Is there a version I can read without the pictures? Just the manifesto? I’d like to know how big this “book” is actually?
Physically it's 4 1/4 x 7 x 5/16. Word count isn't much.
Facebook's Little Red Book
101–110 of 300 posts
Re: Facebook's Little Red Book
#102Facebook has usurped the legacy media that they mention in the Red Book. But their relationship to capital and government is the exact same as the legacy media they replaced, so instead of being disruptive they fill the same role --except this time with even more ruthless efficiency and profitability.
"When education is not liberating, the dream of the oppressed is to become the oppressor."
Re: Facebook's Little Red Book
#103It's funny; as I've been working on Haven[1], one of my guiding lights is what Facebook _could have been_[2]. To that end the opening section is really inspiring. This is describing a world where digital tools enhance your friendships. I think that's still possible and still a worthwhile goal--I just don't think it can be done by an entity with a corporate incentive structure. Those incentives will always tend toward…
> what Facebook _could have been_ In 2010, facebook changed. Twitter was cooler. Myspace was more money. So facebook took a page out of their platforms. In 2012, facebook went to Washington DC. In 2016, Washington DC went to facebook. When did facebook change? When zuck lost control of it after sandberg came on board. When did zuck get control? When zuck changed to be in alliance with the master plan… which was take…
Oh my god, no.
Zuck had — and I believe still has — complete control of the company. Demonizing Sandberg and lionizing Zuckerberg is a complete disservice to reality. It was the focus on growth and not money that ruined everything.
Many changes occurred in this period. I was there.
A big change is that ads became profitable. I think it’s fair to say this change was sudden. Facebook went from being scrappy and underfunded to being wealthy and powerful.
At the same time, the growth had eclipsed competitors and Google Plus came and went. The media tone and coverage changed from “oh this startup is doing neat stuff” to a point concern for data privacy and the implosion of journalism revenue. So they became a lot more influential culturally.
Being suddenly wealthy and influential but with a cultural mentality of being a scrappy and upstart— something this book accurately reflects — lead to hubris.
The focus on hypergrowth which had served them well from a small startup — under the umbrella of this hubris — led to events like the Cambridge Analytica disaster. Insufficient care was being placed on how data could be collected and misused by others, growth took priority.
This focus on Hypergrowth meant that changes that responded well in metrics got pushed. The longer-term damage of people not enjoying their experiences wasn’t a high enough ranked metric compared to engagement and user metrics.
None of this was Sandberg’s fault. She was an extremely competent manager and is brilliant. Absolutely she was instrumental in leading Facebook to profitability but this push wasn’t a big factor in their decline.
Instead, Facebook got too big way too fast and the employees and Zuck didn’t have the mindset shift needed to consider everything as it was happening. Yes, money ruined everything eventually — but that came later.
The most crucial damage had already happened — people gave up on trust that Facebook could handle their data responsibly, and trust that they’d have a good experience on the site.
I could go on but that’s enough.
Re: Facebook's Little Red Book
#104Is there a version I can read without the pictures? Just the manifesto? I’d like to know how big this “book” is actually?
You can probably parse this out really fast with OCR
Did just that with some random online tool and it said it found just under 7000 words. Probably also counting words in the images, though.
Re: Facebook's Little Red Book
#105When it was produces, this was probably inspiring and effective.
Retrospectively, it's a bit creepy and ominous.
Re: Facebook's Little Red Book
#106All: if you're going to comment, please make sure you're following the site guidelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).
That means posting out of curiosity, not indignation. Internet indignation is addictive, repetitive, and boring (and there's already too much of it here).
Re: Facebook's Little Red Book
#107page 17. android operating system on an iphone 4. i'm crying right now, particularly the way this is juxtaposed with so many critical moments in history.
I think that's a BlackBerry. The later Motion from 2017 had a singular button down there too. Could be an older version but can't find anything.
Re: Facebook's Little Red Book
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
> what Facebook _could have been_ In 2010, facebook changed. Twitter was cooler. Myspace was more money. So facebook took a page out of their platforms. In 2012, facebook went to Washington DC. In 2016, Washington DC went to facebook. When did facebook change? When zuck lost control of it after sandberg came on board. When did zuck get control? When zuck changed to be in alliance with the master plan… which was take…
Oh my god, no. Zuck had — and I believe still has — complete control of the company. Demonizing Sandberg and lionizing Zuckerberg is a complete disservice to reality. It was the focus on growth and not money that ruined everything. Many changes occurred in this period. I was there. A big change is that ads became profitable. I think it’s fair to say this change was sudden. Facebook went from being scrappy and underfu…
I think FB turned the corner when Mark stopped driving his Acura. I'm not sure when I last saw it at building 16, but that was the date for me.
Re: Facebook's Little Red Book
#109Design and content references must have felt like a cute satirical reference at the time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotations_from_Chairman_Mao_T...
"We were going to change the world."
And then they did...
it was no accident
Re: Facebook's Little Red Book
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
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Yes but people talked about it even less than they do today. Back then you could say connecting people is always a good thing and people didn't challenge that openly like we do today.
The average 1st world citizen didn't comprehend how expanding networks meant centralizing power in even fewer hands.
We still dont see it yet today. Not fully