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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

#481

Post by ethbr0 »

HWR_14 wrote: post #444
ethbr0 wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As with all mergers, it depends on to whom / for what.

For AOL shareholders, by 2002, between the merger and the dotcom bubble bursting, 2002$200 B (so about 2021$5.5 T?) had been wiped from AOL's market cap.

So that was, presumably, not good.

Re: Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

#482

Post by tediousdemise »

unethical_ban wrote: post #235
jwond wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference from what I see is that Republicans are attacking Facebook for censoring too much, while Democrats are attacking Facebook for censoring too little.

I think HN needs a thread dedicated to exploring the word "censor". If you think it means "any deletion of content" then I support some forms of censorship. If you think it means "the prohibition of the possession of thought or the ability to transmit that thought via your own mechanisms", then I am against it.

When content gets deleted or hidden, it inhibits the ability to transmit that thought, so I fail to see your distinction.

Censorship is censorship. "Good censorship" and "bad censorship" is a slippery slope.

The only type of content that should be censored in a given jurisdiction is content that is against the law.

What should be against the law is an entirely different discussion to be had amongst inhabitants of that sovereign jurisdiction.

When multinational corporations impose censorship that doesn't align with the laws of a given jurisdiction, it is tantamount to imperialism.

Re: Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

#483

Post by MiddleEndian »

JohnBooty wrote: post #308
seneca wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, exactly. The key question is to ask why this stream of concerted effort is pointed at taking down Favebook, and Twitter is left alone.

FB's emphasis on family connections makes it much more... potent, and almost cult-like in some ways. Families stay in touch and plan events on FB. Your mom, aunt, and uncle-in-law are rather likely to be on FB, but not Twitter. If they are on Twitter, Twitter doesn't hector you to "connect" with them with nearly the same fervor as FB. That has somewhat profound implications. If one ditches FB, one loses access to you…

To me, this is what makes Twitter (and Instagram and anything else aimed at talking to the public) mostly useless. I don't want to hear about the day-to-day lives of Twitter randos at all or follow celebrity gossip. On Facebook, I talk to and organize events with my friends and family. My conversations are continuous across devices, and they are not mobile-first like texting or whatsapp or snapchat or some of the new privacy-oriented platforms. I'm not a huge user of the newsfeed but I just unfollow anyone who posts irritating content. Back when they had auto-playing videos I unfollowed anyone who posted a video. Some of my friends apparently unfollowed me when I had a scary profile picture lol. But for the core usecase it still worked fine, we were still able to talk and organize events.

Re: Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

#484

Post by wayoutthere »

JohnBooty wrote: post #317
wayoutthere wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But ditching my FB account entirely means I'd lose access to dozens of people I wouldn't have a great way of contacting otherwise. That used to be a fear of mine, but after deleting my account I’ve found it to be a core feature. It forces me to be intentional with my relationships; if I want to stay in touch with someone I have to make the effort. Otherwise, the relationship is likely more parasocial than actively…

That sounds like a healthy place to be -- congrats on achieving that. I've largely achieved that as well, I think. Slightly different road traveled, perhaps. I have a larger than average extended family: a dozen aunts/uncles and a corresponding number of cousins. It's impossible to have a close relationship with all of them, but I do enjoy keeping up with how they're doing and knowing when big life events (and deaths…

I have a similar sized extended family, but I’ve honestly let them fade from my life. I’m old enough that the weddings and babies era is long behind us and we’re scattered all over the country. All I care to get I get from my mom, which is nice because it gives us something to talk about.

I have surrounded myself with chosen family and am always meeting new people. I give generously of myself to the people in my life because it brings me joy to do so. It’s a conscious trade off that means I lose touch with some people, and I’m ok with that. Most relationships should have an expiration date anyway; far too many people just go through the motions out of a sense of obligation.

Re: Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

#485

Post by mcguire »

mkr-hn wrote: post #149
SQueeeeeL wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, why was AOL a default ban on game servers? Can someone elaborate?

AOL was the Eternal September https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September Some admins of private servers blocked its IPs for the same reason IRC mods did. AOL got ordinary people on to the internet, so they were a poorer fit for any existing community on average.

Once upon a time, cs.utexas.edu ran a well-known email-to-news (i.e. NNTP, Usenet) gateway. After some problems, AOL's admins asked the person who ran it to block AOL email addresses. Yeah, this was years ago.

Some time later, a person who had an AOL email account (who some of you might recognize, so I won't name names even though I'm dying to) contacted the sysadmins, complaining that the email-to-news gateway wasn't working. When she learned that AOL addresses were blocked, she threw a tantrum, threatened to contact various newspapers, complained about UT blocking public access to things paid for by public money, and so on. As a result, the mail-to-news gateway was shut down.

That's my AOL story.

Re: Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

#486

Post by mcguire »

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…

"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 became Esso and Mobil, who became ExxonMobil, and ostensibly went right back to doing what it did best (owning most of the domestic oil market). Breaking up the company doesn't actually change the practices or culture of what got the company there in the first place. The new companies which are spun off oftentimes don't even know how to operate as companies and so they're easy pickings for the nucleus of the original company."

You realize there is about 88 years between step one and step two there?

"The same thing for smoking. If we look at smoking as "I light something on fire and jam it into my food hole" then yes, the numbers look promising according to the CDC website. If you look at a Vice article (https://www.vice.com/en/article/8xxx83/the-shady-link-betwee...), however, all the tobacco companies did was shift their business into providing alternatives to cigarettes. But they're still made from nicotine. It's just smoking without the smoke. That's the other reason why they're pushing so hard to regulate vaping - the idea that there's an "open source" "anyone can make this" alternative simply cuts out their business."

Do the new products cause as much harm as cigarettes?

Re: Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

#487

Post by mcguire »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #310
b3morales wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 meth…

If vaping was pure nicotine its health effects would be limited (i.e. much less dangerous than tobacco smoke). Unfortunately most vape devices deliver a witches brew of nasty chemicals (besides nicotine) added for flavor and increased addiction potential just like cigarettes did. Many of said chemicals have less well-studied health effects than those in tobacco.

"Many of said chemicals have less well-studied health effects than those in tobacco."

This is about the only known-to-be-true statement in that paragraph.

Pure nicotine is dangerous, and I see someone else has discussed the "witches brew".

Re: Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

#488

Post by tablespoon »

joshstrange wrote: post #386
pcf wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything in society is between "progressive" and "conservative" values. To say that "conservative opinions" are simply "misinformation", is very misinformed in itself.

Read the whole comment I replied to. There is no one trying to just censor conservative opinions, they are trying to censor conservative misinformation. I wasn’t painting all conservative opinions as misinformation, I’m was saying the things people want censored is the misinformation, not just opinions.

> Read the whole comment I replied to. There is no one trying to just censor conservative opinions, they are trying to censor conservative misinformation.

Exactly. There's there a popular bit of spin that tries defend mis/disinformation by confusing it with political opinion.

One of the signs of American decline and weakness is how several bits of blatant mis/disinformation have lodged themselves in the conservative discourse, and the conservatives who have problem with that are too weak to do anything about it.

I'm not saying that couldn't also be true of liberals, but that doesn't and shouldn't mean conservatives are off the hook for their own problems.

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