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Hook, hold, harvest and hide: Meta's alleged strategy laid out in first week

theguardian.com

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Re: Hook, hold, harvest and hide: Meta's alleged strategy laid out in first week

#51
post #47
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing China does well. Put people that damage their society or economy behind bars.

Yeah, like Jack Ma (of alibaba) who disappeared for months, and got his company's IPO canceled, all because he criticized the government's financial regulations a bit too much? Trump wishes he has as much ability to put people behind bars as Xi. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Ma#During_tech_crackdown

While that is bad, so is unregulated crypto, sports betting, prediction markets, gutting of consumer financial protection, etc we are getting now.

Re: Hook, hold, harvest and hide: Meta's alleged strategy laid out in first week

#52
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is this recent example https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/aug/20/evergrande-...

Which seems exactly like the sort of thing an authoritarian regime would do to placate the masses. Make an example of some big boss, but conveniently fail to fix or even acknowledge the issues that led to the crisis in the first place. In the example of the property bubble, it's domestic financial repression making real estate the only option for savings, and local governments being hooked (heh) on land sales to fund…

[deleted]

Re: Hook, hold, harvest and hide: Meta's alleged strategy laid out in first week

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dissolve the company. Jail the C levels. End of story. If this ends in another fine to put into a ledger book I'll scream. The fine ends up back in their pockets in months in the form of loans and grants and tax avoidances and so on. The world no longer needs Facebook and its leaders. It does not need its technology. It does not need the ideas of the people that are there. If you are still working there, you are comp…

> If this ends in another fine to put into a ledger book I'll scream. Get your pillow ready, because this is the only thing that'll happen if the verdict goes against them. Of course, the verdict could go the other way so no fine is levied at all. Maybe get a second pillow just in case

Buy a copy of Careless People to read between the tears.

Re: Hook, hold, harvest and hide: Meta's alleged strategy laid out in first week

#54
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing China does well. Put people that damage their society or economy behind bars.

In China, "harmed society or the economy" is very very often the excuse used to put political enemies into prison.

So? It works. Their economy is starting to lap the West one. Maybe cutting a little bit off the top works regardless of who exactly is being cut?

Re: Hook, hold, harvest and hide: Meta's alleged strategy laid out in first week

#55

I hope people can see Meta is funding the other side in order to get Child Safety laws passed so they can have an out when children use their parent's device and Meta spies on them. Child Safety laws are just mass surveillance in disguise which has always been Meta's game plan since day one.

Dissolve the company. Jail the C levels. End of story. If this ends in another fine to put into a ledger book I'll scream. The fine ends up back in their pockets in months in the form of loans and grants and tax avoidances and so on. The world no longer needs Facebook and its leaders. It does not need its technology. It does not need the ideas of the people that are there. If you are still working there, you are comp…

"If this ends in another fine to put into a ledger book I'll scream."

You may need this: https://eathealthy365.com/learn-to-scream-like-a-pro-the-def...

Re: Hook, hold, harvest and hide: Meta's alleged strategy laid out in first week

#56
post #23

This HHHH strategy phrase is made up by these lawyers. It's not like the Microsoft version their mimicking where Microsoft actually said it. It makes the headline misleading like it alleges they said it internally as their strategy.

My local grocery chain does the same HHHH strategy:

1. Get new customers 2. Retain them as customers 3. Track what the customers do 4. Keep internal operations confidential

Honestly I dislike them but they are the closest store to me.

Re: Hook, hold, harvest and hide: Meta's alleged strategy laid out in first week

#57
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps, then, it's a matter of degree like most things. And perhaps, again, "what most businesses do" is not really a good defense to hide behind? I'm so tired of the whatabouts and the normalization and the pretending like this billion trillion whatever company has does anything but take advantage of its power to defend itself with slants and lies that any normal person or small group could never get away with. You…

>And perhaps, again, "what most businesses do" is not really a good defense to hide behind? If you're doing what every one else is doing, but only you are being prosecuted, that's reeks of political motivated prosecution.

> If you're doing what every one else is doing, but only you are being prosecuted, that's reeks of political motivated prosecution.

Not necessarily. Even government resources are finite.

If you are doing what everyone else is doing, but only you are being prosecuted (currently), it could be (and often is) because the people doing the prosecuting have limited resources, and the best practical course of action for them is to go after one highly visible target and get a ruling that will spook everyone else into self-correcting (or be the next largest target).

Re: Hook, hold, harvest and hide: Meta's alleged strategy laid out in first week

#58
In the opening sentence:

> according to a lawyer who is prosecuting the world’s largest social media company.

The headline makes it sound like something internal at Meta got revealed. The catchy four-H phrase is the clever hook the lawyer came up with to try to hold the jury’s mind through the case.

If you’re unfamiliar with how these trials work, the lawyers are trying to create a compelling narrative to support their case and catchy phrases that sound like marketing lingo are often used. This wasn’t some internal Meta doc that got revealed.

Re: Hook, hold, harvest and hide: Meta's alleged strategy laid out in first week

#59
post #42
post #9

I think what's missing here is elderly. Arguably, that's even more harmful.

How would hurting elderly be more harmful than hurting children? I know that we are about to live in gerontocracy, but it’s still a wild statement to make.

The elderly can vote, and are easier to scam.

Harming kids creates harmed kids. Harming elders helps install terrible governments which harm everyone - including kids.

Re: Hook, hold, harvest and hide: Meta's alleged strategy laid out in first week

#60
post #38
post #8

I hate when people say things like “Google did this” or “Meta did that.” There are actual named humans making these decisions. I want them found and held accountable. As of late these people have more power than ever. A single contributor at a company like Meta can make a change that impacts 0.025% of users (potentially hundreds of thousands of people) with zero notice or oversight, for their own individual gain. Not…

As someone else noted "Hook, hold, harvest and hide" is the framing from the plaintiffs. There likely wasn't some twirly mustached executive giving a presentation with those words on the slide deck. Instead the "decisions" made are far more banal. Shareholders wants growing revenues and users, executives tell their subordinates to implement those objectives, and it eventually hits the ICs where they're tweaking the c…

> There likely wasn't some twirly mustached executive giving a presentation with those words on the slide deck.

why oh why are giving them the benefit of the doubt? There was in fact a twirled moustache executive.

> Internal chats within the company stated, “Oh good, we’re going after > Even after determining internally that teen safety was a massive problem on its platforms, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, “teen time spent be our top goal of 2017.”

> One internal email from September 2018 indicates that, according to Meta, “The lifetime value of a 13 [year old] teen is roughly $270 per teen.”

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