Facebook Now Faces a Massive Backlash. But Will Anything Change? (fortune.com) 175
Slate argues that Facebook "is a normal sleazy company now," saying the company "obscured its problems and fought dirty against its critics" -- but that now its failings are being publicly aired. And Reason provides yet another example:
The Times also reveals that Facebook chose to support FOSTA (and its Senate counterpart, SESTA) -- legislation that guts a fundamental protection for digital publishers and platforms, and makes prostitution advertising a federal crime -- not as a matter of principle but as a political tactic to tar opponents and cozy up to Congressional critics.
Even Steve Wozniak has joined the critics, saying this week that Facebook should "stop putting money before morals," adding later that "I haven't seen them do one real thing." Woz also suggested that Facebook should allow users to export their data so they could upload it onto competing social networks.
Now long-time Slashdot reader pcjunky reports that the same scammy ad has been running on Facebook for a full two months after it was reported. But maybe they're just understaffed? Engadget reports that over the last six months Facebook has discoverd and eliminated 1.5 billion different fake accounts -- which is 200 million more than the 1.3 billion accounts it removed in the previous six months. On the Blind app, one Facebook employee reportedly asked the ultimate question: "Why does our company suck at having a moral compass?"
So where will it all lead? According to Fortune, Senators Chris Coons and Bob Corker "warned Friday that Congress would impose new regulations to rein in Facebook unless the social-media company addresses concerns about privacy and the spread of misinformation on its platform."
But will anything change?
Even Steve Wozniak has joined the critics, saying this week that Facebook should "stop putting money before morals," adding later that "I haven't seen them do one real thing." Woz also suggested that Facebook should allow users to export their data so they could upload it onto competing social networks.
Now long-time Slashdot reader pcjunky reports that the same scammy ad has been running on Facebook for a full two months after it was reported. But maybe they're just understaffed? Engadget reports that over the last six months Facebook has discoverd and eliminated 1.5 billion different fake accounts -- which is 200 million more than the 1.3 billion accounts it removed in the previous six months. On the Blind app, one Facebook employee reportedly asked the ultimate question: "Why does our company suck at having a moral compass?"
So where will it all lead? According to Fortune, Senators Chris Coons and Bob Corker "warned Friday that Congress would impose new regulations to rein in Facebook unless the social-media company addresses concerns about privacy and the spread of misinformation on its platform."
But will anything change?
The problem is... (Score:4, Insightful)
Zuckerberg
Re:The problem is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep. His attitude during his senate hearing tells you everything you need to know about Facebook.
No the problem is the barrier to entry (Score:4, Interesting)
Because there is facebook, and it's most important feature is it's scale, there is no possibility of market entry for a competitor. Ask google.
Because there is no other competitor, there is no room to explore other bussiness models, like say not-free
Because there are no other cometitors we are stuck with facebook's bad aspects, many of which can't change because of their entrenched bussiness model
On the other hand, if facebook were to be killed and disappear, competitors would spring up. Nothing facebook provides would be lost.
thus facebook could be killed and nothing would be lost, and it's very likely now that we have the hindsight of why the bussiness model leads to bad behaviours we didn't appreciate before, the new competitors could actually succeed with different ones.
TO understand the vicious cycle imagine the following. Someone announces a subscription service providing the interconnectivy of face book. it will shed all the bad features that came from the advertising and data monetization of the human cattle and survive on subscriptions from customers.
Would you join? no. and not just because of the subscription. But because it will suck when the userbase is small. And a small userbase will also mean higher subscription fees. So this will never find a foothold.
If facebook just were killed tommorrow, and suddenly it's a lot of small companies jostling for market share then that subscription model or some other model where you are not cattle sold off for your data and the desire of others to subject you to brainwashing might become popular!
So facebook needs to be killed off due to creating some data privacy protections that make it's bussiness model go up in smoke.
