Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

#441

Post by wolverine876 » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 8:22 PM UTC

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.

Pardon the very general comment, but it seems that for every problem, nowadays people have to say it's hopeless, nobody cares, and nobody will do anything.

Someone the other day was mocking to me the idea that collective, voluntary, cooperative action could accomplish anything. Did they ever use the Internet (in fairness, they aren't in IT and may not be aware of FOSS - but Wikipedia?)? Every non-profit? The all-volunteer soldiers of the American Revolution and of today? All the democracies born of the people overthrowing the tyrants? The great reduction of smoking, increase in exercise and healthy diet? All the people that are wearing masks (~everybody, where I am)? The response to natural disasters? Does anyone critically examine these graphite-thin arguments?

It's not all or nothing - FB operates in society, and they do things and will do things in response to pressure and to avoid other problems. They aren't canceling all moderation tomorrow, for example.

The public can be persuaded. Why do many spend so much advertising on Facebook?

Re: Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

#442

Post by JohnBooty » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 8:26 PM UTC

grvdrm wrote: post #407

JohnBooty wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but I wouldn't call "passively keeping in touch" with thousands of people "relationships." It's something, but I'm not sure what, it seems like we may not have a good word for "casual strangers," Well, strictly speaking... it's a relationship, just a very casual kind. They are not intrinsically bad. The healthiness of it can vary widely. It's a very individual thing. The relevant questions to ask one's self would inc…

I admire you for saying that you genuinely enjoy/extract value from seeing "so-and-so from high school just had a baby, or whatever" on Facebook. I'm on the side of the others in that I don't feel like I lost anything from deleting my FB account (except I can't remember birthdays anymore). But it's interesting to hear you say you do. This particular thread reminded me of another recent thread: https://news.ycombinato…

Yeah. I mean, it doesn't have to be a contest right? I mean, I can't imagine having only deep, soulful relationships.

My neighbors are nice! We make small talk. That's fine. I like it.

Maybe the unspoken thing here is that it can be a human thing to feel you're a part of a community. A safety net of sorts. If I have to leave town on short notice for an emergency, who's going to feed my cats? I could find that person via my FB network. One of them would or would know somebody that could. One of them could ping me for the same thing. That kind of thing.

    This particular thread reminded me of another recent 
    thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28603650 
    - an app to help you form deeper relationships. Do you 
    need it? Do we need it? Do these things really help?

I feel like it could work to some extent, but I would feel really weird trying to get a group of friends to go in on it? Plus, I don't know. I'd feel like I was always trying to put on a show or something.

I feel like real relationships arise from shared experiences. Doing things together. Playing sports, writing code, gaming together, whatever.

I don't think an app about sharing your life can really accomplish that.

Re: Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

#443

Post by quotemstr » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 8:27 PM UTC

ferdowsi wrote: post #291

quotemstr wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there is already a double-digit premium Facebook must pay for talent That's an odd way of putting it. Do Google and Netflix and other big tech companies face the same "headwinds"? Their compensation is comparable. Facebook pays a premium because it's drawing from the top of the talent pool and is facing competition from other companies trying to acquire people with the same level of exceptional skill. The idea that…

Not sure why you think this. I work for a major organization and we have made sure to pay close attention to the outcomes of behavioral interviews when we evaluate candidates from Facebook, as we do from other organization with major reputational/ethical stains. Colleagues I speak to are increasingly doing this as well.

So you don't pay attention to behavioral interviews from companies you like? What do you think FB alumni would say during one of these interviews?

"Yeah, my favorite off-site was that time we ritually sacrificed infants to the flaming icon of Moloch. Lots of fun and smelled great! Does your company do off-sites?"

Have you ever actually interviewed someone from FB?

Or is all this about just filtering candidates for people who match your personal political views about, say, the role of advertising in society?

Re: Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

#444

Post by HWR_14 » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 8:31 PM UTC

ethbr0 wrote: post #230

mkr-hn wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been so long since a company reached Facebook's heights and fell that a whole generation doesn't know what it looks like. AOL was the Facebook of its time: a joke to system admins, a default ban on small game servers and IRC channels. Meanwhile, most people had no idea anyone had a problem with AOL. Like with Facebook, there were people reporting on its follies like Observers.net[0], but it mostly went unremarke…

I'd hesitate to generalize AOL's fall into Facebook's future. AOL's core proposition was being better than the Internet (more curated, coherent, and faster). When the web and internet exploded in size and scale, AOL's value evaporated. The dumb mergers and other mistakes were window dressing on this landscape transformation. And for years (decades? still?) afterwards, people used AOL Instant Messager (AIM), because i…

> The dumb mergers and other mistakes were window dressing on this landscape transformation.

Were all AOL's mergers dumb? IIRC, they used their sky-high stock price to buy Time Warner (among other things), and once AOL was no longer the cash cow they turned out to own a lot of valuable things.

Re: Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

#445

Post by aeturnum » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 8:33 PM UTC

KaiserPro wrote: post #202

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #26

The biggest component missing from Silicon Valley's discussion of Facebook is its pathological lying. They lied to the FTC [1]. They lied to WhatsApp and the EU [2]. They created an Oversight Board and then lied to it [3]. (These just off the top of my head.) The culture is perceived to be dishonest from the top down. That is why they get bludgeoned more than Twitter, or even Tik Tok. That is what its surrogates miss…

Every large corporation "lies". But there are a number of mechanisms. First, large corporation are large, which means its impossible to know whats happening everywhere. This means you are reliant on your underlings to report up to you. At each stage there will be entropy, noise and distortion. Second there is PR, their job is to massage, deflect and sway. Thirdly there is knowingly mislead in public. The problem we h…

Every company "lies" but Facebook lies. What OP cited had nothing to do with PR or public statements. They are all regulatory representations that were later found to be false. That's different.

