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Dickhead of the Week: Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri

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Re: Dickhead of the Week: Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri

#71

I CAN'T WAIT for decentralized infrastructure to finally become robust enough that clones of instagram and facebook can all share a network -- they'll all become portals to the same social graph data. When that happens, there will no longer be any reason to put up with this abuse of privacy garbage.

Never going to happen. Ever. Decentralized means it's inevitably more cumbersome to use. If you make it easier you're taking shortcuts somewhere, especially if you want a platform that's resistant to censorship and is supposed to provide anonymity. And if you actually do succeed in this you'll inevitably end up with a platform where highly immoral content is just a wrong click away. It'll be this cycle of a new platf…

I think that, given the change we expect to see in human-computer interaction over the next few decades, you can't say never. The majority of the obstacles you outlined are not fundamental but rather implementation problems that can be solved by motivated parties with time and effort. Of course, saying this doesn't mean someone will solve them, just that someone can.

As an example, the censorship and immoral content dilemma is easily solved by letting the user "censor" their own feeds of content they themselves find objectionable. This is already trivially done via block lists and word filters, in the future thanks to ML there can be a much more sophisticated level of control exposed including fuzzy sentiment metrics. I wouldn't be surprised if tools like this are already being built. The key idea here being that the control is with the user rather than with some 3rd-party whom may or may not be taking the users own preferences into account.

Re: Dickhead of the Week: Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri

#72
post #62
post #35

Watch “The Social Dilemma” on Netflix, see how far off the rails the industry has gone, then come back and tell me that Apple is the bad guy here. Someone needs to start standing up for what’s right, and Apple is probably the only one with the size and cash reserves to be able to do it. For all the free market cheerleaders, remember this: we already have laws in place preventing or regulating businesses from engaging…

Apple is a giant corporation with varied interests. In some areas they align with consumers (they’re not heavily in advertising... yet) while in others their anti-competitive behavior is harmful. Writing these impassioned posts like you’re defending the decisions of your favorite sports team that can do no wrong... oof.

When Apple rejects Epic from its App Store for violating its TOC, is that being 'anti-competitive' ?

Re: Dickhead of the Week: Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri

#73

I CAN'T WAIT for decentralized infrastructure to finally become robust enough that clones of instagram and facebook can all share a network -- they'll all become portals to the same social graph data. When that happens, there will no longer be any reason to put up with this abuse of privacy garbage.

Never going to happen. Ever. Decentralized means it's inevitably more cumbersome to use. If you make it easier you're taking shortcuts somewhere, especially if you want a platform that's resistant to censorship and is supposed to provide anonymity. And if you actually do succeed in this you'll inevitably end up with a platform where highly immoral content is just a wrong click away. It'll be this cycle of a new platf…

I would instead say that the problem is political (or marketing) rather than technical: Facebook and Google were set up by an undergrad in his bedroom and three PhD students respectively. Building alternatives is easy, getting people to use them will be extremely difficult.

Re: Dickhead of the Week: Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri

#74
post #35

Watch “The Social Dilemma” on Netflix, see how far off the rails the industry has gone, then come back and tell me that Apple is the bad guy here. Someone needs to start standing up for what’s right, and Apple is probably the only one with the size and cash reserves to be able to do it. For all the free market cheerleaders, remember this: we already have laws in place preventing or regulating businesses from engaging…

There’s nothing wrong with the free market. They just unfortunately don’t give a crap about privacy.

Re: Dickhead of the Week: Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri

#75
There's a pretty simple solution to both sides of the problem people are complaining about in here. Make a personal choice to stop using Apple, Facebook, Instagram, and Epic products. It's pretty easy and there's no cloudiness ethically to this solution. Take personal responsibility and vote with your $currency and attention.

Re: Dickhead of the Week: Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri

#76
Honest question: Does Facebook app on iOS need IDFA that much? A user is logged in and identified anyway, Facebook can deliver personalized ads.

Facebook loses data about user activity outside Facebook, but is it so important? Isn't in-platform data not enough to personalize ads?

Re: Dickhead of the Week: Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri

#77
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never going to happen. Ever. Decentralized means it's inevitably more cumbersome to use. If you make it easier you're taking shortcuts somewhere, especially if you want a platform that's resistant to censorship and is supposed to provide anonymity. And if you actually do succeed in this you'll inevitably end up with a platform where highly immoral content is just a wrong click away. It'll be this cycle of a new platf…

> Decentralized means it's inevitably more cumbersome to use. Which will lead to a lot of users being hosted on a single instance which provides convenient access, which completes the loop to centralized. See gmail. > And if you actually do succeed in this you'll inevitably end up with a platform where highly immoral content is just a wrong click away. I don't think that is necessarily a problem for most users. > It'…

How many people (outside of the HN circle) actually use Gmail for personal email now? It's mostly been killed by Facebook, WhatsApp or their alternatives.

Re: Dickhead of the Week: Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri

#78
post #15

I might be one of the few, but I like the ads I see on Instagram and have purchased lots of things via IG ads. I can’t think of any other app/site where the ads have sucked me in. I realize this is besides the point, but I thought it was worth sharing in terms of how they might be doing personalization. For me, it’s so good that it actually works.

I agree - I (and at least one friend) feel the same way. There’s some great stuff being made for nerds like us and IG/FB ads have been a fun way to discover.

That being said - why doesn’t someone just cut out all the BS and just design a system that lets me give you my preferences - “show my interesting new products and services related to tech, cooking, coffee, and bicycling” - and then just show me the ads! I’d actually browse that if the ads were as good as IG/FB.

Would save everyone a ton of effort and hand-wringing.

Re: Dickhead of the Week: Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri

#79
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never going to happen. Ever. Decentralized means it's inevitably more cumbersome to use. If you make it easier you're taking shortcuts somewhere, especially if you want a platform that's resistant to censorship and is supposed to provide anonymity. And if you actually do succeed in this you'll inevitably end up with a platform where highly immoral content is just a wrong click away. It'll be this cycle of a new platf…

I would instead say that the problem is political (or marketing) rather than technical: Facebook and Google were set up by an undergrad in his bedroom and three PhD students respectively. Building alternatives is easy, getting people to use them will be extremely difficult.

Building alternatives that people will use is itself a technical problem, just not one that's as crisp as the algorithmic issues related to distributed computing.

Re: Dickhead of the Week: Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri

#80
post #51
post #35

Watch “The Social Dilemma” on Netflix, see how far off the rails the industry has gone, then come back and tell me that Apple is the bad guy here. Someone needs to start standing up for what’s right, and Apple is probably the only one with the size and cash reserves to be able to do it. For all the free market cheerleaders, remember this: we already have laws in place preventing or regulating businesses from engaging…

Apple cares so much they will take 30% of those loot box profits.

'would' not 'will'. Since they banned the loot box, Apple cares so much they actually 'are' giving up that 30%.
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