You could also just try to make some criminal or regulatory laws instead but that would mean government meddling with free speech and a free-press. So that would not be a good way to approach it.
unfortunately both trump (to control it) and russian-injured democrats are looking at the regulatory approach of managing facebooks freedoms.
instead we'd be better off just killing it's bussiness model. example: make all platforms responsible for their content. that would do it. But it would be too strong and have other consequences. Perhaps simply: a $10,000 per user fine for data privacy losses. that would kill them flat and maybe be a good thing even if it killed off some other activities across the web
Re:No the problem is the barrier to entry (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem is that Facebook's business model is the only one that will work until and unless there is a major shift in cultural attitudes.
As long as people do not value their privacy, and are unwilling to pay even a tiny token amount for a service they use, then the data harvesting model is the only way to go.
The only other possible alternatives are gov't run services paid by taxes, or relying on a large network of altruistic people to maintain everything. I think we can all agree on the likelihood of those options working.
Facebook is the inevitable consequence, and the average person that made Facebook possible have only themselves to blame.
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unwilling to pay even a tiny token amount for a service they use
This isn't really true, though. Whatsapp used to be an annual paid service at $1 per year.
People are willing to pay some small amount for a compelling service.
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How many paid it though?
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Except people don't feel miserable searching for things, whereas more and more feel so when they scroll endlessly through their news feed on their phone.
I expect the Facebook problem will solve itself in a couple years when majority simply stops going; the Google problem won't.
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that only took several decades and microsoft's lunch is still a pretty big one.
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maybe you should stop ranting and read the posts you reply to in-full?
Re:The problem is... (Score:5, Insightful)
[The problem is...]
Zuckerberg
Not specifically him, no.
The problem is human nature.
Any time a person or group of people gains immense power & control combined with incredible wealth, shenanigans are certain to occur, with the populace getting it in the neck on multiple levels. Most of human history revolves around this same cycle repeating again and again. It's the Merry-Go-Round From Hell.
It doesn't matter if we're talking mega-corps or mega-governments. When they get too powerful and control too much, they must be restrained.
Strat
Re:The problem is... (Score:4, Interesting)
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Not specifically him, no. The problem is human nature.
You don't think people should be held personally accountable? What about Craig Newmark of Craigslist? There are lots of honorable people doing the right thing. Zuckerberg *is* a problem. As is Sandberg. And don't forget Zuckerberg owns 60% of the company. So he's directly responsible for the corporate behavior. Though I wouldn't judge him too harshly. He's little more than an overgrown teenager who got filthy rich. *That* shouldn't have been able to happen.
This reminds me of the early days with electricity
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This reminds me of the early days with electricity and radioactive elements. In both cases, lots of people inexplicably concluded that the new technology would be a panacea and sold things like electrocution shirts to cure disease.
And many of them killed themselves in their pursuit.
But some things never change. The radium girls, who were taught to make a fine tip for painting watch dials by sticking the brush in their mouth - and dosing themselves with lethal doses of radium, were accused of being sluts who contracted VD. Then they dosed children with high levels of X-Ray Radiation with flourograph shoe fitting devices.
Now we're a lot better about safety, but still do not understand money and what happens if you allow a small gr
Re:The problem is... (Score:4, Interesting)
I found your post interesting, till I reached this point.
I mean, I'm no Zuck fan, but why would you have a problem with him, or anyone getting wealthy at a young age or any age for that matter?
That's the American dream. Hell, I still hope some day I can get somewhat wealthy!!
I'm not jealous of nor begrudge those that do attain wealth....sounds like you have a problem with people getting rich?
Why?
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If we prevent stupid people from getting rich, we've just killed the American dream. There are other ways to deal with the problem.
Re:The problem is... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's the Merry-Go-Round From Hell.
It doesn't matter if we're talking mega-corps or mega-governments. When they get too powerful and control too much, they must be restrained.
Strat
Sounds awfully socialist to me!
Just kidding, because I agree. Because it is true. We live in an age where corporations have become the defacto ruling class.
And while harnessing greed to enable capitalism, or whatever off flavor of it we are dealing with, the corporate ruling class and their toady minions, the politicians, have put a brick on the throttle pedal and cut the brake lines.
We live in a nation now where working minimum wage qualifies you for poverty benefits, and a fellow gives 1.6 billion to a University. This is not a sustainable situation, and this statement is coming from a person who is pretty well off.
that's the difference between $1,600,000,000.00 and around $23,000.00. The math is pretty damning.
