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Facebook Loses Top Executives, Including Chris Cox

nytimes.com

151–160 of 414 posts

Re: Facebook Loses Top Executives, Including Chris Cox

#151

I've known Chris Cox since freshman year of college and he was an informal advisor to my first startup. The NYT article referenced in hashberry's earlier comment includes a key quote: “For over a decade, I’ve been sharing the same message that Mark and I have always believed: Social media’s history is not yet written, and its effects are not neutral,” Mr. Cox said in a note to employees on Thursday. “As its builders…

WTF are you talking about? Facebook didn't became what it is today last week, but with great focus over last 10 years minimum.

We're not in some wake up call scenario here. Those decisions happened very, very long time ago, in internet years an era ego. This now are just consequences of a carefully laid path.

Re: Facebook Loses Top Executives, Including Chris Cox

#152
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? What level of criticism is acceptable, and what level is not, and why? This is something I've not really been able to understand about those who defend Facebook against these "attacks". Nothing reported (AFAIK) has been untrue. Facebook is one of the richest and most culturally central companies of the 21st century. It seems fair game to examine what they do.

Significant portions of NYT's reporting have been highly misleading, to the extent that it's difficult to conclude it wasn't intentional. "Facebook allowed Microsoft’s Bing search engine to see the names of virtually all Facebook users’ friends without consent, the records show, and gave Netflix and Spotify the ability to read Facebook users’ private messages." [0] Netflix and Spotify have Messenger plugins that allo…

I'm confused. Netflix and Spotify did have the ability to read anyone's private messages. That's what they reported, and as far as I know none of the involved parties disputed that.

The point isn't that somebody at Spotify was sitting there reading everyone's messages. The point is that they could have been doing that, and Facebook had nothing in place to know if they were doing that, and none of the users sharing a song with friends would think that doing so would enable them to do that, and such extensive privileges were not necessary to implement a simple sharing feature.

Re: Facebook Loses Top Executives, Including Chris Cox

#153
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's irreconcilable with his actions. Why would a person who believes those things have made the "dumb fucks" quote?

I'm no fan of Zuckerberg, but he said that quote over a decade ago, and people can change their beliefs and values.

Yes, people can.

He very obviously hasn't.

Re: Facebook Loses Top Executives, Including Chris Cox

#154
post #143

I've known Chris Cox since freshman year of college and he was an informal advisor to my first startup. The NYT article referenced in hashberry's earlier comment includes a key quote: “For over a decade, I’ve been sharing the same message that Mark and I have always believed: Social media’s history is not yet written, and its effects are not neutral,” Mr. Cox said in a note to employees on Thursday. “As its builders…

"Zuckerberg's vision of Facebook as a good thing for the world was a lie" - That is such a broad generalization. In the developing world where I live Facebook gives me the opportunity to maintain contact with my family who live on the other side of the world, as I walk the streets of São Paulo, for free. There are hundreds of millions of others like me who keep in contact with their family because of Facebook (and th…

> In the developing world where I live Facebook gives me the opportunity to maintain contact with my family who live on the other side of the world, as I walk the streets of São Paulo, for free.

Cool. In other developing countries it lead to a massacre.

Re: Facebook Loses Top Executives, Including Chris Cox

#155
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both WAPO and NYT have a clear editorial and political agenda against Facebook. To add two datapoints to your observation above: "Facebook’s top executive in charge of all products, Chris Cox, the longtime confidant of chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, is leaving the company, the highest-level departure at the social media giant amid nearly two years of sustained crises." (WAPO) [1] "Two Facebook Inc. senior executive…

> Over the past two years they've published ~14,000 articles each on FB That would mean publishing around 19 articles a day. So, uh, [citation needed]. I'd say that both WaPo and NYT have a clear editorial and political agenda of questioning those with/in power. Silicon Valley companies like Facebook and Google (who have had their own fair share of bad coverage) are enormously powerful, rich companies that own a huge…

> WaPo and NYT have a clear editorial and political agenda of questioning those with/in power.

It's just a shame they never apply that agenda to their own industry. The NYTimes and the WaPo have power.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Re: Facebook Loses Top Executives, Including Chris Cox

#156
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see that quote being referenced a lot, and given when it was made I'm curious what it says about whether or not we believe that people have the capacity to change.

