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Facebook's experiments with user behavior in Serbia

nytimes.com

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Re: Facebook's experiments with user behavior in Serbia

#41

Post by acqq »

fredley wrote: post #35
dbrgn wrote: post #3

It's a sad state of affairs if Facebook is a requirement for becoming a working democracy.

That's not the point at all. Facebook just happens to be right now how most people discover and consume news, in many (most?) countries. This is a position of absolutely enormous power, giving Facebook the ability, deliberately or otherwise, to control and manipulate public discourse more than perhaps any entity in history. Moderation of public discourse – in the sense of keeping public discourse in a roughly central…

Facebook is not supposed to be public. That the random media got to fill up the pages there was a bad thing.

Nobody is entitled to the visibility or exclusive treatment on the Facebook. There are much more posts than anybody can read, those using Facebook agreed to let Facebook apply its algorithms and designs.

Re: Facebook's experiments with user behavior in Serbia

#42

Post by orf »

misiti3780 wrote: post #34
nippples wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> then you are a part of the problem, not the solution ^ regrettable quote > Are you going US vs THEM on 2 billion people? Good luck with that. ^ another regrettable quote Something's popularity says nothing about its value. See, for example, religion. The most popular ones still suck a lot. Some more than others.

Correction: They all suck

That's a bad blanket statement to make. Why does Buddhism suck, for example?

Re: Facebook's experiments with user behavior in Serbia

#43

Post by benevol »

Ygg2 wrote: post #28
nof wrote: post #12

Just boycott Facebook already. 'but everyone uses it', yes but you have a choice. If you don't like the Facebook, then gtfo and make the effort to build something to replace it. But I guess that is too much work. People whine about Facebook, yet they do nothing to change the situation. You change the situation by making a choice. If your choice is to have Facebook account, then you are part of the problem, not the so…

> then you are part of the problem, not the solution Are you going US vs THEM on 2 billion people? Good luck with that.

It needs to start somehow. It needs to start some time.

Why not right here and now?

Re: Facebook's experiments with user behavior in Serbia

#44

Post by acqq »

mantas wrote: post #25
_archon_ wrote: post #19

Correct. Your democracy is not his laboratory. His website, however, is. If you want to control the behavior of Fbook, buy it. If you want pageviews from people's news feeds, make things which people decide are worth sharing. From a user perspective, doesn't moving non-person-related (actually social media) things to a separate feed make the ux better?

The problem is FB indoctrinated users and soft-killed most alternatives. A regular user don't care to signup for a newsletter or RSS feed. They "like" page on FB and think that's enough to get updates. I asked around and many non-tech people think liking a page equals subscribing. Both pages owners and regular users. They think they communicate to each other. Well, in fact they don't. FB is dangerously close to monop…

My partner is again and again disappointed that all her "friends" don't "respond" to what she posted on her page, even if I explained her many times that Facebook algorihtmically selects what to show to each of them, and that nobody sees everything posted by those who are "friends" or "liked."

Nobody is entitled to the visibility or exclusive treatment on the Facebook. There are much more posts than anybody can read

It seems the media are "disappointed" the same way. And when they don't get the reach on the Facebook that they wrongly expect to "deserve" they wrongly call that "an attack to democracy."

Re: Facebook's experiments with user behavior in Serbia

#45

Post by akerro »

PunchTornado wrote: post #37

Why is every complain about Facebook directed towards Zuckenberg. He is not alone in this company. We are thousands of engineers that work here and make fb what it is. It feels like all our work (good or bad) is work being done by Zuckenberg, even if he did not have any input on some issues. I don't see Larry Page receiving the same thanks or blame when deepmind or other google thing does good or bad.

Have you seen the latest Tesla 3 Elon Musk designed and produced? He also makes reusable space rockets, he's like a god to many people.

Re: Facebook's experiments with user behavior in Serbia

#47

Post by b3lvedere »

nof wrote: post #12

Just boycott Facebook already. 'but everyone uses it', yes but you have a choice. If you don't like the Facebook, then gtfo and make the effort to build something to replace it. But I guess that is too much work. People whine about Facebook, yet they do nothing to change the situation. You change the situation by making a choice. If your choice is to have Facebook account, then you are part of the problem, not the so…

I don't have a facebook account. Never had one (apart from some experiments and trials which were never under my own name or known aliases). Don't need it. Don't care for it.

I also don't have a Linkedin account. (Well, maybe i do now, because i have a hotmail account). Don't need it. Don't care for it.

According to others it is a bloody miracle i survive in IT :)

Re: Facebook's experiments with user behavior in Serbia

#48

Post by doktrin »

PunchTornado wrote: post #37

Why is every complain about Facebook directed towards Zuckenberg. He is not alone in this company. We are thousands of engineers that work here and make fb what it is. It feels like all our work (good or bad) is work being done by Zuckenberg, even if he did not have any input on some issues. I don't see Larry Page receiving the same thanks or blame when deepmind or other google thing does good or bad.

This sounds like one of those "be careful what you ask for" things. I do tend to think the world would be a better place if engineers were held (at least slightly) morally accountable for their employer's actions, but I suspect it would be an unpleasant experience for many.

Re: Facebook's experiments with user behavior in Serbia

#50

Post by bogomipz »

Ygg2 wrote: post #28
nof wrote: post #12

Just boycott Facebook already. 'but everyone uses it', yes but you have a choice. If you don't like the Facebook, then gtfo and make the effort to build something to replace it. But I guess that is too much work. People whine about Facebook, yet they do nothing to change the situation. You change the situation by making a choice. If your choice is to have Facebook account, then you are part of the problem, not the so…

> then you are part of the problem, not the solution Are you going US vs THEM on 2 billion people? Good luck with that.

There's 7.6 billion people in the world. That's a substantially larger "US" if you are going to reframe the OPs comments as implying "US vs Them."

Also given the recent velocity and volume of bad PR for Facebook, it's possible that public sentiment is irreparably turning against them.

Lastly, technology has no shortage of once popular products that have been relegated to the dustbin of history - see AOL, Nokia, Friendster, etc. Today's dominance is far from a guarantee.

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