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The answer to the problem:
diaspora.org
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Everyone has a moral compass. Every corporation is run by people who all have moral compasses.
The problem is where the compass points and leads their actions.
And these so-called 'compassless' people have a few things in common, which is instructive.
"now"? (Score:5, Informative)
I talked to a round 1 employee. (Score:3, Informative)
He bragged about their misbehavior back then, as well as how much money they were making off it. The data mining facebook was just a matter of time based on what he said back then, and I didn't trust them much as a result. Finally everybody else is catching up to the concerns I've had for 20 years and they have been oblivious to.
Next up: Google, Cloudflare, Akamai, Valve/Steam, Akamai, and a few other huge data companies.
We are not a number, or a product, we are a customer. The sooner the peasants remember
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We are not a number, or a product, we are a customer. The sooner the peasants remember that mantra the sooner corporations will be reined in.
Sorry to burst your bubble but, at least in Facebook's case, you're definitely the product.
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Re:I talked to a round 1 employee. (Score:5, Interesting)
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In order to get rid of the crappy practices, someone needs to come up with a viable new system. The current methods being crap is a valid statement, if someone actually comes up with a working way to turn views into cash without tracking or ruining the experience, they'd become very wealthy very fast.
Maybe by mining cryptocurrencies in the webbrowser, if it's done with explicit user permission.
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Next up: Google, Cloudflare, Akamai, Valve/Steam, Akamai, and a few other huge data companies.
You forgot Akamai.
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People won't pay ten dollars a month, but are the same type of people who don't think twice about spending ten bucks ever other day on cigarettes.
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Re: I talked to a round 1 employee. (Score:2)
You may think I'm joking but our White House is readying the defense as we speak. Look for that in the next few months as the FDA proposes more restrictions...
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Re:Dumb fucks (Score:2)
Yes, now (Score:1)
It was sleazy before, but it's also normal now. It's now an established sleazy company, not a sleazy startup anymore.
Re:"now"? (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure, but people are really waking up to it now. Facebook has been spending large amount of money advertising how trustworthy and honest they are, which can only mean that that research is telling them that people think they are untrustworthy and dishonest.
I'd like to think this is the start of people realizing that all these free internet services are a trade-off, but we shall see.
Re: "now"? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: "now"? (Score:5, Informative)
In a large sense, that's true. Facebook (and other social media) has increased political polarization by creating a feedback loop out of people's narrowly focused worldview, instead of expanding their range of thought.
#deletefacebook
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In a large sense, that's true. Facebook (and other social media) has increased political polarization by creating a feedback loop out of people's narrowly focused worldview, instead of expanding their range of thought.
FB did not invent gamification. But it was a natural fit for FB to gamify their users' social lives. That boils down to a social platform constantly gaming us into acting like pavlovian animal experiments, where it is emotionally powerful images that are the carrots and sticks, rather than food and electric shocks.
Re:"now"? (Score:5, Interesting)
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They are trying to paint it as them being the victims of these nasty people abusing your personal data and posting fake news, even though they helped them do it and charged them for it.
Betteridge's law says... (Score:3, Insightful)
'no'... and it's correct. nothing will change. not until zuck gets off his power tripping ride and/or the profits start drying up.
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'no'... and it's correct. nothing will change. not until zuck gets off his power tripping ride and/or the profits start drying up.
Well the stock price is only about 75% of what it was about a year ago when all of this started coming out which means Zuck has lost about a quarter of his wealth. So there's that...
Re:Betteridge's law says... (Score:4)
Well the stock price is only about 75% of what it was about a year ago when all of this started coming out which means Zuck has lost about a quarter of his wealth. So there's that...
Yep. I'm sure it stings when you can only spend six million a day instead of eight.
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"wealth"
I do not think that word means what you think it means.
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Well the stock price is only about 75% of what it was about a year ago when all of this started coming out which means Zuck has lost about a quarter of his wealth. So there's that...
Yep. I'm sure it stings when you can only spend six million a day instead of eight.
It probably does. When reaching those figures it does not really matter how much you can spend a day, for you already passed the threshold of what you can reasonably spend per day long ago - sure, you can buy several Lamborghini a day but, what for? No, what matters is that you have lost something in the way of power and influence - and that does sting, especially when others in the same rarefied levels have gained instead.
