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Ad Boycott of Facebook Keeps Growing

nytimes.com

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Re: Ad Boycott of Facebook Keeps Growing

#191

Post by adamsea »

eanzenberg wrote: post #178
esperent wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would be okay with working for a US defense contractor, ie a company which makes machines that literally kill people The thought of working for a company like this makes me feel physically ill. Soldiers can at least feel like they are working to defend a country they believe in. Weapons companies will sell killing machines to anyone with money. Few things in the world make me feel the visceral disgust that these…

What damage is Zuck causing again?

Damage to society by denying the role - via inaction, if nothing else - the company he leads plays in coordinated campaigns of deceit and disinformation aimed not just to undermine public discourse but also the functioning of democractic government itself (via targeted political advertising and misinformation).

Which isn't to say that moderation at Facebook's scale is an easy problem - it's not. And balancing freedom of speech with some degree of accountability and acknowledging empirically verifiable truths is difficult.

But, buy the ticket, take the ride. He's a billionaire. FB makes oodles and oodles of money. They just don't want to do it because it would cost them money.

Eventually laws will catch up, in one way or another, and the same way other media outlets are (imperfectly) regulated, new-media outlets such as FB, Google, etc, will be as well, IMHO.

Re: Ad Boycott of Facebook Keeps Growing

#192

Post by bradlys »

rainyMammoth wrote: post #174
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 know a couple. The answer is simple: Money. Facebook pays way above what other tech companies pay (a 6 year of experience senior engineer in Menlo Park can easily make 600k/year). There is also a sense of pride coming from back in the days when Facebook was still seen as a very exclusive and wonderful place to work at.

600k/yr seems a bit far fetched for six years of experience. levels.fyi is one source that I think would contradict the easiness of that goal.

Facebook pays in line with what other top big public tech companies pay. You could go to Google or Netflix and expect similar comp.

Re: Ad Boycott of Facebook Keeps Growing

#193

Post by ben_w »

blueterminal wrote: post #71
kombucha111 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are being severely misinformed. Nothing even close to that is happening right now. The movement is decidedly not tyrannical and certainly does not have unquestioned total domination. But the ideas behind it are very popular to be honest. People are sick of the current socio-economic arrangement, the abuse of authority and race relations on many levels.

When people lose their jobs if they make fun or just question certain group's behavior, what would you call it?

Now I’m confused, are you describing the police or BLM?

Re: Ad Boycott of Facebook Keeps Growing

#194

Post by bhupy »

_bxg1 wrote: post #183
bhupy wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really encourage you to try and construct the strongest counter-argument to yourself so that you might at least be able to empathize with why someone might be sympathetic to Facebook's current stances without jumping to the conclusion that they are cartoonishly evil. Remember that everyone is "the good guy" in their own story. The moral framework where Facebook "isn't a negative for society" is the one that says th…

> the conclusion that they are cartoonishly evil > The moral framework where Facebook "isn't a negative for society" is the one that says that a free society should be able to openly express itself I wasn't making any such grand claims. I intentionally scoped my argument to "Facebook has increased division in the world" and "increased division is bad", in an effort to keep it as non-subjective as possible. > In other…

> I didn't have to look very far; Facebook did the study itself, internally, and executives directly chose to ignore it: https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/26/21270659/facebook-divisio....

While this is indeed a compelling data point, I want to point out 2 things:

1. We have no way to verify the validity of the methodology, since the study is opaque to us.

2. We have no way to verify the veracity of the results, since the study is not peer reviewed.

And while you didn't have to look very far, perhaps if you look even a little farther, you'll find that there are conflicting studies (in published peer reviewed research):

"We combine nine previously proposed measures to construct an index of political polarization among US adults. We find that the growth in polarization in recent years is largest for the demographic groups least likely to use the internet and social media. For example, our overall index and eight of the nine individual measures show greater increases for those older than 75 than for those aged 18–39. These facts argue against the hypothesis that the internet is a primary driver of rising political polarization." [1]

"Contrary to conventional wisdom, my analysis provides evidence that social media usage reduces mass political polarization."[2]

"After conducting a detailed analysis of recommendations received by each channel type, we refute the popular radicalization claims. To the contrary, these data suggest that YouTube's recommendation algorithm actively discourages viewers from visiting radicalizing or extremist content."[3]

So this is by no means conclusive, and very much debatable. To repeat: the most charitable argument for "being proud" to work at FB is if you believe in classical liberal principles of free speech, and don't believe that social media itself creates polarization/division, it simply reveals it.

[1] https://www.nber.org/papers/w23258

[2] http://rubenson.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/barbera-tpbw....

