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Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

economist.com

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Re: Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

#281

Post by kreeben »

nradov wrote: post #217
shoto_io wrote: post #3

No. That’s what people like us and all the main stream media hope for. But: most people I know don’t have the slightest clue that Insta and WhatsApp belong to the FB group. And even worse: most of them don’t give a shit about the reputation of FB. They just want to send messages and share pictures through those apps.

I am aware that Facebook has done a bunch of bad stuff, and that they own Instagram and WhatsApp. I still don't give a shit. For all it's faults Facebook is still the most convenient way to keep up with friends and family spread around the world, and share my underwater photography. If you engage with Facebook on your own terms and "hide all from" the news / politics / meme pages then it works great. And it's free! A…

>> And it's free!

Free, how? As in freedom/beer/something else?

Money, you know, is not the only currency there is.

Re: Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

#283

Post by b3morales »

ghostoftiber wrote: post #180
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> most of them don’t give a shit about the reputation of FB This is close to a straw man argument. Nobody claims users will abandon Facebook. The article posits, instead, strengthening headwinds. Headwinds in hiring (there is already a double-digit premium Facebook must pay for talent). From recurring whistleblowing, and its impact on morale and productivity. Headwinds in projects and partnerships, like Libre/Diem be…

> People didn't stop using oil after the Standard Oil break-up. Nor Windows after its antitrust brush or cigarettes after the tobacco master settlement. The power of those companies was simply sharply reduced. I actually disagree with this. When the company is forcibly broken up there's a chance that it's "power" (what?) is reduced but if we look at Standard Oil, that quicky is shown to be not-what-happened. SO becam…

> all the tobacco companies did was shift their business into providing alternatives to cigarettes. But they're still made from nicotine.

Isn't this okay? Asking genuinely -- I haven't followed this one way or the other. But my understanding was that the health problems were mostly caused by the smoke. Does nicotine itself cause problems when delivered via gum or vape or whatever?

Certainly the current ingestion methods make it easier on those of us standing around not consuming them, compared to clouds of smoke. Which is a plus for me.

Re: Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

#284

Post by throwaway4good »

Five years after Zuckerberg was jogging around Beijing, he went hoverboard surfing carrying the American flag.

As long the competition is Chinese TikTok or Russian Telegram then Facebook (and its associated businesses) will be allowed, even subsidized to grow in their dominance.

Yes. There may be regulation that constraints Facebook but you can be sure that its competition will be hit harder.

This is the calculation they are making and it is probably correct.

Re: Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

#285

Post by splistud »

rubyist5eva wrote: post #176
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> most of them don’t give a shit about the reputation of FB This is close to a straw man argument. Nobody claims users will abandon Facebook. The article posits, instead, strengthening headwinds. Headwinds in hiring (there is already a double-digit premium Facebook must pay for talent). From recurring whistleblowing, and its impact on morale and productivity. Headwinds in projects and partnerships, like Libre/Diem be…

> The power of those companies was simply sharply reduced. I'd argue the opposite. We got Exxon out of the Standard Oil breakup and Microsoft is just as scummy, if not even more scummy than ever. AT&T got broken up and several of the Baby Bells just ended up all merging together and now we have Verizon. Antitrust enforcement has had a net-zero effect at best.

While there are problems with the use of fossil fuels, the oil industry and what we learned to build from the energy and materials it provided changed the world for the better - far more so than anything related to computers or the internet (and that is a very high bar indeed). You can sit here and complain (in a forum that would not exist if it wasn't for what you complain about) in relative comfort if you like, but several past generations were very happy to be able to eat and raise their children. They were happy to be able to store their food and heat/light their homes etc, etc, etc.

Re: Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

#286

Post by finfinfin »

AaronM wrote: post #272
gorbachev wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seeing exactly the same...recruiter after recruiter from FB go through the same dance. I don't know why they keep doing this given I never respond.

I told the recruiter at the start of the pandemic in no uncertain terms that I would never work for facebook or any company owned by them, and to not contact me again. I haven't received another request since.

I also told a recruiter that FB would be the last company I would ever work for - about 3 years ago. They stopped. Then about 2-3 months ago they renewed their attempts. I am guessing someone I know got hired and gave them my contact details again.