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Nothing will change until FB haemorrhages users (ie. people stop logging on, and eventually close their accounts). Even #deletefacebook didn't really put a dent in their user numbers, and those that remain are still as active as ever, so I don't see it happening any time soon.
Once their 'reach' diminishes, then the whole house of cards comes crashing down. Network effects and all that...
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What I advocate instead of closing the account is using a browser add-on like the Social Book Manager to undo everything you've ever done on FB (after backing up your data) except contacts so your account becomes an empty shell with a useful contact list. It's a much easier pill to swallow while it gives you the same amount of relief and the amount of sticking it to FB, if not a little bit more.
Facebook (Score:4, Interesting)
As if we, as a society, don't have worse more urgent and a lot more pressing issues at the moment.
As if we are required to post our private information for everyone to see.
As if people haven't already understood that everything that they see on the Internet might be false and Facebook is not an exception.
So, why are people still so concerned about Facebook privacy/data policies/advertising so much?
Re:Facebook (Score:5, Interesting)
Because every website that has a Facebook Like button on it is sending information about you back to Facebook.
Because every website that loads Facebook Javascript is sending information about you back to Facebook.
Facebook knows where on the Web you've been, what kinds of products you look at, what kinds of websites and articles you read, what your probable demographics, income and political views are. They know what kind of work you do. They know where your house is, within a quarter mile. They know what kind of restaurants and movies you like. If you share a machine with someone, Facebook can tell whether it's you or the other person using it. If you clear all your cookies or use a different machine, Facebook can quickly (re)determine that it's you.
And that's all if you DON'T use Facebook.
Re:Facebook (Score:5, Informative)
There are dozens of other companies on the Internet which collect your information without your consent. Facebook is not the worst offender and if everyone's so concerned, we must enact the laws which make information gathering illegal in general vs. persecuting Facebook alone.
Also, just also, the way the web was designed in the first place makes it very difficult to evade such kind of tracking, so this issue must be solved at the web browser level as well. I've solved it by using session only cookies, having NoScript installed and disabling web browser disk cache. But that's not nearly enough unfortunately since your web browser leaves dozen of fingerprints [browserleaks.com] which are very difficult to hide unless you switch to the Tor browser.
Let's be honest: tracking on the Internet is a serious issue and it's not just Facebook which abuses it to its advantage.
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There are dozens of other companies on the Internet which collect your information without your consent. Facebook is not the worst offender and if everyone's so concerned, we must enact the laws which make information gathering illegal in general vs. persecuting Facebook alone.
It's like your house after the holidays... maybe you had the pleasure of the company of a dozen relatives, half of whom drank and stumbled about ignoring their parental duties as their tiny offspring army used your humble abode like a rented mule.
It's dirty a.f. You have to start cleaning up somewhere and the bathroom (Fakebook) is as good a place to start as any.
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There are dozens of other companies on the Internet which collect your information without your consent. Facebook is not the worst offender and if everyone's so concerned, we must enact the laws which make information gathering illegal in general vs. persecuting Facebook alone.
Agreed... Facebook is just the most obvious scapegoat at the moment, but Facebook tracking is not unique. If I move my eyes 4 inches to the right on this screen I see a Google-powered ad for a product I looked at last week. And in Google's case I didn't choose to be part of a social media platform (not explicitly, at least) knowing they would track me.
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"https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https://example.com/index.html"
but there are no scripts running (especially from Facebook!) on my website.
Am I wrong to think that this, by itself, is safe and provides no tracking information?
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If a person follows this link, Facebook will know that your visitor has visited the exact URL this link is hosted at. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Browser add
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Re:Facebook (Score:4, Funny)
They know where your house is, within a quarter mile.
That's all?
Every seller of whoopie cushions in the 1970s knew exactly which house I lived in, judging by the catalogs we received.
Product (Score:4, Insightful)
Load up NoScript and go to any news site. See the two dozen domains being blocked? Those are all companies harvesting your browsing data, just like Microsoft. Which is what you would expect, seeing as how you aren't paying anything to read the website, then YOU are the product.