Do something mildly stupid when you're 20, and if someone finds out about it when you're 40, you lose your job. That's the upside-down society we live in today.

Showing complete contempt for the privacy of your users and then using your massive monopoly on social networking to propagandize the death of privacy isn't "mildly stupid".

Re: Facebook Loses Top Executives, Including Chris Cox

#157
post #143

I've known Chris Cox since freshman year of college and he was an informal advisor to my first startup. The NYT article referenced in hashberry's earlier comment includes a key quote: “For over a decade, I’ve been sharing the same message that Mark and I have always believed: Social media’s history is not yet written, and its effects are not neutral,” Mr. Cox said in a note to employees on Thursday. “As its builders…

"Zuckerberg's vision of Facebook as a good thing for the world was a lie" - That is such a broad generalization. In the developing world where I live Facebook gives me the opportunity to maintain contact with my family who live on the other side of the world, as I walk the streets of São Paulo, for free. There are hundreds of millions of others like me who keep in contact with their family because of Facebook (and th…

Purely self-serving question, but have you tried Marco Polo?

Re: Facebook Loses Top Executives, Including Chris Cox

#158
post #143

I've known Chris Cox since freshman year of college and he was an informal advisor to my first startup. The NYT article referenced in hashberry's earlier comment includes a key quote: “For over a decade, I’ve been sharing the same message that Mark and I have always believed: Social media’s history is not yet written, and its effects are not neutral,” Mr. Cox said in a note to employees on Thursday. “As its builders…

"Zuckerberg's vision of Facebook as a good thing for the world was a lie" - That is such a broad generalization. In the developing world where I live Facebook gives me the opportunity to maintain contact with my family who live on the other side of the world, as I walk the streets of São Paulo, for free. There are hundreds of millions of others like me who keep in contact with their family because of Facebook (and th…

STFU ... nobody is saying that there are no positive aspects to FB ... but it still has an underlying cancer to it which isn't being treated by the C-Suite ... and, in fact, they're feeding it.

Re: Facebook Loses Top Executives, Including Chris Cox

#159
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some theories: 1. Rebranding Facebook as secure and private 2. If this increases usage, more opportunity to display ads 3. Their data shows they gain more information by monitoring what people publicly share, not say in private 4. Removes all responsibility to work with law enforcement and governments for illegal activity, since it's encrypted

A common feature request for my app: remove FB login! These are users who didn't even use it. But just seeing the Facebook login option there next to email (it was the only OAuth) gave them the creeps. These aren't tech savvy users either, just regular small town businesses I think Facebook has a long, long, long way to go towards brand repair before anyone can 'trust' it in any way

Have you ever looked at what exactly those facebook login buttons load? I don't feel safe browsing sites with facebook integration anymore unless I'm running uMatrix or am in a container.

Re: Facebook Loses Top Executives, Including Chris Cox

#160
post #143

I've known Chris Cox since freshman year of college and he was an informal advisor to my first startup. The NYT article referenced in hashberry's earlier comment includes a key quote: “For over a decade, I’ve been sharing the same message that Mark and I have always believed: Social media’s history is not yet written, and its effects are not neutral,” Mr. Cox said in a note to employees on Thursday. “As its builders…

"Zuckerberg's vision of Facebook as a good thing for the world was a lie" - That is such a broad generalization. In the developing world where I live Facebook gives me the opportunity to maintain contact with my family who live on the other side of the world, as I walk the streets of São Paulo, for free. There are hundreds of millions of others like me who keep in contact with their family because of Facebook (and th…

That's all fine until some special interest with money wants to launch a targeted propaganda campaign in your country. That can and has lead to effects ranging from detrimental government policy to outright genocide.

Nobody argues that Facebook keeping families in touch is a bad thing. It's the rest of it - the collecting and selling of data, the paid targeted propaganda campaigns, the intentional manipulation of user emotion - that people say is bad.

But if you don't believe the number of Facebook employees who have quit in protest, even Chris Cox, then I guess my comment here isn't going to persuade you.

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