It's pretty rare that companies make known material misstatements to regulators. Instead, they figure out what they want to do and they do make the least revealing statement that isn't a lie.

You mentioned that we should level this criticism at the rest of FAANG, but what examples do you have of other FAANG companies making obviously false statements in actual legal documents? As far as I know, through all of the Apple CSAM controversy their statements and their actions (however controversial) always matched up. That is not how Facebook operates.

Re: Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

#446

Post by RandallBrown » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 8:37 PM UTC

dr_dshiv wrote: post #368

RandallBrown wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being able to passively keep in touch with many of the thousands of people I've met in my life is incredibly valuable to me. It feels incredibly sad to just let those relationships die because you're focusing your energies on the people that are currently around you.

How do you keep in touch with them on Facebook? What makes your post reach them, if most don’t check often? I want Facebook for this purpose but it feels like it’s really not a blog. At all.

I post things about my life, they post things about theirs. We read it and know what's going on.

A friend of mine from high school happened to be in my city for a weekend. He posted on Facebook asking if he knew anyone there. We went out and had drinks and caught up.

I had a bunch of super close friends at a crappy job back when I was in college. We all went our separate ways but occasionally Facebook reminds one of us of some funny photo from the old days. It's triggered a few large group chats that have been pretty fun.

Every once in awhile I'll think about an old friend from school or a job or wherever and it's nice to just see what they're doing without having to go through starting a whole conversation. (Although I often will since Facebook is a good way to reach out to people.)

Re: Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

#447

Post by soylentcola » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 8:38 PM UTC

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #440

JohnBooty wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Users would need an order of magnitude superior alternative, and most critically, users would need to move en mass. Yeah. Network effect. Arguably nothing on Earth has ever had such a powerful network effect as Facebook. I dislike FB for all of the usual reasons, plus a few of my own. But I still have an FB account. I don't check it very often, and I've got notifications turned off. But ditching my FB account entirel…

> Arguably nothing on Earth has ever had such a powerful network effect as Facebook. Email, probably.

But you can switch email hosts or roll your own. With some more modern problems (getting marked as spam if you're not recognized) aside, you weren't forced to keep using your @aol.com or @yahoo.com or @hotmail.com accounts in order to communicate with people on those services via email.

With Facebook, it doesn't matter how much you dislike the company or how good some competitor is. You still can't talk with people on Facebook (and often, even view content) without being logged into an active Facebook account.

Re: Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

#448

Post by RandallBrown » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 8:39 PM UTC

vdqtp3 wrote: post #393

RandallBrown wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being able to passively keep in touch with many of the thousands of people I've met in my life is incredibly valuable to me. It feels incredibly sad to just let those relationships die because you're focusing your energies on the people that are currently around you.

Those passive relationships are why I left Facebook. I had hundreds of friends, from people I had met once or twice to family and close friends of decades - but few of them put any effort into the relationships, instead relying on Facebook to prompt them to wish well on major events or update them on news. Those relationships you don't want to let go of? They're largely worthless.

Worthless in what way? I get happiness knowing about the lives of people I have cared about.

An interesting person from 15 years ago doesn't usually stop being an interesting person just because I haven't talked to them regularly.

Re: Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

#449

Post by deltree7 » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 8:41 PM UTC

zenithd wrote: post #406

deltree7 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN delusion about their own self-importance is strong on this one. There are millions of talented Engineers who'd die to work for Facebook, Google, Netflix. Top 0.1%ile of 8,000,000,000 is 8 Million. Most woke, liberal graduates were protected from competition from other countries due to their location advantage. Ironically these woke employees are demanding remote work, displaying their usual cluelessness about unin…

> Top 0.1%ile of 8,000,000,000 is 8 Million. "All of humanity" a silly denominator. There are fewer than 30 million software engineers in the world [1], so at 0.1% we're talking about 30,000 people worldwide. That's... not a lot of people. At all. There are waaaaaay more than 30K "we'll pay anything for the best" SWE positions in the world. > Most woke, liberal graduates were protected from competition from other cou…

Outsourcing option pre-coursera/edx/YouTube/slack/remote-infrastructure is vastly different from post-x

An Analytical mind can be productive from 12 to 75; All of humanity is a pretty decent proxy for the talent pool.

Fortunately, there are many who are seeing the cancer of woke culture and are creating alternative pipelines and being very successful at it

Re: Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

#450

Post by soylentcola » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 8:44 PM UTC

RandallBrown wrote: post #446

dr_dshiv wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you keep in touch with them on Facebook? What makes your post reach them, if most don’t check often? I want Facebook for this purpose but it feels like it’s really not a blog. At all.

I post things about my life, they post things about theirs. We read it and know what's going on. A friend of mine from high school happened to be in my city for a weekend. He posted on Facebook asking if he knew anyone there. We went out and had drinks and caught up. I had a bunch of super close friends at a crappy job back when I was in college. We all went our separate ways but occasionally Facebook reminds one of…

That sort of "easy, zero-effort blog for everyone you know" was what made it useful. I got tired of using it when it got harder to surface that sort of stuff and harder to avoid the marketing, link spam, comments-section-style arguments, and scammers that flocked to the platform as it expanded.