third world, but I don't know a single person in the US under 30 that still uses it.

As a Uni student, I still see people use Facebook, but it's a select group of people. It's the same On the other side, I see Instagram doing fantastic among my friends, and it gets way less hate from them, despite being very openly owned by Facebook (it says it on the splash screen).

Re: Ad Boycott of Facebook Keeps Growing

#97

Post by jonathanpeterwu » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 3:04 PM UTC

8ytecoder wrote: post #70

admn2 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, pretty much all the big DTC brands (Allbirds, Away, Warby, OV, etc.) all have retail store fronts and "showrooms" now across the US. I always just assumed if they were spending $1mm+/month on FB ads, it wasn't a very difficult decision to move $20k/month to a store in a big city and see what kind of lead gen and brand awareness that yields.

Personal anecdote - stores resulted in a much better conversion but not a huge uptick in acquisition.

Can you explain this a bit further, long tail which was better ROI

Re: Ad Boycott of Facebook Keeps Growing

#98

Post by 1235711 » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 3:05 PM UTC

One thing to consider is that this is largely a self-correcting problem for Facebook due to the auction model for ads.

As money leaves the pool, price per conversion will tend to go down automatically for everyone else.

If you think other advertisers will leave money on the table to make a point then you haven't worked in business very long.

Re: Ad Boycott of Facebook Keeps Growing

#99

Post by Veen » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 3:05 PM UTC

solarwind wrote: post #80

ciarannolan wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What were some of the issues with the 1619 Project?

The main thesis of the 1619 project was that the colonists decided to declare their independence from Britain because they wanted to protect the institution of slavery. This is categorically false according to actual historians, and so the NYT had to issue a correction (some 7 months later). None of the leading scholars of the whole period from the Revolution to the Civil War were consulted on the project, yet now it…

> yet now it is being taught in some public schools

That's the real problem. Newspapers get things wrong all the time. There's a conversation, people put forth their views pro and anti, and everyone makes up their own mind. But making a newspaper story that has come under fire from a huge number of respectable scholars part of the school curriculum for children is nakedly ideological.

Re: Ad Boycott of Facebook Keeps Growing

#100

Post by pesenti » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 3:06 PM UTC

tech-historian wrote: post #64

Serious questions: Are the people that work at Facebook proud to work there? What is morale like inside that place? When someone asks you what you do, and you say "I work for Facebook," what is their typical reaction? Not trying to be snarky. I'm genuinely curious how these perceptions/feelings might have changed over the past few years.

I have answered part of your question before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19036507

Happy to answer more.