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Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

economist.com

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Re: Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

#221

Post by snowwrestler »

tomhoward wrote: post #33
shoto_io wrote: post #3

No. That’s what people like us and all the main stream media hope for. But: most people I know don’t have the slightest clue that Insta and WhatsApp belong to the FB group. And even worse: most of them don’t give a shit about the reputation of FB. They just want to send messages and share pictures through those apps.

That was my reaction too, scoffing as I imagined the headline "Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation is nearing a reputational point of no return" after the News of the World scandal in 2011 (or any of countless others). But the sentence that matters is this one: "Facebook risks losing its young, liberal staff". If Facebook can't attract/keep the best staff (especially hackers/devs/engineers), it can't stay at the top. E…

News Corp passed the point of reputational no return, which is why they split themselves up into two separate companies in 2013.

Re: Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

#222

Post by moneywoes »

cbtacy wrote: post #147
quotemstr wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there is already a double-digit premium Facebook must pay for talent That's an odd way of putting it. Do Google and Netflix and other big tech companies face the same "headwinds"? Their compensation is comparable. Facebook pays a premium because it's drawing from the top of the talent pool and is facing competition from other companies trying to acquire people with the same level of exceptional skill. The idea that…

This may be true for entry level jobs, but for senior level jobs the "stain on the resume" issue is very real. A friend was a recruiter for FB until a few months back and has repeatedly stated that over the last 18 months she had an increasingly large percentage of targeted senior candidates refuse to even take her calls.

Amazon?

Re: Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

#223

Post by seneca »

AzzieElbab wrote: post #197
mkr-hn wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been so long since a company reached Facebook's heights and fell that a whole generation doesn't know what it looks like. AOL was the Facebook of its time: a joke to system admins, a default ban on small game servers and IRC channels. Meanwhile, most people had no idea anyone had a problem with AOL. Like with Facebook, there were people reporting on its follies like Observers.net[0], but it mostly went unremarke…

but that is exactly why fb is getting targeted by media and politicians so much. It is more popular with older people who also happen to be active voters and news consumers.

Yep, exactly. The key question is to ask why this stream of concerted effort is pointed at taking down Favebook, and Twitter is left alone.

Re: Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

#225

Post by tomhoward »

HeroOfAges wrote: post #117
tomhoward wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was my reaction too, scoffing as I imagined the headline "Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation is nearing a reputational point of no return" after the News of the World scandal in 2011 (or any of countless others). But the sentence that matters is this one: "Facebook risks losing its young, liberal staff". If Facebook can't attract/keep the best staff (especially hackers/devs/engineers), it can't stay at the top. E…

I don't think Facebook's "... young, liberal staff" is going anywhere. They have experienced the power that comes with successfully shifting a global organization's culture, mission and product. Unfortunately, there are only so many hours in the day, and doing so hasn't given them enough time to actually do their jobs. The people that are left don't possess the tools to create and build anything of moment because tha…

I think the use of the word "liberal" may be leaving an opening for misinterpretation. The real worry is that good, talented people leave/refrain from applying, regardless of ideological outlook or label.

Re: Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

#226

Post by Taywee »

breadzeppelin__ wrote: post #29
shoto_io wrote: post #3

No. That’s what people like us and all the main stream media hope for. But: most people I know don’t have the slightest clue that Insta and WhatsApp belong to the FB group. And even worse: most of them don’t give a shit about the reputation of FB. They just want to send messages and share pictures through those apps.

To go a bit further MSM's ad revenue is being hollowed out by Facebook et al. Why would anyone pay to advertise in Economist when they can advertise to "people interested in economics, earning over 150k, last thought about cigarettes three weeks ago" etc. Similarly, if you were an advertising exec at pfizer, would you choose to pay millions of dollars to advertise your meds to a continuously shrinking audience on som…

> it seems like most of the critiques of social media coming from big / old media are just symptoms of having their revenue bled away

A large portion of it is people who find advertisement inherently distasteful (or, at the least, targeted advertisement) and that optimizing everything entirely for engagement causes massively negative effects for society and individual psychology. Fine-tuning everything for addiction and intense emotional reaction is great for advertisement revenue, but really bad for people.