Re: Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

#287

Post by emptyparadise »

splistud wrote: post #275
emptyparadise wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to see court-mandated open source and federation. Doubt it'd ever happen though...

What other private property are you in favor of taking from others?

I'll settle on just enough to have a viable healthy, open and free tech ecosystem. My evil regime will even let you keep the rest - as long as you play along nicely and interoperate and federate!

Re: Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

#288

Post by paganel »

breadzeppelin__ wrote: post #29
shoto_io wrote: post #3

No. That’s what people like us and all the main stream media hope for. But: most people I know don’t have the slightest clue that Insta and WhatsApp belong to the FB group. And even worse: most of them don’t give a shit about the reputation of FB. They just want to send messages and share pictures through those apps.

To go a bit further MSM's ad revenue is being hollowed out by Facebook et al. Why would anyone pay to advertise in Economist when they can advertise to "people interested in economics, earning over 150k, last thought about cigarettes three weeks ago" etc. Similarly, if you were an advertising exec at pfizer, would you choose to pay millions of dollars to advertise your meds to a continuously shrinking audience on som…

Presumably people earning over 150k don't waste that much time on an website like FB.

Re: Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

#289

Post by splistud »

gorwell wrote: post #244
breadzeppelin__ wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To go a bit further MSM's ad revenue is being hollowed out by Facebook et al. Why would anyone pay to advertise in Economist when they can advertise to "people interested in economics, earning over 150k, last thought about cigarettes three weeks ago" etc. Similarly, if you were an advertising exec at pfizer, would you choose to pay millions of dollars to advertise your meds to a continuously shrinking audience on som…

The internet hollowed out the legacy media's business model, but it's more than that: It also destroyed the ability of the ruling class to control the narrative. Now everything they say and do is endlessly scrutinized by the internet hive mind, which embarrasses them on a daily basis. Nor does it forget `weapons of mass destruction`, `mission accomplished`, `masks don't work`, `wuhan lab leak hypothesis is a racist c…

The internet (for the last few years) is both a megaphone for shouting the narrative of the ruling class, and a funnel for collecting information about every other class.

Re: Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

#290

Post by ditonal »

dont__panic wrote: post #167
SamBam wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was also interested to know what "double-digit premium" actually means in this context. I feel like the order of magnitude are confusing to me. Like, they pay people $10-$99 more, or they pay people 10x-99x more? Neither seems a plausible interpretation of the statement. Edit: Ok, ok, percentage!

I'd guess that they mean 10% or more total compensation versus comparable positions elsewhere. But I could also see this meaning $10k a year or more because 10% TC is such an insane number. In my experience, Facebook's offers do tend to beat Google's by $10k or so. But it's all so random and all over the place that it's tough to know if that's a consistent number.

Yeah it's not even true that FB is paying a premium. A thread full of people complaining about misinformation happily posting inaccurate information about Facebook.

Go look at levels.fyi. Facebook pays close to market for senior engineers (~450k), more or less in line with companies like Uber, Robinhood, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc. In fact, Facebook doesn't even crack the top 5 on levels for senior SWE comp so this idea that they have to overpay to recruit is clearly false. If anything, if you hang out on Blind, people will pick FB over other companies precisely because it's perceived as having a stronger engineering brand than those other companies.

I think Facebook executive team is full of liars but there are also these weird PR games in play. Uber had a woman complain about not getting a jacket in her size, Google gave Andy Rubin 10 figure bonuses after he credibly raped a report, had scandals with Vic Gundrota/Kelly Ellis, etc. yet Google is still a relatively well perceived company but Uber/TK are mysognistic/sexist companies.

Google got caught literally forwarding private user data to the government without warrants, nobody cares (except Glenn Greenwald I guess).

Sergey Brin and Steve Jobs got caught explicitly and literally illegally colluding to suppress wages but nobody cares.

Google execs were caught lying multiple times w.r.t them building weaponized AI for drones for the DoD in the Maven scandal and that largely washed over.

Eric Schmidt sends out email after email to Google employees to contribute to his SuperPAC and nobody cares. Google builds Dragonfly to censor Chinese political opponents and nobody really cares.

Facebook is an unethical company but companies like Google have objectively far worse scandalds but don't become the media targets. There are weird groupthink/PR plays at work here and it plays out even on Hacker News where accuracy takes a backseat to narrative building.

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