Unless you want to go back to the days where you pay CompuServe $50/month to read articles from a dozen newspapers on top of an hourly access fee, this is how on-line services work now.
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> Because every website that has a Facebook Like button on it is
> sending information about you back to Facebook.
> Because every website that loads Facebook Javascript is
> sending information about you back to Facebook.
Most sites now have Facebook tracking without the Like buttons as the Like button is acquiring a negative connotation. There are facebook.net and connect.facebook.net facebook user and facebook non-users data collection beacons all over the internet on sites many visit regularly.
Genocide (Score:2, Insightful)
The issue isn't facebook datamining. The issue is that Zuck is happily making money off media campaigns that will end in genocide. While you're worried about the Rohinga, you're missing much, much larger social trends. The progressive groupthink now openly calls for the destruction of rural American cultures and the propaganda campaign has been so successful that 60% of Democrats believe all Republicans are racist and sexist. [thehill.com] That's not reality. That's just propaganda spread by Facebook.
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Most of your readers only heard a *whoosh* sound... Sad, they may only respond to the much louder and more alarming sounds later.
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"As if we, as a society, don't have worse more urgent and a lot more pressing issues at the moment.
As if we are required to post our private information for everyone to see."
This is definitely one of the most pressing issues going on right now. The fact it is largely invisible only makes it that much more pressing not less. Government, corporations, potential employers, your own employer, these are the worst possible people who could see your information.
As soon as humanly possible private information store
Most People I Know Have Accounts, But Are Dead (Score:3, Interesting)
I've given up even bothering checking my friends and acquaintances on Facebook. 95 percent of them are dead. Most actively post on other social media services and a few of them will occasionally post something randomly on Facebook but it feels like a ghost town.
And besides the dead accounts, Facebook feels incredibly outdated and clunky to use.
One might suggest that the accounts I follow are just an anomaly, but they are a pretty diverse set of family, friends, and work focused accounts. I have to imagine that the entire Facebook valuation is a giant house of cards just waiting for some social media/data scientist to come out with some study that shows the emperor has no clothes.
No. (Score:5, Interesting)
Beyond the obvious Betteridge response, Facebook is now a publicly traded corporation and board members of publicly traded corporations are required to do whatever it takes to increase the value of stocks or be voted out. This seems like a good idea until you realize this brings out the absolute worst and most sociopathic behavior. Facebook is not going to change.
However, what is going to change (eventually) is everyone else's obsession with Facebook. Sure, you'll always have a class of fools who will keep using it regardless of the what they hear but the allure is that other people are also using it. As more people recognize it's making them unhappy, more people will quit. The good news is that far fewer people from the latest generation are actually joining. Sadly, this pattern will only happen language by language. Small language bases will form quickly and evaporate just as quickly. However, widespread languages will slowly decay.
Ultimately, a better alternative to Facebook is going to be what eviscerates Facebook's userbase but it's corpse will forever haunt the internet just like MySpace.
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The problem is facebook has the ears of a large number of users, competing against them is extremely difficult...
What's really needed is not a competitor, as any for-profit company is ultimately going to end up going the same way. What's needed is an open standard where multiple providers can interoperate and users can choose which provider to use or even host their own. That's how the internet was always supposed to work, there are literally millions of email and web servers out there all interoperating wi
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It is called: diaspora.org
You can form your own node, and interact with other nodes. Your non-technical friends can join your node.
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First of all, plenty of companies lose money without requiring their board members to be voted out. Secondly, according to Investopedia [investopedia.com], Zuckerberg has shares with the majority of voting rights in the company, so that wouldn't really hold true, anyway.
"Should" allow user data export? More like "must" (Score:5, Insightful)
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When I quit Facebook, they provided a link to download everything they had on me into a zip file.
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You don't understand how this work. My data is worthless. What is valuable is the ability to target advertisements. A diaper company doesn't want to pay for ads to people without babies. FB, et. al., use the data to make the ads effective. If I'm not there to view ANY of their ads, they don't get paid. AT ALL
This is not just a USA problem but a world problem (Score:2)
Except China (Score:4, Informative)
Funny thing is Facebook is blocked in China.
