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Delay, Deny and Deflect: How Facebook’s Leaders Fought Through Crisis

nytimes.com

11–20 of 168 posts

Re: Delay, Deny and Deflect: How Facebook’s Leaders Fought Through Crisis

#11
Is there an actual crisis, outside the media narrative? Has Facebook seen an actual fall in monthly, weekly, or daily active users?

To me, this story reads a lot like a media narrative that has very little to do with users's actual lives. And I've been reading variations on "Why Facebook sucks" and "Why Facebook is doomed" for a very long time. It's like the "Why this is the year of Linux on the desktop," but for media companies.

Don't get me wrong: I'm barely a Facebook user and agree with much of the criticism. But what I do, anecdotally, is less significant than what users do and want to do.

I think the conventional media sources, including the NYT, doesn't want to confront its own role in the 2016 election (the relentless media focus on Clinton's email server was insane). We don't want to acknowledge that most people's epistemological skill is low. Why look at ourselves, when we have this handy scapegoat right... over... there?

https://www.iep.utm.edu/girard/#H3

Re: Delay, Deny and Deflect: How Facebook’s Leaders Fought Through Crisis

#12

Funny quote: > “We’re not going to traffic in your personal life,” Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, said in an MSNBC interview. “Privacy to us is a human right. It’s a civil liberty.” (Mr. Cook’s criticisms infuriated Mr. Zuckerberg, who later ordered his management team to use only Android phones, since the operating system has far more users than Apple’s.)

If Tim cook believed this why is he taking billions from google to be the default search engine? Why not pick a more privacy friendly search engine?

Because you've gotta pick your battles.

Re: Delay, Deny and Deflect: How Facebook’s Leaders Fought Through Crisis

#13

Is there an actual crisis, outside the media narrative? Has Facebook seen an actual fall in monthly, weekly, or daily active users? To me, this story reads a lot like a media narrative that has very little to do with users's actual lives. And I've been reading variations on "Why Facebook sucks" and "Why Facebook is doomed" for a very long time. It's like the "Why this is the year of Linux on the desktop," but for med…

Sure there is. If they've been proven to have repeated privacy violations and ethics violations on a social space where people post a lot of their information it absolutely affects lives.

Re: Delay, Deny and Deflect: How Facebook’s Leaders Fought Through Crisis

#14

Funny quote: > “We’re not going to traffic in your personal life,” Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, said in an MSNBC interview. “Privacy to us is a human right. It’s a civil liberty.” (Mr. Cook’s criticisms infuriated Mr. Zuckerberg, who later ordered his management team to use only Android phones, since the operating system has far more users than Apple’s.)

If Tim cook believed this why is he taking billions from google to be the default search engine? Why not pick a more privacy friendly search engine?

Because no other search engine provides nearly as smooth an experience as Google.

Coincidentally, nothing is stopping privacy-conscious users to use, for example, DuckDuckGo. It's right there in the options on both macOS and Safari.

Finally, it's pretty absurd to say that Tim Cook/Apple don't believe in privacy. Out of all major consumer software/hardware manufacturers, Apple easily takes the most privacy-conscious stance of them all - which isn't saying much until you see the extent that they've gone to protect user privacy - ranging from the Secure Enclave and the T2 chip to fingerprinting and tracking prevention in Safari 12.

Re: Delay, Deny and Deflect: How Facebook’s Leaders Fought Through Crisis

#15

Is there an actual crisis, outside the media narrative? Has Facebook seen an actual fall in monthly, weekly, or daily active users? To me, this story reads a lot like a media narrative that has very little to do with users's actual lives. And I've been reading variations on "Why Facebook sucks" and "Why Facebook is doomed" for a very long time. It's like the "Why this is the year of Linux on the desktop," but for med…

Would you consider a significant drop in Facebook's European user base to be crisis [0]?

[0] https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-revenue-and-user-gr... - Facebook's user base is declining in Europe, and that ought to terrify its American bosses

Re: Delay, Deny and Deflect: How Facebook’s Leaders Fought Through Crisis

#16

Funny quote: > “We’re not going to traffic in your personal life,” Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, said in an MSNBC interview. “Privacy to us is a human right. It’s a civil liberty.” (Mr. Cook’s criticisms infuriated Mr. Zuckerberg, who later ordered his management team to use only Android phones, since the operating system has far more users than Apple’s.)

Zuck's always been a sore loser.

Maybe so, but please don't post unsubstantive comments to Hacker News.

Re: Delay, Deny and Deflect: How Facebook’s Leaders Fought Through Crisis

#17

Funny quote: > “We’re not going to traffic in your personal life,” Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, said in an MSNBC interview. “Privacy to us is a human right. It’s a civil liberty.” (Mr. Cook’s criticisms infuriated Mr. Zuckerberg, who later ordered his management team to use only Android phones, since the operating system has far more users than Apple’s.)

If Tim cook believed this why is he taking billions from google to be the default search engine? Why not pick a more privacy friendly search engine?

If he was being honest, Cook would have said: "Privacy to us is a comparative advantage, because we can't make world class web products."

You can see the difference between these two statements in action in cases where Apple absolutely needs government approval and market share (China) or a good product (search engine / Google), they immediately ditch this "human right".

Re: Delay, Deny and Deflect: How Facebook’s Leaders Fought Through Crisis

#19
Ms. Sandberg has overseen an aggressive lobbying campaign to combat Facebook’s critics, shift public anger toward rival companies and ward off damaging regulation.

Facebook employed a Republican opposition-research firm to discredit activist protesters, in part by linking them to the liberal financier George Soros.

It also tapped its business relationships, persuading a Jewish civil rights group to cast some criticism of the company as anti-Semitic.

Re: Delay, Deny and Deflect: How Facebook’s Leaders Fought Through Crisis

#20
To me the negative press cycle involving Facebook and other advertising companies is more about the hidden war between the new age digital advertisers, and the former rulers of ads: the conventional news outlets. The news outlets will jump on any chance they can get to kill their competitors just like any other company. Without Facebook, they could become the sole source of news again, and reap the lost ad revenue themselves.

That's why I don't trust anything I read in the news. If I don't hear it from a friend working at one of the SV companies (which isn't that hard to find, we're a much smaller community than one would imagine) then I consider it to be sensationalized, hyperbolic, and/or downright wrong.

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