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Mark Zuckerberg Stoked Washington’s Fears About TikTok

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Re: Mark Zuckerberg Stoked Washington’s Fears About TikTok

#71

Post by Frost1x »

2arrs2ells wrote: post #52
tmpz22 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was nothing brilliant about buying two obviously successful apps: Instagram and WhatsApp.

I’m not here to defend Zuck, but those acquisitions only look obvious in hindsight. People thought Facebook was insane for paying a billion for a photo sharing app with a tiny team. And while WhatsApp was ubiquitous, it was very under the radar in the US until Facebook paid what seemed like an ungodly sum ($12bn) at the time. Instagram may go down in history as one of the greatest acquisitions of all time.

I won't speak to valuations because all of these values numb my brain a bit, but both Instagram and WhatsApp were obviously quite successful at the times of their acquisitions.

It didn't seem surprising at all at the time that Facebook bought both services, many people I knew were using them as much or more for social media than Facebook. Now, the values of course were a bit gawking but I'm sure experts crawled over a lot of their own internal figures and what they would expect out of both services. If any organization had enough social media data to evaluate these services marketability, it was FB.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Stoked Washington’s Fears About TikTok

#72

Post by bleepblorp »

MengerSponge wrote: post #47
KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #25

You know something is broken when the CEO of Facebook chooses to apply himself to lobbying the government to ban his competitors instead of building a better product.

In fairness, though, the CEO of Facebook hasn't built a better product in almost two decades. Instead, his company's growth has been based on brilliant (and occasionally very shady) acquisitions.

Facebook's public-facing websites are not its product. Rather, the websites are a lure to attract people to be used as feedstock used by Facebook's actual business.

Facebook's actual product is its targeted advertising algorithms that advertisers pay handsomely to exploit. Facebook's advertising product has improved massively over the past two decades.

Indeed, Facebook's advertising algorithms are so good that Facebook should be regarded not as an advertising platform but rather as a rootkit and firmware upload tool for the human mind. Facebook's algorithms are quite capable of making a critical mass of the population believe utterly anything and, if if prompted, to act on those beliefs even in ways that go against their own interests.

What Facebook sells is the ability to control the course of society. That is their business, and they're doing very well with it.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Stoked Washington’s Fears About TikTok

#73

Post by monadic2 »

blfr wrote: post #26
staticassertion wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A group of teens purportedly using TikTok to troll the president's rally is not election campaign interference.

Why is it not when Facebook ads purchased by foreigners are considered to be?

That's not election interference either, at least not unusual election interference for powerful nations, much like we do abroad (hell just look at the 1996 Russian Federation election). It was certainly a miniscule ad spend compared to republican pac spending. The democrats just don't want to admit why they lost: they couldn't convince enough people to vote for their candidate.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Stoked Washington’s Fears About TikTok

#74

Post by throwaway7281 »

bleepblorp wrote: post #72
MengerSponge wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fairness, though, the CEO of Facebook hasn't built a better product in almost two decades. Instead, his company's growth has been based on brilliant (and occasionally very shady) acquisitions.

Facebook's public-facing websites are not its product. Rather, the websites are a lure to attract people to be used as feedstock used by Facebook's actual business. Facebook's actual product is its targeted advertising algorithms that advertisers pay handsomely to exploit. Facebook's advertising product has improved massively over the past two decades. Indeed, Facebook's advertising algorithms are so good that Facebo…

When Zuckerberg mentioned sometime last year, that he wants to make facebook better, and especially wants to make people happy [...] - just think about that. With kind of admits that it is facebook's mission to control your feelings - and no better feeling to convey this idea than happiness.

Which is what everybody wants, right? Large demand - big business.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Stoked Washington’s Fears About TikTok

#75

Post by throwawayobyy »

oxfordmale wrote: post #44

Zuckerberg is damaging Facebook reputation. I was approached by Facebook's recruitment team, but decided not to go ahead with it given the recent negative news around this company. I predict a slow decline for Facebook, like IBM, if Zuckerberg stays on as CEO.

I work at Facebook and we have a bi-yearly satisfaction survey. Trust in zuck's management is probably the highest metric, up there with agreeing with the global mission of the company (which is to connect people). I'd say he's one of the strong reason why people stay in the company even with the non-stopping bad news cycle. Don't think that what you see outside reflects what really happens inside. What I personally see inside: all of the issues that make the news are discussed openly, privacy issues are addressed on day one during bootcamp, and addressed weekly via trainings, zuck answering questions at the Q&A, communications, etc. What people tend to forget is that Facebook is a pretty large company, due to its scale, and it only takes a few fuck ups to end up with a bad news article. While I realize that we need the public scrutiny to keep ourselves honest, it also seems a bit disconnected from what is truly happening internally.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Stoked Washington’s Fears About TikTok

#76

Post by opo »

2arrs2ells wrote: post #52
tmpz22 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was nothing brilliant about buying two obviously successful apps: Instagram and WhatsApp.

I’m not here to defend Zuck, but those acquisitions only look obvious in hindsight. People thought Facebook was insane for paying a billion for a photo sharing app with a tiny team. And while WhatsApp was ubiquitous, it was very under the radar in the US until Facebook paid what seemed like an ungodly sum ($12bn) at the time. Instagram may go down in history as one of the greatest acquisitions of all time.

>...it was very under the radar in the US until Facebook paid what seemed like an ungodly sum ($12bn) at the time.

Facebook paid a lot more than 12 billion:

>...When Facebook announced its plans to acquire WhatsApp in February 2014, WhatsApp's founders attached a purchase price of $16 billion: $4 billion in cash and $12 billion remaining in Facebook shares. This price tag is dwarfed by the actual price Facebook paid: $21.8 billion, or $55 per user.

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/032515/whats...

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Stoked Washington’s Fears About TikTok

#79

Post by babl-yc »

mciancia wrote: post #67
babl-yc wrote: post #31

Facebook is banned in China. Is it unreasonable to encourage US gvt to apply pressure for a more even playing field? I know the narrative (and majority of comments) like to hate on Zuck, so just adding another perspective for this particular situation.

Is it banned just because, or maybe it's not following local laws?

China routinely blocks US websites without explanation. It's generally so that the government can have control over what communication happens over the internet.

https://techcrunch.com/2009/07/07/china-blocks-access-to-twi...

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Stoked Washington’s Fears About TikTok

#80

Post by paxys »

tmpz22 wrote: post #49
MengerSponge wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fairness, though, the CEO of Facebook hasn't built a better product in almost two decades. Instead, his company's growth has been based on brilliant (and occasionally very shady) acquisitions.

There was nothing brilliant about buying two obviously successful apps: Instagram and WhatsApp.

If it was so obvious, why didn't Microsoft, Google or anyone else outbid them?
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