Live data from Hacker News

Ex-Facebook director's new book paints brutal image of Mark Zuckerberg

sfgate.com

261–270 of 368 posts

Re: Ex-Facebook director's new book paints brutal image of Mark Zuckerberg

#261
post #45

> A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism Has anyone ever seen Facebbok as idealistic? As far as I can tell, they've always been basically Amazon (the borg that will win at all costs) but a little more trivial, cool and Web2.0, they were never the "don't be evil" Google, the idealistic Twitter, I can't think of many less ideal driven companies. Facebook beat MySpace IMO because it tricked people into usi…

I know several people that worked there back in the growth days of the company. They had all drunk the kool aid hard on the work connecting people and making the world a better place. Several of them became very disenchanted when scandals like Cambridge Analytica or the manipulation of the public during 2016 election occurred.

Zuck and the leadership there had really spun a positive, world changing narrative to employees.

Re: Ex-Facebook director's new book paints brutal image of Mark Zuckerberg

#262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>FB was a much better product FB used to have granular privacy controls and no "feed" -- you wrote on someone's wall, they wrote on yours, and people had to actively click on your profile to see the messages rather than have them thrust front and center. FB abandoned that commitment to privacy and has suffered as a result.

How has Facebook suffered? Most of their losses seem to be self imposed, stuff like the "metaverse"

It's more accurate to say the community has suffered. This is the change that lead to Facebook being one of the leading misinformation platforms, because they shovel garbage at people to drive engagement.

I have a throwaway profile with no friends that follow now pages. In the absence of anything else, Facebook has somehow decided I would most like to see anti trans nonsense, flat earth conspiracy theories and child sexual abuse material.

(They don't remove the latter if you report it, of course.)

Re: Ex-Facebook director's new book paints brutal image of Mark Zuckerberg

#263
post #45

> A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism Has anyone ever seen Facebbok as idealistic? As far as I can tell, they've always been basically Amazon (the borg that will win at all costs) but a little more trivial, cool and Web2.0, they were never the "don't be evil" Google, the idealistic Twitter, I can't think of many less ideal driven companies. Facebook beat MySpace IMO because it tricked people into usi…

The idealism is the current corporate story - "enabling communication" etc. - but you're right that there was no idealism to start with. Zuckerberg set up The Facebook so undergrads at Harvard could rate how hot girls were, scraping their images from unprotected university servers. This is a great podcast centred around the film about it - The Social Network - but it delves really interestingly into the story and mot…

It wasn't so much "idealism" than it was the fact that social media was directly responsible for the election of Barack Obama in 2008, the US's first Black president. It also gave him a significant advantage in 2012. Nobody wanted to touch social media out of fear of putting future Democrat POTUS candidates at a disadvantage.

Notice how, in 2017, it's only after everyone starts post mortem evaluating the 2016 election that the "idealism" of social media begins to sour.

Re: Ex-Facebook director's new book paints brutal image of Mark Zuckerberg

#264
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's Facebook - a website that is a large part of life to over 3 billion users. A website that can influence elections in major countries, that sometimes shows fake ads and is responsible for (roughly) millions of frauds caused by them, that incited genocides in African countries. I don't think the stakes are that low.

> website that can influence elections in major countries, I think this sort of power transferred to twitter, with most of the users who haven't left facebook being boomers who keep reposting AI slop over and over and over. The rare times I look at my facebook account, all I see is the older members of my family spamming AI garbage like shrimp jesus, "look at this nice dog sculpture I made out of wood" (that I didn't…

> I don't even understand how facebook continues to operate at this point.

They operate internationally. FB is still big in some of the South Pacific/Asia nations like the Philippines and India (iirc).

Re: Ex-Facebook director's new book paints brutal image of Mark Zuckerberg

#265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idealism is the current corporate story - "enabling communication" etc. - but you're right that there was no idealism to start with. Zuckerberg set up The Facebook so undergrads at Harvard could rate how hot girls were, scraping their images from unprotected university servers. This is a great podcast centred around the film about it - The Social Network - but it delves really interestingly into the story and mot…

It wasn't so much "idealism" than it was the fact that social media was directly responsible for the election of Barack Obama in 2008, the US's first Black president. It also gave him a significant advantage in 2012. Nobody wanted to touch social media out of fear of putting future Democrat POTUS candidates at a disadvantage. Notice how, in 2017, it's only after everyone starts post mortem evaluating the 2016 electio…

> It wasn't so much "idealism" than it was the fact that social media was directly responsible for the election of Barack Obama in 2008, the US's first Black president.

That's a very strong claim, hence needs strong evidence to be taken seriously.

Re: Ex-Facebook director's new book paints brutal image of Mark Zuckerberg

#266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In addition to it all, Zuck's taste in board games is basic. Though he's still ahead of Elon, who was busted for boosting his Path of Exile 2 account.

> In addition to it all, Zuck's taste in board games is basic. FWIW, Ticket to Ride and Catan are decent, worth playing, euro games. That's miles better than Monopoly or Risk which the casual folk immediately think of in the context of board games.

Oh for sure, but as Eurogames go, those are still two of the most basic. My wife is so sick of Catan she's refused to play it for over a decade.

Re: Ex-Facebook director's new book paints brutal image of Mark Zuckerberg

#267
post #58
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am sorry, but this attitude is sexist. My allies are those I can relate to, those which I can cooperate with. I don't pick my allies based on gender, and nor should you. And you shouldn't coerce anyone into forming alliances based on gender. It is the person that matters, not their gender or race or whatever other random attribute.

Its sexism all the way down - Sandberg would not have done that to a male subordinate (who's wife was giving birth) and a male boss would not have done that to Wynn-Williams. Women should not discriminate against women in the workplace because they are women.

[dead]

Re: Ex-Facebook director's new book paints brutal image of Mark Zuckerberg

#270

[flagged]

The actual article title is:

"A Facebook Insider's Exposé Alleges Bad Behavior at the Top"

This comment would make more sense if the title were:

"A Facebook Insider's Shocking Exposé Alleges Surprisingly Bad Behavior at the Top"

Post reply on HN