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Ad Boycott of Facebook Keeps Growing

nytimes.com

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Re: Ad Boycott of Facebook Keeps Growing

#101

Post by franze »

I wrote about it here and I stand with it "Paid Ads are a Trap" https://medium.com/@franz.enzenhofer/ads-are-a-trap-80df01d2... (Medium free to read link)

The ad system of Google and Facebook is obviously not created to benefit the businesses which book ads, but Fb and G. The business should be at best held at minimum but viable profit, highest cost for ads. At worst "burn through all your money with us". I by now came to eh conclusion that "paids (ads) growth" is scheme with only Fb and G as the profiteers.

Re: Ad Boycott of Facebook Keeps Growing

#102

Post by zeroonetwothree »

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 could ask the same about working for the NYT.

https://slatestarcodex.com/

Re: Ad Boycott of Facebook Keeps Growing

#103

Post by tomp »

tzs wrote: post #78
tomp wrote: post #21

Nice. I like that companies are putting their money where their mouth is, and not just doing cheap virtue signalling, like posting a black square on Instagram. I think, and hope, however, that Facebook will come out victorious; (1) freedom of speech is important, (2) it's not up to Facebook to be the arbitrer of what's allowed or not (it's up to the law), (3) advertisers need Facebook more than Facebook needs them, a…

Having the law as the sole arbiter of what is allowed or not would be terrible for free speech. The problem is that we have an overwhelming amount of information being produced, so that people have a hard time evaluating all they are exposed to. Furthermore, we have a lot of people who are just too trusting, or too naive, or too gullible, or perhaps just even stupid. Finally, on top of that we have many information p…

You're conflating a few issues. Facebook is being boycotted ostensibly for failing to combat hate speech, whereas your comment is mostly written as a argument to censor fake news. Classical mote-and-bailey fallacy.

Twitter deleting bots claiming that Obama was born in Africa? Fine. Twitter tagging Trump's warning that any squatters in Washington DC will be treated according to law as "promoting violence against specific groups" or "abusive"? That's quite transparent political bias.

Sure, you probably wrote your comment because you oppose Trump on political views and you support Twitter acting against promoting those views, but at least be transparent about it; don't claim that tech giants are just trying to protect the "naive, gullible, stupid" is gas-lighting.

Last but not least, do you have any evidence for this? IMO it's mostly just used for journalists to discredit people they disagree with (e.g. Trump or Brexit voters).

> we have a lot of people who are just too trusting, or too naive, or too gullible, or perhaps just even stupid.

Re: Ad Boycott of Facebook Keeps Growing

#104

Post by bhupy »

Enginerrrd wrote: post #88
bzb3 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would they be unhappy or ashamed? Not everybody shares your views of politics.

Because ethics =/= politics and I think it's a pretty universal judgement that Facebook has done some ethically dubious things in the past, and not much has changed from the policies that led them there in the first place.

Okay but ethics isn't universal either. There is no objective moral framework.

"Not everybody shares your views" == "Not everybody shares your ethics".

Let me try and steel-man this for you: if you believe in classical liberal principles of free speech, then you might probably be "proud" to work at FB, as well as of Zuckerberg's stance.

Here's a better articulation of that: https://stratechery.com/2020/zuckerbergs-choice-zuckerbergs-...

Re: Ad Boycott of Facebook Keeps Growing

#105

Post by fennecfoxen »

onion2k wrote: post #73
ecmascript wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It surely feels like it at least when every single major javascript framework has a #BLM header. Nothing that don't matter or are relevant to me since I live in northen europe.

Do you think humanity and empathy ends at a geographical border? You don't feel that the plight of people living under oppression is anything to do with you because they're far away ? The reason why everyone, everywhere is saying BLM is important is because we live in a globally connected world now, and ignoring people due to borders and distance is no longer reasonable. We are all citizens of the world.

It's not a question of whether people have empathy. It's a question of whether they're going to fire you from your job or boycott your business if you aren't actively celebrate the cause de jure in the approved manner.