You know, as if the Chinese govt looked at Facebook and understood its implications years ago.
And to think that HRC won (Score:2)
And to think that HRC won none of the stuff they're being pilloried for would be a problem. I hope they go after the entire fucking web ads ecosystem next. It's not like FB is the only company out there that collects data and sells targetable ads to whoever wins the realtime auction.
Re: And to think that HRC won (Score:2, Insightful)
Please. Obamaâ(TM)s campaign downloaded the entire social graph in 2012 and FB was proud of getting him re-elected. If everything went according to the plan and HRC won, weâ(TM)d be reading praise for FB, not condemnation.
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https://thehill.com/opinion/te... [thehill.com]
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The CEO of US Capitalism. (Score:5, Insightful)
""Why does our company suck at having a moral compass?"
Because Greed N. Corruption is CEO of US Capitalism, and has been for a long time now.
And Facebook is hardly the only one who's morally bankrupt here. All the other mega-corporations do it. They're just not standing in the spotlight, live-streaming their dirty laundry for the world to see right now. Even if they were, they wouldn't care.
The world is so flat right now that all of the mega-corps always have plenty of customers. Corporate Arrogance is the standard by which they act. They're going to do what makes them money, and no longer give a shit about how they treat you or what you want. That is why you repeatedly hear stories about companies doing shit that seems to make little or no sense from a consumer demand standpoint, with the end result being more profit, which is all that matters. This is why you have $1000 smartphones with a ton of bullshit features you never asked for bolted to non-removable shitty batteries. This is why you new cars come with $10,000 worth of shit you don't want, but is now standard. All new computers will soon have soldered memory and storage with no upgrade options. It's become almost impossible to find a new non-Smart TV, and soon will be the case for every appliance in your house.
My advice? Buy stocks. Because you can't beat 'em and won't leave 'em (en masse) to stand up to this bullshit.
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My advice? Buy stocks. Because you can't beat 'em and won't leave 'em (en masse) to stand up to this bullshit.
Throwing your support behind the greatest bully "because you can't beat'em" did not work out all that great for Nazi Germany. Stop being part of the problem. It's the least you can do for the world.
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My advice? Buy stocks. Because you can't beat 'em and won't leave 'em (en masse) to stand up to this bullshit.
Throwing your support behind the greatest bully "because you can't beat'em" did not work out all that great for Nazi Germany. Stop being part of the problem. It's the least you can do for the world.
Oh Great Moral One, please enlighten me as to your ethically clean and morally sound investment portfolio. I'd love to hear a funny story of ignorance.
Investing is hardly part of the problem. Idiots who stand in line for days waiting to buy a $1000+ smartphone are feeding that problem a hell of a lot more than I ever will. And you will never have enough consumers that get off their ass and take action to stop using or buying products, no matter how badly they're treated. As I said before, they're will
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You can beat them - it's called capitalism, don't like it don't use it or buy it. Plenty of people seem to not care about Facebook. I do, I don't use them, never had an account, use adblockers to not load their crap on other sites. But a lot of people griping are just virtue signaling with "Facebook is so bad" and then having a "follow me" and "thumbs up" button after the very article they decry those practices.
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""Why does our company suck at having a moral compass?"
Because Greed N. Corruption is CEO of US Capitalism, and has been for a long time now.
While true, we should take one step back. Facebook is a publicly traded company. The essential fiduciary duty of a publicly traded company is to maximize profits for its shareholders without regard to any moral considerations. Which implies that companies will push the law to the limit, regardless of ethics and morality. Even more, they will predictably break the law, if they think they can get away with it, or when they make the calculation that breaking the law and getting caught is more profitable than n
Re:The CEO of US Capitalism. (Score:4, Informative)
The essential fiduciary duty of a publicly traded company is to maximize profits for its shareholders without regard to any moral considerations.
This is untrue.
The essential duty of a publicly-traded company is to work towards the goals outlined in its articles of incorporation and IPO letters, and perhaps the will of the shareholders if votes are held to alter those documented goals (not common). The goals nearly always include generating profits, but that's often not the only goal, and sometimes it isn't even the primary goal. It is always a goal, because all publicly-traded corporations are for-profit (US law bars non-profit corporations from selling shares).
