No More Apologies: Inside Facebook's Push To Defend Its Image (nytimes.com) 90
Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive, has signed off on an effort to show users pro-Facebook stories and to distance himself from scandals. From a report: Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's chief executive, signed off last month on a new initiative code-named Project Amplify. The effort, which was hatched at an internal meeting in January, had a specific purpose: to use Facebook's News Feed, the site's most important digital real estate, to show people positive stories about the social network. The idea was that pushing pro-Facebook news items -- some of them written by the company -- would improve its image in the eyes of its users, three people with knowledge of the effort said. But the move was sensitive because Facebook had not previously positioned the News Feed as a place where it burnished its own reputation. Several executives at the meeting were shocked by the proposal, one attendee said.
Project Amplify punctuated a series of decisions that Facebook has made this year to aggressively reshape its image. Since that January meeting, the company has begun a multipronged effort to change its narrative by distancing Mr. Zuckerberg from scandals, reducing outsiders' access to internal data, burying a potentially negative report about its content and increasing its own advertising to showcase its brand. [...] So Facebook executives, concluding that their methods had done little to quell criticism or win supporters, decided early this year to go on the offensive, said six current and former employees, who declined to be identified for fear of reprisal. "They're realizing that no one else is going to come to their defense, so they need to do it and say it themselves," said Katie Harbath, a former Facebook public policy director. The changes have involved Facebook executives from its marketing, communications, policy and integrity teams. Alex Schultz, a 14-year company veteran who was named chief marketing officer last year, has also been influential in the image reshaping effort, said five people who worked with him. But at least one of the decisions was driven by Mr. Zuckerberg, and all were approved by him, three of the people said.
Project Amplify punctuated a series of decisions that Facebook has made this year to aggressively reshape its image. Since that January meeting, the company has begun a multipronged effort to change its narrative by distancing Mr. Zuckerberg from scandals, reducing outsiders' access to internal data, burying a potentially negative report about its content and increasing its own advertising to showcase its brand. [...] So Facebook executives, concluding that their methods had done little to quell criticism or win supporters, decided early this year to go on the offensive, said six current and former employees, who declined to be identified for fear of reprisal. "They're realizing that no one else is going to come to their defense, so they need to do it and say it themselves," said Katie Harbath, a former Facebook public policy director. The changes have involved Facebook executives from its marketing, communications, policy and integrity teams. Alex Schultz, a 14-year company veteran who was named chief marketing officer last year, has also been influential in the image reshaping effort, said five people who worked with him. But at least one of the decisions was driven by Mr. Zuckerberg, and all were approved by him, three of the people said.
Everyone knows what Facebook is by now. (Score:5, Insightful)
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But what *IS* Facebook? It is many things to many different people. If one is not offended to targeted advertising, doesn't treat it as their source of news, and doesn't let various online randos tell them what to think about politics, science, and health; it's still what it was ten years ago: A perfectly cromulent way to keep in touch with friends you don't get to see in person often, to share cute pictures od the dogs with said friends, and to organize gatherings and outings with those friends.
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like what
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Meeting actual people in actual person.
Everything else is not real people anyway. :)
More like computer game NPCs.
Don't believe me? Check how you just planned to treat me.
Trust me, all this site and "social media" bring me, is a bad mood.
I'm much happier since I mostly "limit" myself to meeting real people in person.
What good are a thousand "friends" that are as much friends as your NPCs in a game?
In real life, you don't have time for more than two proper friends and half a dozen weekly pals/colleagues anywa
Re:Everyone knows what Facebook is by now. (Score:5, Informative)
But what *IS* Facebook? It is many things to many different people. If one is not offended to targeted advertising, doesn't treat it as their source of news, and doesn't let various online randos tell them what to think about politics, science, and health; it's still what it was ten years ago: A perfectly cromulent way to keep in touch with friends you don't get to see in person often, to share cute pictures od the dogs with said friends, and to organize gatherings and outings with those friends.
Primarily, Facebook is for "stupid fucks", as ZuckerFucker has allegedly stated.
