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Ad Boycott of Facebook Keeps Growing

nytimes.com

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Re: Ad Boycott of Facebook Keeps Growing

#211

Post by gms »

btilly wrote: post #207
rossdavidh wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

You are not just better at noticing it. It really is more slanted. Journalism 20-30 years ago was mostly funded on a subscription model. In this model they work hard to maintain their reputation, so that people will trust them as an accurate source of news. Journalism today is mostly funded per click. Which means that the most important thing is a headline that grabs people's attention and causes them to click. The i…

The NYT operates on an online subscription model, no?

Re: Ad Boycott of Facebook Keeps Growing

#212

Post by cmdshiftf4 »

erikw wrote: post #106
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 so…

>none of them seemed to have any moral qualms about their employers.

Should they be expected to?

In my opinion, there's little morality, let alone shared morality, left in society. I'm not personally going to place expectations on people's morality with regards to their employment when almost everything has become a moral quandary at this point.

Re: Ad Boycott of Facebook Keeps Growing

#213

Post by alzaeem »

s_y_n_t_a_x wrote: post #142
SoylentOrange wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem (among other things) is hyper-targeting of people who are specifically vulnerable to extreme points of view. One of my friends is an expert in tracking ads on Facebook and has found that white nationalists micro-target people who are susceptible to that ideology [1]. Similarly, they have refused to fact-check (not remove) climate science denialism, because they consider it opinion and thus exempt from the…

We shouldn't give up our freedoms because you think some people can't think for themselves. They can think for themselves, you just don't understand their thoughts & perspective through your bias/bubble. Censoring is wrong, period. Win your arguments on merit, not by silencing the other side.

It's ironic that that the parent comment has been flagged, leading to censorship of a valid opinion.

Re: Ad Boycott of Facebook Keeps Growing

#214

Post by cmdshiftf4 »

shultays wrote: post #160
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 saw a more snarky comment on this topic which still makes me smirk: "Hopefully one day they will see the little skull icons on their hats and ask the question 'are we the baddies?'"

The origin of that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn1VxaMEjRU

Re: Ad Boycott of Facebook Keeps Growing

#215

Post by dehrmann »

jfengel wrote: post #119
camillomiller wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm frankly flabbergasted by what's going on with the markets. If anyone thought stocks were still somehow a projection of reality and an indicator of expectations on the future of a company's performance, well, that's clearly not the case anymore. I am really scared that a real devastating collapse is still looming, but I frankly have no clue of when that could happen and what could actually trigger it.

It is baffling, and I've been expecting a crash for a decade... which is the problem. The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent. Right now it's kind of persistently slightly irrational. A quick-and-dirty measure of its sanity is the P/E ratio: how much money are the publicly listed companies actually making? Right now, the number is around 22[1], meaning a dollar invested in the market takes…

I've started ignoring P/E because , among other reasons, it doesn't account for cash reserves. If you have two similar companies, but one is sitting on more cash, it should be worth more, but its P/E makes it look overpriced relative to the other.

Re: Ad Boycott of Facebook Keeps Growing

#216

Post by jcadam »

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?

Craven appeasement.

Re: Ad Boycott of Facebook Keeps Growing

#217

Post by avs733 »

gms wrote: post #211
btilly wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are not just better at noticing it. It really is more slanted. Journalism 20-30 years ago was mostly funded on a subscription model. In this model they work hard to maintain their reputation, so that people will trust them as an accurate source of news. Journalism today is mostly funded per click. Which means that the most important thing is a headline that grabs people's attention and causes them to click. The i…

The NYT operates on an online subscription model, no?

yes, but saying otherwise would hurt the narrative that only tech can critique tech.

Re: Ad Boycott of Facebook Keeps Growing

#218

Post by humanrebar »

cmdshiftf4 wrote: post #212
erikw wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 so…

>none of them seemed to have any moral qualms about their employers. Should they be expected to? In my opinion, there's little morality, let alone shared morality, left in society. I'm not personally going to place expectations on people's morality with regards to their employment when almost everything has become a moral quandary at this point.

There is shared morality, just not universally shared morality. The people marching right now share some morality. As do the folks complaining about mandatory mask rules. We may or may not agree with them, but there is shared moral logic.

Re: Ad Boycott of Facebook Keeps Growing

#219

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Ad Boycott of Facebook Keeps Growing

#220

Post by RNCTX »

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…

Related: check out @nyt_diff on twitter.
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