Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

#261

Post by jonwachob91 » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 4:24 PM UTC

kaycebasques wrote: post #218

jszymborski wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm on the outside looking in, (and this might be an unpopular opinion in this crowd) but that's the reputation of tech in Silicon Valley, no? The mentality is often "we'll be too small to prosecute until we're too big". That's how you end up with these seemingly superlegal entities like Uber, Google, hell even Crunchyroll. Theranos was the peak example of how tech companies are encouraged to misrepresent fact to bot…

What happened with Crunchyroll?

It was founded as a platform for streaming pirated anime until it got big enough to acquire major VC investments and start buying streaming rights.

Re: Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

#262

Post by Omnitaus » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 4:24 PM UTC

yanderekko wrote: post #186

mchanson wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Article doesn't disagree with your take: "The firm risks joining the ranks of corporate untouchables like big tobacco. If that idea takes hold, Facebook risks losing its young, liberal staff. Even if its ageing customers stick with the social network, Facebook has bigger ambitions that could be foiled if public opinion continues to curdle."

>The firm risks joining the ranks of corporate untouchables like big tobacco. If that idea takes hold, Facebook risks losing its young, liberal staff. So any institution that's considered repugnant by young liberals can now breezily be compared to big tobacco? Should the Republican party restructure its platform so that it can have snazzier candidate webpages? Big tobacco is big tobacco because the product is widely…

And if we, on pain of consistency, include YouTube, Reddit, Twitter? They suffer from the same algorithmic abuse

Re: Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

#263

Post by tediousdemise » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 4:27 PM UTC

Facebook's reputation doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things when they have enormous power and influence to do whatever they want completely unregulated.

See also: Monsanto, Koch Brothers, Rupert Murdoch, George Soros.

Re: Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

#264

Post by p_j_w » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 4:28 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #26

The biggest component missing from Silicon Valley's discussion of Facebook is its pathological lying. They lied to the FTC [1]. They lied to WhatsApp and the EU [2]. They created an Oversight Board and then lied to it [3]. (These just off the top of my head.) The culture is perceived to be dishonest from the top down. That is why they get bludgeoned more than Twitter, or even Tik Tok. That is what its surrogates miss…

Add Oculus not requiring a Facebook account to their list of fibs.

Re: Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

#265

Post by leroy_masochist » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 4:29 PM UTC

> Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s all-powerful founder, made a reasoned statement after this week’s wave of anger. He was ignored or ridiculed and increasingly looks like a liability.

The article ends with this statement, and I think it's really the lede. At this point, Zuck is basically the whipping boy of multiple different power factions in the US on both the left and right. If Facebook were actually run by its board, it would probably be an easy decision to move him into a President or Chairman role and get a Dara-type person into the CEO seat. But he holds all the cards, so who knows what will happen.

It does seem like Facebook's long-term driver of value is as a marketplace platform in developing countries. Shipping Libra and announcing a strategy pivot to empowering small business owners in LDCs would be a bold move, but it seems like Zuck has never wanted to antagonize the US Gov the way that, e.g., Travis has.

It'll be interesting to see how this all plays out.

Re: Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

#266

Post by emptyparadise » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 4:30 PM UTC

ghostoftiber wrote: post #180

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…

> People didn't stop using oil after the Standard Oil break-up. Nor Windows after its antitrust brush or cigarettes after the tobacco master settlement. The power of those companies was simply sharply reduced. I actually disagree with this. When the company is forcibly broken up there's a chance that it's "power" (what?) is reduced but if we look at Standard Oil, that quicky is shown to be not-what-happened. SO becam…

I want to see court-mandated open source and federation. Doubt it'd ever happen though...

Re: Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

#267

Post by kreeben » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 4:31 PM UTC

deltree7 wrote: post #172

dogman144 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Facebook risks losing its young, liberal staff. Spot on, and not just young, liberal. Old-ish and privacy minded. Mid-aged and right. Two crowds are critical though: - this is the talent pool: college campuses. FB's changing tone (sponsoring scholarships, sponsoring scholarships for non tech -> tech transfers, etc) is evident. - this is the management pool: mid-30's to 40's, married, coastal EMs or PMs, that have t…

HN delusion about their own self-importance is strong on this one. There are millions of talented Engineers who'd die to work for Facebook, Google, Netflix. Top 0.1%ile of 8,000,000,000 is 8 Million. Most woke, liberal graduates were protected from competition from other countries due to their location advantage. Ironically these woke employees are demanding remote work, displaying their usual cluelessness about unin…

>> Capitalists, Libertarians, Indians, & Chinese

What a strangely composed list, full of odd ducks, no?

Re: Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

#268

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 4:32 PM UTC

kaycebasques wrote: post #218

jszymborski wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm on the outside looking in, (and this might be an unpopular opinion in this crowd) but that's the reputation of tech in Silicon Valley, no? The mentality is often "we'll be too small to prosecute until we're too big". That's how you end up with these seemingly superlegal entities like Uber, Google, hell even Crunchyroll. Theranos was the peak example of how tech companies are encouraged to misrepresent fact to bot…

What happened with Crunchyroll?

[deleted]

Re: Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

#269

Post by throwaway0a5e » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 4:32 PM UTC

qwerpy wrote: post #76

dogman144 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Facebook risks losing its young, liberal staff. Spot on, and not just young, liberal. Old-ish and privacy minded. Mid-aged and right. Two crowds are critical though: - this is the talent pool: college campuses. FB's changing tone (sponsoring scholarships, sponsoring scholarships for non tech -> tech transfers, etc) is evident. - this is the management pool: mid-30's to 40's, married, coastal EMs or PMs, that have t…

That management pool isn’t going anywhere. Have a bunch of friends who work at FB, mostly immigrants. They don’t care about the reputation, or don’t have the luxury to. No one confronts them about why they work there at dinner parties. It pays the bills very well and allows them to buy nice houses and send their kids to private school. It’s the lack of work/life balance that gets to them, not the reputation of the em…

Exactly. Giving a lot of shits about the reputation of your employer is something people who take high pay and the lifestyle that comes with it for granted do.

Re: Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

#270

Post by emptyparadise » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 4:33 PM UTC

reeealloc wrote: post #34

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's surprising, they have no intention of hiding that Insta is a FB app. It says Instagram by Facebook when you open it.

It was a very funny "no, no, no, see, this is a Facebook product that's sooooo integrated with our platform and totally isn't something you can spin off easily!!" moment.