I think you might be underestimating how many people are actually seriously upset about how they've seen the national conversation degrade to a lower level of discourse, and blame that on social media (whether they're right or wrong). There are clearly people who are upset about modern social media that aren't associated with old media.

Re: Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

#227

Post by mbg721 »

hunterb123 wrote: post #205
mbg721 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only because of the nature of the censored content; Republicans aren't inherently as anti-censorship as the libertarian wing would like to hope they are. Social media are the fourth-and-a-half estate, and they're flexing their muscles for the other party.

I haven't seen any calls from any Republicans to censor any speech. Their base is very adamant about the Bill of Rights. Do you have any examples to back up your statement? Keep in mind we're talking about silencing political dissent, that's pretty fucking major, not a "oh both sides do it, that's life" thing.

I'm thinking more of the Satanism scares of the 80s. Republicans have never really had the mass-media on their side post-Watergate (except maybe briefly after 9/11), so they can't silence anyone in the "fortifying the election" sense.

Re: Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

#228

Post by el_ravager »

CursedUrn wrote: post #80
morpheuskafka wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was really surprised when Facebook added their branding to the splash screen of those apps. I thought the whole point was that no one even knew about it. WhatsApp at least is a little different (no in app ads, no infinite scrolling, at least in theory encrypted messages). But Instagram is literally just another incarnation of the exact same business model as FB with slightly different features.

I presume they made a big push to integrate Whatsapp/IG and Facebook (on a technical and branding level) to make it harder for anti-trust to break them up later.

If they can't be broken up—and they're too big to fail—rolling them up into a utility could be an forgone conclusion.

Re: Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

#229

Post by duckmysick »

jancsika wrote: post #210
breadzeppelin__ wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To go a bit further MSM's ad revenue is being hollowed out by Facebook et al. Why would anyone pay to advertise in Economist when they can advertise to "people interested in economics, earning over 150k, last thought about cigarettes three weeks ago" etc. Similarly, if you were an advertising exec at pfizer, would you choose to pay millions of dollars to advertise your meds to a continuously shrinking audience on som…

> Why would anyone pay to advertise in Economist when they can advertise to "people interested in economics, earning over 150k, last thought about cigarettes three weeks ago" etc. Isn't the economist subscription-based? Regardless, I'll bite: Isn't an important reason because someone wants to signal to the world that "everyone knows" their company is a sexy, category-defining beast? E.g., there are Coca Cola machines…

> Isn't The Economist subscription-based?

They have ads in the printed version.

Re: Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

#230

Post by ethbr0 »

mkr-hn wrote: post #112
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> most of them don’t give a shit about the reputation of FB This is close to a straw man argument. Nobody claims users will abandon Facebook. The article posits, instead, strengthening headwinds. Headwinds in hiring (there is already a double-digit premium Facebook must pay for talent). From recurring whistleblowing, and its impact on morale and productivity. Headwinds in projects and partnerships, like Libre/Diem be…

It's been so long since a company reached Facebook's heights and fell that a whole generation doesn't know what it looks like. AOL was the Facebook of its time: a joke to system admins, a default ban on small game servers and IRC channels. Meanwhile, most people had no idea anyone had a problem with AOL. Like with Facebook, there were people reporting on its follies like Observers.net[0], but it mostly went unremarke…

I'd hesitate to generalize AOL's fall into Facebook's future.

AOL's core proposition was being better than the Internet (more curated, coherent, and faster). When the web and internet exploded in size and scale, AOL's value evaporated. The dumb mergers and other mistakes were window dressing on this landscape transformation.

And for years (decades? still?) afterwards, people used AOL Instant Messager (AIM), because it was the most network/platform component of AOL.

So how would that happen to Facebook, and what would it look like?

Users would need an order of magnitude superior alternative, and most critically, users would need to move en mass. Facebook has rightly identified onboarding younger cohorts as key to their survival, but I don't see any realistic way Facebook dies a natural death in under 40 years.

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