And even for corporations that do have profit generation as their primary, or only, goal, it's still not true that directors and executives will be held legally accountable for failing to maximize profit. In theory that's possible, in practice it only happens with the most egregious of mismanagement.
There are characteristics of large organizations that tend to dilute moral concern and enable otherwise reasonably-moral individuals to make extremely amoral decisions. But it has nothing to do with fiduciary duty. Please, let's kill this tired old trope.
Glass houses (Score:3)
Slate argues that Facebook "is a normal sleazy company now," saying the company "obscured its problems and fought dirty against its critics" -- but that now its failings are being publicly aired
"Now"? They have ALWAYS been a sleazy company from day one. There have literally been movies made about the lack of moral compass their founder has. Of course they fought dirty. Anyone who believes or believed otherwise is either naive or a moron.
Even Steve Wozniak has joined the critics, saying this week that Facebook should "stop putting money before morals," adding later that "I haven't seen them do one real thing."
Easy to say for the guy who made a fortune 30+ years ago and has been more or less coasting ever since then on his celebrity. Don't get me wrong, I like and respect the hell out of Woz but what has he done besides some charity work in the last 30 years that I should care about? It has no more credibility than me pointing out that Facebook lacks a moral compass - he just has a bigger megaphone. When Woz uses his fortune to actually build something bigger than his public image I'll take his opinion on the matter more seriously. Not to mention he hasn't exactly taken Apple to the woodshed for many of their ethics problems so I think we might have a glass house in play here.
Woz also suggested that Facebook should allow users to export their data so they could upload it onto competing social networks.
You know, Woz is seemingly a very decent but this is just almost weapons grade stupid. How about Woz tell Apple to drop all their patents and open source their software? Because that's the functional equivalent of what he is suggesting. He's telling Facebook to hand over the crown jewels of their empire which is data about their customers. Woz cannot possibly be dumb enough to believe that is a useful suggestion for anything other than for puffing up his own image.
Re: (Score:2)
Woz also suggested that Facebook should allow users to export their data so they could upload it onto competing social networks.
You know, Woz is seemingly a very decent but this is just almost weapons grade stupid. How about Woz tell Apple to drop all their patents and open source their software? Because that's the functional equivalent of what he is suggesting. He's telling Facebook to hand over the crown jewels of their empire which is data about their customers.
Google allows users to export all of their data. Hasn't seemed to destroy Google. I'll grant that Google has assets other than user data, but user data is still pretty big.
Crown jewels (Score:2)
Google allows users to export all of their data. Hasn't seemed to destroy Google.
A) Google definitely does NOT permit exporting all their data or even accessing all of it. Some yes but definitely not all.
B) Different business model and the information Google cares about is different than the information Facebook cares about.
C) Google's crown jewels are the quality of their searches and they aren't about to tell anyone key details of how they do that.
D) Meta-data about group tendencies are as valuable as personal information and they don't (and won't) give you access to that.
Re: (Score:2)
Google allows users to export all of their data. Hasn't seemed to destroy Google.
A) Google definitely does NOT permit exporting all their data or even accessing all of it. Some yes but definitely not all.
Cite? Looks like all of it to me. They can't include anything they infer is *probably* about you, such as browsing history while not logged in, because if it's not actually yours giving it to you would violate the privacy of whoever it was.
D) Meta-data about group tendencies are as valuable as personal information and they don't (and won't) give you access to that.
Google sells such aggregated statistical data.
Misinformation... (Score:3)
Misinformation is free speech, the problem is not the people spreading false information, it's the people reading it and believing it rather than making the effort to do their own research to determine the truth.
The fact is all media is at least skewed to one side of any issue, and in any case the truth is usually more complicated than can be explained in the limited space of a news article.
However if people start doing their own research, they will discover that they can't trust the mainstream media any more than they can trust trolls on facebook.
Re: (Score:3)
A lot of it isn't outright lies, its partial truth designed to push a specific agenda...
