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Facebook chooses profits over people

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Re: Facebook chooses profits over people

#191

Post by bitofhope »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #129
amelius wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the problem is lack of strong consumer protection. Trusting profit-seeking private companies to do "the right thing" is naive at best.

> No, the problem is lack of strong consumer protection Not sure why this is a "no" versus "and," but whatever. The problem with "strong consumer protection" is it's vague. It means anything to anybody, which is useless from a policy perspective. It's language designed to gum up the legislative process, which is why Facebook's lobbyists use it. (Note: not insinuating shilling. Their lobbyists coöpted the term.) Repla…

Breaking up Facebook sounds fine to me. I've got an even better one, though: make their business model practically illegal. I'd love the US to implement something broadly similar to the GDPR and actually enforce it (and while at it, I'd like the EU countries to step up the enforcement game).

The tech monopoly giants of today are mostly Adtech companies, and as far as I'm concerned their very business model is anathema to free society. Trustbusting is good and needed, but customers should have been protected even before these firms turned into monopolists.

Re: Facebook chooses profits over people

#192

Post by rglullis »

pixelgeek wrote: post #186
rglullis wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I trust that my "profit-seeking" dentist does the right thing, just like I trust that the "profit-seeking" engineer that built the home I live in and the "profit-seeking" restaurant owner from the place I had lunch today. Please stop demonizing "profit-seeking". The problem is the lack of ethics of Facebook and Big Tech in general. Putting it on "private, profit-seeking" companies is a tired, sophomoric take.

Is your dentist a corporation that is lead by a board of directors and has a series of shareholders that help define how it operates? If not then the comparison is not really valid. > The problem is the lack of ethics of Facebook and Big Tech in general. And big oil. And big pharma. And big anything. Large corporations are built to maximize profit. And it is this focus on profit that is the problem. So 'profit seekin…

Unless you work and sell your labor "at-cost", you are also "profit-seeking". It does not mean that you are also "unethical".

Profit-seeking should not imply unethical, no need to twist language when there is already the vocabulary to convey the proper meaning.

Re: Facebook chooses profits over people

#194

Post by 0x4d464d48 »

KaiserPro wrote: post #146
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #44

These headlines naïvely miss the point. The problem isn’t Facebook, a private company, seeking profits. The problem is its deeply-entrenched psychopathy and pathological record of lying [1]. And it really appears to be a Facebook problem. Instagram for Kids wasn’t the fever dream of a deranged Instagrammer. It was pushed by a Facebook implant [2]. I don’t know if being in proximity to Facebook’s leadership corrupts p…

> And it really appears to be a Facebook problem. Instagram for Kids wasn’t the fever dream of a deranged Instagrammer Two things to unpack here. its not a facebook problem. its a problem that exists in many large companies. Apple for example doesn't give a shit about individuals. (you can see that if you slip off any of the predefined support pathways) _everyone_ to google is just a thing to evaluated and advertised…

"There is nothing unusual about facebook, its just nobody likes them, and its fashionable to not like them."

You forgot to include 'completely understandable to not like them'.

Re: Facebook chooses profits over people

#195

Post by i_haz_rabies »

sgt wrote: post #145
ACS_Solver wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would even say it's simpler, and the problem is Mark Zuckerberg specifically. He's deeply immoral, and continues to do what Facebook does for power and money. I understand, on some level, the excitement - he's a computer nerd who came to control an organization that is more powerful than the majority of the world's countries. Zuckerberg controls the platform that is the primary means of communication for hundreds o…

That's a bit far fetched. Comparing Zuckerberg to dictators and slave traders? He could be on HN.

Not that I (fully) agree with the comparison, but I truly hope he's on HN, reads this and feels bad.

Re: Facebook chooses profits over people

#196

Post by zarkov99 »

This is myopic nonsense at best and most likely a cynical hit job driven by some dark agenda. Facebook is the natural result of a regulatory and cultural environment that has not yet caught on to the fact that as a species, culturally and biologically, we are not built to be interacting directly with millions of people in real time. We, as in the human race, need to take this challenge very seriously, and work to understand and modulate the astronomical imbalance between our individual data processing capability and the amount of information and disinformation that is now easily accessible.

Re: Facebook chooses profits over people

#197

Post by amelius »

rglullis wrote: post #188
amelius wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of ways in which profit-seeking can hurt consumers. Just look up "dark patterns" for starters.

Again, this has nothing to do with "profit-seeking" and a lot to do with business ethics. Two completely separate issues.

Whether they are separate issues or not depends on the company. There is certainly an incentive for companies to make their ethics secondary to profit. Therefore, right now, from a consumer's perspective, it is a matter of trust. And strong consumer protection can help increase certainty for the consumer.

Re: Facebook chooses profits over people

#198

Post by 0x4d464d48 »

ed_elliott_asc wrote: post #69

Does anyone genuinely believe any for profit company gives two shits about its customers? They care as far as the customer spends money (or watches ads blah) but as long as people keep coming, no one really cares for the customers. Who believes that Ronald mcdonald is here to help the customers make the best choice for the customer? This is just the way, friends and family care for each other.

"Does anyone genuinely believe any for profit company gives two shits about its customers?"

Yes. I've worked for them and with people who were very concerned about their customers.

Some of us actually care about value being delivered to a customer and the public. Were not all a bunch of greasy mountebanks gaming people to maximize returns.

Re: Facebook chooses profits over people

#199

Post by amelius »

rglullis wrote: post #192
pixelgeek wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is your dentist a corporation that is lead by a board of directors and has a series of shareholders that help define how it operates? If not then the comparison is not really valid. > The problem is the lack of ethics of Facebook and Big Tech in general. And big oil. And big pharma. And big anything. Large corporations are built to maximize profit. And it is this focus on profit that is the problem. So 'profit seekin…

Unless you work and sell your labor "at-cost", you are also "profit-seeking". It does not mean that you are also "unethical". Profit-seeking should not imply unethical , no need to twist language when there is already the vocabulary to convey the proper meaning.

> Profit-seeking should not imply unethical

Nobody said that profit-seeking implies unethical. It was said that profit-seeking companies should not deserve our unconditional trust.

Re: Facebook chooses profits over people

#200

Post by amelius »

bitofhope wrote: post #191
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, the problem is lack of strong consumer protection Not sure why this is a "no" versus "and," but whatever. The problem with "strong consumer protection" is it's vague. It means anything to anybody, which is useless from a policy perspective. It's language designed to gum up the legislative process, which is why Facebook's lobbyists use it. (Note: not insinuating shilling. Their lobbyists coöpted the term.) Repla…

Breaking up Facebook sounds fine to me. I've got an even better one, though: make their business model practically illegal. I'd love the US to implement something broadly similar to the GDPR and actually enforce it (and while at it, I'd like the EU countries to step up the enforcement game). The tech monopoly giants of today are mostly Adtech companies, and as far as I'm concerned their very business model is anathem…

Yes. If, in the old days, e.g. 1980s, a telephone company would spy on its users to serve ads, this would be unthinkable. But somehow, here we are.

Time for consumers to get their rights back!

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