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If one is not offended to targeted advertising
That's fine, but Facebook does go to great length in that regard. I think we all too often forget how the Facebook app regularly took control of the microphone to listen in on conversations, read cookies from other apps, or many of the other ways that Facebook use to gather data until Android and iOS began shutting all of that data harvesting down. Facebook didn't willingly stop mining your data in ways that violated pretty much every single expectation of reasonable software, they had to be shut out from
Well... (Score:2)
There's what it is to individual people, and then there's what it's doing to society.
Until last week I had only used it in the way you described, as a touch-base with friends. However, I could no longer stand idly by and watch its cancerous effect. As an individual, there's not much I can do beyond deactivating/deleting my account and letting others know why I did that. Facebook's pursuit of revenue through targeted, algorithm-driven click-through-rate optimization, coupled with human fallibility and gullib
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A perfectly cromulent way to keep in touch with friends you don't get to see in person often, to share cute pictures od the dogs with said friends,
Facebook actually sucks at that, because it doesn't show you things from your friends, and instead shows you sensationalistic or targeted stories. People who want to do what you mention have all moved to Instagram.
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You know about one half of the population has below average intelligence.
How ever most people think they have above average intelligence. (Confirmed by an online IQ Test!)
That is just a dangerous combination.
Sure for a lot of people they can see past the BS that splashes in their face, However they are a lot of stupid people out there, and stupid people are dangerous, because they will do stupid things, and it is difficult to to explain to them why they are wrong, because advanced ideas and abstract concept
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That's a really misleading binary way of thinking about it.
It also leads to the conclusion that delusional thinking and rationalization is limited to people of low intelligence.
The fact is, I've known certifiable geniuses who were capable of even better rationalization than people with less intelligence.
And also, you should think of it from the point of view of standard deviations. The difference between people just above and just below the median is almost nil.
Finally, there are many different kinds of in
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What ever happened to banning TikTok? Why is the media almost exclusively attacking Facebook/Instagram? Maybe if they implemented a login with Google account and implemented AdWords instead of trying to create their own advertising silo, the media would be more friendly to them.
Think about it Mark. You got greedy you need to share the wealth around with the ultrawealthy.
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That's a good question, but I sure can't say that I've figured out TikTok after a couple of weeks of poking at it. One observation is that the ads are well disguised, but if TikTok is getting some sort of a cut from all the things that might be ads, then they could be doing quite well. (If TikTok deserves to be banned, then "the former guy" mucked that up, too. (But if you're trying to count all the things he mucked up, good fugging luck.))
Quite likely I'm misusing TikTok. In particular, I'm failing (largel
I don't think that's true (Score:2)
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What we really need is to teach critical thinking
So when do you start taking classes? I am going put this out there. The single biggest reason people don't get a long is that they insist on trying to ascribe motives to others with a little to much certainly about it.
Do we have to make judgements about others for the sake of trust decisions etc, yes; must we guess at their motives based on their actions - absolutely we are not mind readers. However we would all do well to STOP trying to guess the motives of anybody we havn't got to live or work with dire
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Re:Everyone knows what Facebook is by now. (Score:5, Informative)
November 2003
After creating Facemash, a Harvard 'hot-or-not' site.
“This is not how I meant for things to go and I apologize for any harm done as a result of my neglect.”
September 2006
After introducing News Feed, which exposed updates to friends in one central place.
“We really messed this one up.
December 2007
After launching Beacon, which opted-in everyone to sharing with advertisers what they were doing in outside websites and apps.
“We simply did a bad job with this release, and I apologize for it. People need to be able to explicitly choose what they share.”
February 2009
After unveiling new terms of service that angered users.
“Over the past couple of days, we received a lot of questions and comments. Based on this feedback, we have decided to return to our previous terms of use while we resolve the issues.”
May 2010
After reporters found a privacy loophole allowing advertisers to access user identification.
“Sometimes we move too fast. We will add privacy controls that are much simpler to use. We will also give you an easy way to turn off all third-party services.”
November 2011
After Facebook reached a consent decree with the Federal Trade Commission for deceiving consumers about privacy.