Facebook Story (Score:3)
Here's my facebook story. I've started seeing ads for "casinos". Each one has a different keyboard-smash name. The ads are all identical, a picture of a politician and "You won't BELIEVE what he said" and they link to a fake news site. It's meant to look exactly like the real news site, and the sidebar is full of real stories from the real news site. But this article, this page, is fake. The " incredible thing" from the clickbait headline is that this politician has legalized online casinos and personally endorsed keyboard-smash casino, a casino so shitty that every time you bet, you win. The "comments" are full of people saying they hate this politician (realism) but, they clicked anyway and are now all millionaires because you just can't lose! So, obvious bullshit, close the tab. Can't. Chrome doesn't allow it to be closed. Back? Disabled. Then it starts the infinite popup chain of "YOU WON ENTER BANKING DETAILS TO CLAIM PRIZE".
I reported them all to Facebook and was told to fuck off "This is fully compliant with Facebook's ad policy".
Scammy ad (Score:2)
It makes me wince to come across as defending Facebook, but regarding the "scammy ad" reader pcjunky is talking about.... Facebook is not Amazon. It is not reasonable to expect Facebook to vet the products being sold by some business that has bought advertising on their platform. If something seems too good to be true.... then it probably is. Lots of individuals sell products on Facebook too, and it's no better than Craiglist in that regard. You should at least bother to research the website selling a p
"Now"? (Score:2)
Was Facebook ever not a sleazy company?
Of couse it will change (Score:2)
Eventually folks will tire of all the bullshit, someone else will create a ' NEW ' platform that performs similar functions and the masses will simply jump ship and move there.
Facebook will take its place on the social media trash pile of history alongside MySpace.
Zuck will take his billions he's made and retire in luxury to his Hawaii palace, and that will pretty much be the end of it.
Not Only Tech (Score:2)
Its disingenuous to paint this as a Facebook or even a tech only issue. Classically when you subscribed to a magazine or newspaper, the publisher would the sell your contact information and subscription details to third parties. ISPs are inserting tracking headers in traffic, and selling browsing details. Cell providers are selling demographic information based on location, they're also selling location data. Virtually every business is packaging and trading on the data about you.
Yes and no (Score:2)
If historical evidence is any guide, mine being old MMO's that're still operating today. Evidence suggests there will always being a substantial number of people whom will cling to Facebook.
However, I think these revelations being repeated in various mediums will severely curtail new joins to Facebook. In this age, I suspect many a parent is telling their kids to tip-toe around Facebook if they use it at all.
The current generation will be raised in the atmosphere that every company is trying to spy on you
Depends on where (Score:2)
In the USA, and Europe, yes I think things will definitely be changing. There's always going to be holdouts, but new joins from these regions of the world are very likely to steeply decline.
However, many people forget Facebook has been up to some deviant behavior in smaller lesser known countries.
I recently seen a news piece about Facebook in Myanmar. In Myanmar, if you ask someone what the internet is, they'll show you their Facebook page. They've been totally brainwashed by Facebook. Kind of sad.
These
Facebook has no moral compass because (Score:2)
Zuckerberg has no moral compass, from the first day on:
Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard
Zuck: Just ask
Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS
[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one?
Zuck: People just submitted it.
Zuck: I don't know why.
Zuck: They "trust me"
Zuck: Dumb fucks
Instant messages sent by Zuckerberg during Facebook's early days, reported by Business Insider (May 13, 2010)
Only one way you can 'save' Facebook: (Score:2)
2. Now that monetizing users' data isn't necessary, stop collecting it and selling it to 3rd parties. Respect users' privacy 100% of the time, no exceptions. Become a paragon of virtue in that regard.
3. Sit back and wait to see if you've managed to pull it out of the fire, or if it's too late for anyone to trust you anymore. Gracefully accept the consequences either
Now? (Score:2)
Now? Are you aware of Facebook's origins? Seriously Facebook was a sleazy to begin with. NOTHING HAS CHANGED.
Re: (Score:3)
I don't think many older people are joining - they have already gotten most of the ones they are going to get.
And I really doubt that Facebook has been honest about the number of people leaving and the number of inactive accounts.
Re: It really is that bad (Score:2)
Funny, I always thought that's the true nature of capitalists. Last time I checked, Israel still has more welfare than the united states.