[3] https://arxiv.org/abs/1912.11211

Re: Ad Boycott of Facebook Keeps Growing

#195

Post by ReptileMan »

evgen wrote: post #45
donw wrote: post #2

After the SSC debacle, NYT is likely to learn itself a thing or two about boycotts.

Since absolutely no one, in either numbers or social importance, knows about or cares about “the SSC debacle” and none of those who do are likely to be subscribers the NYT is unlikely to be concerned.

I don't know ... gawker pissed off the whole world and got away with it.

It needed just one tiny Peter Thiel to bring them down burning ...

If some billionaire gets pissed off at woke organizations and outlets they could inflict substantial damage.

Re: Ad Boycott of Facebook Keeps Growing

#196

Post by _curious_ »

rossdavidh wrote: post #173
skewart wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s more, the NY Times has a strong business interest in convincing advertisers not to advertise on Facebook. I’m a bit skeptical of anything they publish these days about Facebook, Google, and other companies that could potentially threaten their access to clicks, just given their financial incentives to weaken these companies as much as possible.

My thoughts exactly, they have a clear conflict of interest when covering this story. Although, to be honest, all of mainstream journalism seems way more biased and blatantly slanted than I recall from 20-30 years ago. Perhaps I am just better at noticing it now?

Good to see more people calling out the sensationalism and manipulation tactics that publishers deploy...not just the Times either.

I've gotten to a point where if my spidey sense is tingling, I won't even click on link or read the content, the time to reward that behavior has passed.

Re: Ad Boycott of Facebook Keeps Growing

#197

Post by samcheng »

swebs wrote: post #185
salimmadjd wrote: post #108

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 pro…

I think the 2016 election broke the NY Times. They shifted from a mostly neutral, reputable news source to quasi-propaganda fairly quickly.

If you remember the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, you'll realize their "neutrality" has been suspect for quite some time.

NYT still has some real quality writing, but you should understand the motivation.

Re: Ad Boycott of Facebook Keeps Growing

#198

Post by globular-toast »

I have mixed feelings about Facebook. I was one of the first people in my friend group to boycott Facebook back when it really wasn't cool to do so: back in 2008 or so. I did so for reasons of privacy. As someone who works with data for a living, I know full well the risks people are taking by using Facebook and I also see how little the general public understand about this. So I boycotted them.

But nobody talks about privacy any more.

The current backlash against Facebook seems to be due to them not wanting to censor the platform in quite the way that users want them to censor the platform. It seems everyone is happy with the censorship---because like anyone who has ever been happy with censorship they don't believe the readership is intelligent enough to read certain words---but they are unhappy that the censorship isn't being conducted in a way that benefits them.

Back in 2008 I thought it was simple: just don't use Facebook. Maybe it was that simple back then. But not now. This internet thing really seems to be turning into the great problem of our time and I fully expect it to cause several major crises before we figure it out.

Re: Ad Boycott of Facebook Keeps Growing

#199

Post by _curious_ »

methehack wrote: post #152
salimmadjd wrote: post #108

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 pro…

Do you prefer "Ad Boycott of Facebook Kind of Growing"? Or "Ad Boycott of Facebook Growing Slowly"? Or "Ad Boycott of Facebook: The Details" It is growing, the details are accurate in the article, and I can't think of a headline that has zero editorial information in it. If they don't run any story, then they risk the opposite criticism: why didn't you tell us?! You should worry more about the media that philosophica…

"why didn't you tell us?!"

Do you actually think anyone would notice if the Times did not publish this article? Couldn't the same thing then be said about any MSM publisher relating to all topics/content?

"You should worry more about the media that philosophically rejects the notion of objective reality. "

And...there is no such thing as objectivity in media, never was or will be. The act of deciding what stories to publish or not is a subjective decision in and of itself.

Re: Ad Boycott of Facebook Keeps Growing

#200

Post by lobotryas »

methehack wrote: post #152
salimmadjd wrote: post #108

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 pro…

Do you prefer "Ad Boycott of Facebook Kind of Growing"? Or "Ad Boycott of Facebook Growing Slowly"? Or "Ad Boycott of Facebook: The Details" It is growing, the details are accurate in the article, and I can't think of a headline that has zero editorial information in it. If they don't run any story, then they risk the opposite criticism: why didn't you tell us?! You should worry more about the media that philosophica…

I worry more about media that tries to create a reality that fits their ideology. A bunch of companies whose brand identity is tied closely with politics jump ship and NYT tries to paint that into a movement. Pardon me when I’m skeptical, especially when these companies are comparably tiny and when Facebook’s only crime is daring to defend free speech on its own platform.

Give it a year or so and companies like Patagonia will quietly come back to FB.

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