“I’m the first to admit that we’ve made a bunch of mistakes. Facebook has always been committed to being transparent about the information you have stored with us — and we have led the internet in building tools to give people the ability to see and control what they share.”
July 2014
After an academic paper exposed that Facebook conducted psychological tests on nearly 700,000 users without their knowledge. (Apology by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg)
“It was poorly communicated. And for that communication we apologize. We never meant to upset you.”
December 2016
After criticism of the role of Facebook in spreading fake news about political candidates.
“I think of Facebook as a technology company, but I recognize we have a greater responsibility than just building technology that information flows through. Today we’re making it easier to report hoaxes.”
April 2017
After a Cleveland man posted a video of himself killing 74-year-old Robert Godwin.
“Our hearts go out to the family and friends of Robert Godwin Sr., and we have a lot of work — and we will keep doing all we can to prevent tragedies like this from happening.”
September 2017
While revealing a nine-step plan to stop nations from using Facebook to interfere in one another’s elections, noting that the amount of “problematic content” found so far is “relatively small.”
“I care deeply about the democratic process and protecting its integrity. It is a new challenge for internet communities to deal with nation states attempting to subvert elections. But if that’s what we must do, we are committed to rising to the occasion.”
September 2017
After continued criticism about the role of Facebook in Russian manipulation of the 2016 election.
“For the ways my work has been used to divide rather than to bring us together, I ask for forgiveness and I will work to do better. ”
January 2018
Announcing his personal challenge for the year is to fix Facebook.
“ We won’t prevent all mistakes or abuse, but we currently make too many errors enforcing our policies and preventing misuse of our tools. This will be a serious year of self-improvement and I’m looking forward to learning from working to fix our issues together. ”
March 2018
After details emerged about Cambr
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As for forgiveness, not permission.
Re:Everyone knows what Facebook is by now. (Score:4, Insightful)
I went through my facebook about a month ago, downloaded all my photos and videos. Moved everything to a wordpress site hosted on GoDaddy for $5@mo. Set all my past content to private, and I just have one visible message to my facebook contacts. "I'm done here, if you want to keep up please visit me at https://mysite.com/ [mysite.com]" I also uninstalled the phone app. Monumental battery saves there.
Since jumping off I spend a lot less time giving fucks about what others are doing. My actual friends that used to follow my posts now follow my blog. I don't get "Fact Checked" or banned for "Going against community standards" It's gone a long way towards regaining my sanity, and it's making writing on the web fun again. I'm waiting for a wordpress plugin for Tim Lee's Solid system https://solid.mit.edu/ [mit.edu] so I can put things back to a friends list style access, without all the shittyness of facebook.
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Problem isn't with "private" setting. It's keeping it at that setting through updates. Security on FB is a whack-a-mole process.
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You greatly overestimate people.
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I have never been to the News part of Facebook, which the summary says is the "most important" digital real estate there. BS. Most people go to Facebook to see pictures of their friend's kids and grandkids and puppies, etc. The original purpose of Facebook was not to manipulate people, but to provide a social network and get some advertising revenue from that. The news bubble style of Facebook is something that's new.
Yes, there were better things, like Google+ that I was mocked for on Slashdot because t
Typical American "personal responsibility" (Score:1)
You'd blame a baby for "knowing what it signed up for" by crawling up to the rapist neighbor . . .
Most people who are still on FB, are there because they feel they have no choice.
It's easy for us to say "Just stop using it", when we have no friends or events we would miss out on.
We're already so damaged from loneliness, we don't even notice it anymore.
For many people, it's either that, or stuffing their faces with cake until they literally die.
The problem is the catch-22 in switching: You need everyone else
Defnd its image (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Defnd its image (Score:1)
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Notice how nobody cares about integrity until the lack of it actually starts to cost them something?
So the plan is... (Score:5, Insightful)
So the plan is to defend themselves by lying where feasible, and hiding reports that say things people don't like. I think they left out libel and slander...or perhaps they just hid that part.
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I don't know this really news. Repetitively few organizations or individuals have the sort of confidence need to give their successes and praise equal air time with their failures criticism when they have any ability to control it.