Re: Ad Boycott of Facebook Keeps Growing

#106

Post by erikw »

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 too am curious about the internal motivations of people who work for Facebook. Something I've noticed about myself is that I would be okay with working for a US defense contractor, ie a company which makes machines that literally kill people, yet I could not picture myself working at Facebook. I struggle to square this morally, because I also believe that defense contractors have a greater net negative impact on society than Facebook does, but there is something "icky" to me about Facebook.

I used to commute with a group of folks from Facebook, Oracle, and Amazon, and none of them seemed to have any moral qualms about their employers. My buddy from Oracle invited me to apply to work on his team, and in explaining why I couldn't consider working at Oracle, I mentioned some recent terrible thing Oracle had done in the open source community. His response was that Amazon contributed even less open source (which I believe is true). So I think in the end, the internal justification is "Yeah, maybe I'm contributing to something immoral, but it's less immoral than X & Y".

Re: Ad Boycott of Facebook Keeps Growing

#107

Post by listenallyall »

mk4p wrote: post #79
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.

Funny you should ask - I just saw this: > You don’t realize the heavy conscious and mental burden that comes with being a Facebook employee until you quit https://twitter.com/sebmck/status/1275363680767537154

Probably could replace "Facebook" with just about any company in that sentence. Having to uphold "company values", live by some boss's petty rules, take HR initiatives seriously, etc, is pretty much universally frustrating.

Re: Ad Boycott of Facebook Keeps Growing

#108

Post by salimmadjd »

Am I the only person who has a problem with this headline, "Ad Boycott of Facebook Keeps Growing" am I overreacting here or others feel the same?

For me at the face of it's not incorrect, but it feels to me a certain deliberate wordsmithing is used to create a sense of growing momentum.

What we don't know if these advertisers represent 1%, more or less than x% of Facebook's ad revenue. I do understand FB will not provide that info, but some real journalism and follow up from said companies could have gathered us the amount this boycott means. After all this suppose to be NYT.

They do touch on this number, "smaller businesses that make up the bulk of its eight million advertisers have been considering their options"

However, again they are carefully crafting their words in a way that it's not inaccurate but showing a larger problem.

Instead of saying "one agency that manages 20 clients", or "we have heard from some advertisers" using "one agency", or "some advertisers" they are saying "advertisers" which to some readers will read as a lot of advertisers or a universal movement among advertisers.

Re: Ad Boycott of Facebook Keeps Growing

#109

Post by wayne_skylar »

I find it so funny that Facebook hides behind "freedom of speech" when in fact what they do is the exact opposite.

When everything you saw was cronological, you could make that argument. I write a message on my wall and everyone who follows me can see it if they scroll down far enough. Most importantly, the only criteria used was the time it was submitted which I think everyone can agree is fair.

By prioritizing certain posts based on what the algorithm thinks will make you stay on the site longer, they are prioritizing, thus interfering with free speech. When I post something, my message will have a lower chance of reaching some of my followers. How can facebook justify tipping the scales for one type of message over another and call it free?

Re: Ad Boycott of Facebook Keeps Growing

#110

Post by dash2 »

ketzo wrote: post #37
tomp wrote: post #21

Nice. I like that companies are putting their money where their mouth is, and not just doing cheap virtue signalling, like posting a black square on Instagram. I think, and hope, however, that Facebook will come out victorious; (1) freedom of speech is important, (2) it's not up to Facebook to be the arbitrer of what's allowed or not (it's up to the law), (3) advertisers need Facebook more than Facebook needs them, a…

> (4) sooner or later companies will learn that SJW-ing is at worst negative and at best irrelevant I think this is pretty plainly untrue. If you mean at best irrelevant for the company, that’s certainly not true — friends of mine (and myself!) absolutely make purchasing decisions based on the moral reputation of the company. If you mean for the world , this also seems patently false to me. You can’t tell me that con…

If you mean at best irrelevant for the company, that’s certainly not true — friends of mine (and myself!) absolutely make purchasing decisions based on the moral reputation of the company.

Sure, but people like you may make up a small or negligible part of total revenue. And, like the Hollywood actress who was astounded that Nixon won because "nobody I know voted for him", you may overestimate how many people are like you. I've heard the phrase "go woke, go broke" thrown around.

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