81–90 of 98 posts
I had an interview at Facebook where the hiring manager completely forgot about it. Ackward, because he was the one I was suppose to meet in the lobby. One of the interviewers came late and took me upstairs, and between the him and the other three, I heard three different stories about what happened to the hiring manager. However, in the interviews, I came under the impression that Facebook knows very well what they…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The POTUS has 300 million users. Facebook has 2 billion.
The POTUS has nukes and one of the most highly trained and best-equipped militaries in the world. Facebook can be shutdown by POTUS in an instant. Power is not measured by “users.”
Nukes are indeed powerful, but media organs have started wars before.
Remember the Maine!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The POTUS has nukes and one of the most highly trained and best-equipped militaries in the world. Facebook can be shutdown by POTUS in an instant. Power is not measured by “users.”
Power depends on a great many things. The form in which it's expressed, the interactions through which it's transmitted, the cost and refraction period before it can be re-used, all matter. Nukes are indeed powerful, but media organs have started wars before. Remember the Maine !
> “We have been working to ensure the integrity of the German elections this weekend,” Zuckerberg writes. Excuse me, what? As an advertising company, you don't ensure the integrity of a sovereign nation's election. You can at most abstain from unduly interfering with it (and of course you should, it's not particularly laudable or supererogatory).
Facebook has grown so big, and become so totalizing, that we can’t really grasp it all at once. Like a four-dimensional object, we catch slices of it when it passes through the three-dimensional world we recognize. This is an incredible bit of prose. It reads like a description of some kind of future mega-corporation from a Gibson novel, and it's mind-bending to contemplate that we really do live in that universe.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Power depends on a great many things. The form in which it's expressed, the interactions through which it's transmitted, the cost and refraction period before it can be re-used, all matter. Nukes are indeed powerful, but media organs have started wars before. Remember the Maine !
Fair enough. What's the hypothetical sequence of actions that Zuck might take to start a war?
History is your guide, the tactics have not fundamentally changed. The process isn't certain, and, as in many cases, the principle ingredient is disinhibition, recklessness, or ignorance.
And if not Zuckerberg, the next new-media mogul to hold the attention of a few billion eyeballs. More, I might add, than any media empire in history.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fair enough. What's the hypothetical sequence of actions that Zuck might take to start a war?
Find a tinderbox. Toss a match. History is your guide, the tactics have not fundamentally changed. The process isn't certain, and, as in many cases, the principle ingredient is disinhibition, recklessness, or ignorance. And if not Zuckerberg, the next new-media mogul to hold the attention of a few billion eyeballs. More, I might add, than any media empire in history.
Quote of the year: > But if Facebook is bigger, newer, and weirder than a mere company, surely his trip is bigger, newer, and weirder than a mere presidential run. Maybe he’s doing research and development, reverse-engineering social bonds to understand how Facebook might better facilitate them. Maybe Facebook is a church and Zuckerberg is offering his benedictions. Maybe Facebook is a state within a state and Zucke…
Maybe someone is behind Zuckerberg? I don't find him too smart, really.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
that works with a negative 'doesn't know it' but not with a positive 'does know it'. The question does even X know Y? Implies that X is somehow out of touch, and not knowing Y, but maybe they do - surprise! The question Does even X not know Y? Implies we would expect X to know Y, but what if even X does not? The question Doesn't X even know Y? Implies that X is stupid and doesn't know a lot of things, but can it be t…
There are a lot more nuances than your analysis admits, and one is the assumed inflection of the speaker. Consider "Does anyone know Y?". Depending on how it is said, it could be either a straightforward question about whether anyone knows Y, or with an upward inflection on "anyone" it could mean "I doubt anyone knows Y, but it's possible someone does." With that same inflection on a person's name, "Does even Person…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The President of the US indisputably has more destructive power than the CEO of Facebook, but the ability to kill people is not the only measure of power. And, how would the President shut down Facebook in an instant? The US President's powers are highly constrained, as many of them have complained about.
I'd like a better understanding of your viewpoint. What actions do you think Zuck could take which would demonstrate that he has more power than Trump? And, why do you raise the hypothetical of Trump shutting down Facebook? In particular, it's my understanding that many of Trump's foes are blaming FB for his win.
As to actions that Zuck could take to show that he has more power than the POTUS? As I mentioned, constructive power and destructive power are of different natures, so that the power of an artist building a great sculpture is not really comparable to the power to smash that sculpture with a hammer.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The grandparent's reaction is a bit unkempt. I suggest that it is very possible that Facebook, with its access to something like 1 billion MAUs, needs to be regulated, and regulated possibly differently than companies before it. The FEC has some rules for political ads with respect to the Internet, but I am in favor of revisiting those to see what rules need to be established for the greater good of the public >There…
So is $100,000 worth of ads enough to sway an election? Because I have stats claiming nobody clicks on ads.