Why would facebook not arithmetically edemphasize negative stories about facebook on their own site? Do see many negative articles linked on the 'about us->news' pages of any other companies site? Don't you think the 'algorithm' run by the marketing department is something li
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So the plan is to defend themselves by lying where feasible, and hiding reports that say things people don't like.
Thanks to our currently friendly (ahem) Chinese diplomats there's a specific name for that now: wolf warrior diplomacy [wikipedia.org]. I therefore propose we turn that into a verb and say Facebook is wolfing criticisms. Which combines quite nicely with another meaning of the verb, since it loves to wolf down (devour) competitors, governments, and our sanity.
Integrity (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact that their executive for the "Integrity team" signed off on this, should tell you all you need to know.
Welcome (Score:5, Funny)
Welcome to Social Media. The tobacco industry of the 21st century.
It's gonna take a few decades for everyone to wise up what this is doing to our lungs, I mean, brains.
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It may not have killed in the same number realm as tobacco, but it has killed.
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I would be very slow to assign blame to the medium when somebody commits suicide and blames people for it. If we let depressed people and/or their grieving loved ones to decide what to take away from us there is not going to be a lot left.
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Check into the various organized protests that end up erupting in violence and getting people dead. Or the dipshits that hear a protest is going on through Facebook and then travel across state lines with weapons to "participate."
As for your nonchalance about people being tormented to suicide via online discourse, that all goes back to the whole "nobody really cares about mental health anymore" thing. Kids are cruel. Kids online are brutalistic assholes. Kids in groups online are savage poo-flinging ape
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It is true that technology seems to make everything more 'efficient', even including bad things like slaughtering people in war or the frictionless movement of capital increasing the concentration of wealth, or kids bullying each other online. And I am worried about the instability of or basic democratic institutions when people, even leaders, challenge elections without cause. I just don't think we're going to get anywher
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Asking for facebook to go away is not the same as saying we want to turn back technology. Facebook is a cancer. I've seen in my own family how otherwise intelligent people are turned into screaming idiots by getting sucked into the Facebook whirlwind of failure.
I think an even greater good would be some form of focus on mental health. Both for individuals and for society at large. Right now our attitude is . . . mixed at best. Celebrities are encouraged to use psychology / psychiatry as a get out of ja
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MASS PSYCHOSIS - How an Entire Population Becomes MENTALLY ILL [youtu.be]
Terrifying historical examples of mass psychosis. [grunge.com]
Wondering why society went off-kilter during the pandemic? It was all predicted in this book [seattletimes.com]
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Sorry, FB has repeatedly [yahoo.com] been [buzzfeednews.com] used [theinternetpatrol.com] for that [people.com].
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If Social Media is big tobacco, what does that make Slashdot?
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Big Sugar? Big Spice?
Facecrook (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Facecrook (Score:2)
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You're thinking Twitter and Twitter-like platforms, which is the favourite place of those "look at me people". Basically everyone in the politics, celeb culture and journalism is on Twitter. Yes, including "incluencers".
Facebook is more about communications within the smaller communities, not the "influencers". And that's what scares the journalists and "influnecers" posting those stories. That there are people who are not in reach of their Twitter-based mob mentality, because they're isolated in their smal
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Me
>Small community based places like Facebook and VK that drive discoverability have the sin of tracking everything you do, everything you like within those small groups, and recommending more small groups like ones you like, which tends to drive the less social people into extremes.
You
>Not sure why you think one has echo chambers and the other doesn't.
So... have you tried reading that which you're replying to before making idiotic accusations?
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Wow, that doesn't sound totalitarian at all. Only people approved by our overlords should have a voice on the internet...
You want an echo chamber, because that's how you get an echo chamber.
Like Apple and Russia's elections (Score:2)
As an advertising and social media company they will have a lot more negative reporting of course, but as Apple shows with the recent Russian app censorship simply not communicating or responding with platitudes is often the best response (and good internal discipline to make sure no one breaks rank, like happens with google). Never apologize, don't be too responsive and certainly don't cooperate with academia.
My conclusion (Score:2)
I have come to the conclusion that Big Data, i.e. Facebook, Twitter, and Google are the Big Tobacco of the 2020's. Their products were marketed as safe, fun, and enjoyable, but secretly, the CEO's know how addictive their products can be, and how bad for society they truly are. Not to mention that both Big Tobacco and Big Data both love to market to children, no matter how unsafe they are.
I hope the book gets thrown at them.
Facebook Fact Check (Score:1)
Facebook Fact checkers have fact checked this and found it to be "Mostly False" information.
You are now in Facebook Jail for 7 days.
The hate is comical (Score:2)
The Facebook hate here is comical. Facebook is mostly boomers at this point and they are small potatoes compared to the number of users on instagram and tiktok. The best thing about Facebook now is the marketplace for cheap cars.
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Instagram IS Facebook, though. They don't care how they collect your data and serve you personalized ads, as long as they still get to collect it.
I have appreciated Mark Zuckerburg's recent personal Facebook posts, though. He almost seems like a real human being in them, and not just a soulless robot.
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I have appreciated Mark Zuckerburg's recent personal Facebook posts, though. He almost seems like a real human being in them, and not just a soulless robot.
He has had almost 20 years to perfect his con. He *SHOULD* be really good at it by now.
Re: The hate is comical (Score:2)
That's the genius of it, though. He's not really saying much, instead they have videos of him fencing with his kid and riding a surfboard. He seems almost... cool?
Re: The hate is comical (Score:1)
I have appreciated Mark Zuckerburg's recent personal Facebook posts, though. He almost seems like a real human being in them, and not just a soulless robot.
This is probably because they were written by his PR team which consists of almost human beings, and not by himself who is soulless robot.
Remember the good old days (Score:2)
When Facebook was for University students and most of us not currently enrolled had no idea what it was. We were probably too busy making hideous art-collage homepages on MySpace. We found the Internet back then to be unaesthetic, but when people stopped creating and started sharing their opinions is when things truly got ugly.
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people stopped creating and started sharing their opinions is when things truly got ugly.
Sharing opinions makes everything horrible. It's why I don't talk to people.
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It's why I don't talk to people.
As a mid-westerner it's why I smile and nod.
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That gun you're carrying makes your social media functional.
"I am so cool!" (Score:2)
Has a kid trying hard to convince himself that he's cool ever made that kid cool?
If Facebook wants to look cool, it should fess up to it's flaws and mistakes and make a non empty promise to correct those mistakes.
Henry Ford said it best (Score:2)
"Integrity is crucial for business success - once you can fake that, you've got it made." -Henry Ford
saw it on the internet so it must be true.
How to distance Mr. Zuckerberg from scandals (Score:3)
Resign.
So, it turns out... (Score:1)
Facebook CAN actually implement a program to correct what it believes is misinformation, after all.
When have they ever? (Score:2)
Zuckerberg is the same person (Score:2)
Who called his users "dumb fucks". He truly believes people are dumb enough to buy the PR propaganda he plans on shoving down their throats.
The unavoidable conflict the is FB (Score:1)
Useless Propaganda (Score:2)
I don't know why they do such stupid shit. It's the reason people hate them now, the constant bullshit and propaganda.
So ... lemme get this straight (Score:2)
The idea is to astroturf and write pieces how awesome Facebook in general and Zuckerfuck in particular is, and hoping that the people reading it are too stupid to even look at other pages?
What can I say, it worked for a lot of tinpot dictators all over the world. why not for their dupes?
Great news! (Score:1)
If they actively place ânews itemsâ(TM) in peopleâ(TM)s feed telling them FB is actually pretty great, theyâ(TM)re a publisher, and, in the US, section 230 doesnâ(TM)t apply anymore.
There is no way this could backfire, right? (Score:1)
Facebook is bad, immoral, doesn't respect users. (Score:1)
I stopped using it in 2008 and never looked back.
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I haven't stopped using it. I never started.
Until Next week (Score:1)
So FaceSoc? (Score:1)
War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength
Facebook is Great!