One of Facebook's Earliest Investors Says People Have Lost Trust in Company (bloomberg.com) 57
Facebook has lost people's trust "for good reasons" and isn't responding well to whistle-blower claims that the social-media giant prioritizes profit over user safety, according to one of its earliest investors, Reid Hoffman. Bloomberg: "I'm disappointed," Hoffman said Wednesday in an interview. Facebook should have been more proactive in response to troubling signs revealed in its own research, he said. "Good for Facebook for doing the research," Hoffman said. "You discovered some things that are harmful -- what are you doing about it?" [...] Hoffman, who is a partner at venture capital firm Greylock Partners and a co-founder of LinkedIn, said he hasn't yet spoken to Zuckerberg but has offered his help with the crisis that the company is facing. To regain trust, Facebook has to be "extra transparent," he said. "They have to come forward and say, 'Look, here's our dashboards, here's our metrics, here is the ways we are trying to work on this and do things."
trustless (Score:1, Funny)
Re:trustless (Score:5, Insightful)
As for the bleating-sheep ... we don't care if Zuckerwolf rips yo' guts out.
What Facebook's algorithms are doing is ripping America apart. For profit.
You should care.
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Re:trustless (Score:5, Interesting)
While this is true to an extent, what Facebook has done is hit the accelerator on things that the seeds were planted for generations ago. Maybe the argument could be made that it would be happening slow enough without Facebook to be righted in time, but Facebook being what it is is partially because of the users being too non-thinking, at least on the surface, to self-analyze any aspect of what they read. It's just see->react->see->react in as rapid a fashion as possible.
Not that I'm siding with Facebook. I'm just saying it's a symptom of American greed, American inability to teach critical thinking, and the American public wanting to get the spotlight for even one second if it can help them to stir their group to pick up the pitchforks against anyone. Damn the consequences.
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It's why there is "reality TV", too. Which is another vast suck on intelligence.
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sed s/America/the world/
Re: trustless (Score:2)
America was always ripping America apart, for profit. What's new with Facebook, except for the formidable timing?
Re: trustless (Score:1)
Re: trustless (Score:2)
Yes, that part is true. It's essentially one of the two insurmountable and damning problems of Social Media: giving a large audience to people who haven't proved they've earned it.
Re: trustless (Score:2)
(But this, btw, is also true of Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, and essentially any other "participation" content system. Still a massive problem, but nit alone Facebook's.)
Re: trustless [but Zuck blames the victims] (Score:2)
Not sure how I missed the FP branch, but it's a nice one.
Currently reading a computer security book. Entire chapter on adjustments that you are supposed to make to your Facebook settings. Various sections in various chapters about the other SNS websites you [getuid()] mentioned.
My theory is that Zuckerberg will claim the abuse isn't Facebook's fault because you can tweak your privacy settings any way you like. The reality is that it's way too complicated and the abusers are the ones motivated to figure it o
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The news networks were doing this long before FB. See: Fux News vs CNN, etc. the Atlantic vs National Review, etc. NYT vs reality.
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It figures that the first comment would be from some crusty old geezer who doesn't trust them kids and their fancy new 17-year-old technology.
It is time for the five-minute hate, children. Gather 'round!
Of course, I too am baffled at the suggestion that Facebook has "lost" trust. Was its trust level ever a positive number? How low does the scale go?
Hoffman distancing himself from bad PR (Score:2)
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Nice FP, but your pronoun references started confusing me at the end. Hoffman, not Zuckerberg?
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Facebook considered as a psychological test (Score:2)
Or better to say "Facebook considered as a helix of semi-precious psychological tests"? (As usual, apologies are called for, this time to Delany (who I then confused with Zelazny).)
But my first reaction to the story was the joke:
"Only one of them?"
But that leads to my psychological test topic. Some of the investors in Facebook are completely happy with what Mark Zuckerberg is doing with the company. I think they fail the test. And the source website for this story is one of their favorite places, not mine.
O
People have lost trust in the company? (Score:2)
Gee, ya think???
Several years ago.
I still use Facebook (Score:3, Insightful)
But not the App (web only) and I don't post anything personal.... probably less than 5 minutes per day.
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But not the App (web only) and I don't post anything personal.... probably less than 5 minutes per day.
Excellent. That is... quite sufficient.
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Same personal solution approach I'm using, but I enforce the time limit with a timer. (Actually two. First one is a 4-minute warning.)
Cig companies (Score:3)
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I find it odd that a few months back nobody made the Facebook = big tobacco connection. Then there was one article somewhere that said it and all of a sudden you can't have a discussion about Facebok without big tobacco being brought up.
It feels different to me. Tobacco mostly affected those that chose to use it. Facebook seems to be taking what may have been the fringes and amplifying it into mainstream, causing more to join the fringes. It's accelerating our degeneration from a society to a crumbling
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Who has lost trust ? (Score:2)
The vast majority of FB users have heard little about FB security/trust/etc issues; or if they have stopped listening after 10 seconds and returned to sharing funny cat images/their breakfast/latest anti-vax theory.
A few civil libertarians and techies (including me) are really concerned and reduced their FB usage - if they ever had an account.
Big money investors look at these stories and think "That good boy Zukerberg is doing well and increasing the value of what I invested".
Which group do you fall in ?
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Who has ever trusted Facebook?
Face it, if what you're doing is exchanging cat videos, you don't really need the trust the distributor that much. All you need to do is trust that they aren't going to distribute malware on purpose. Of course, I don't have *that* level of trust in Facebook, but then I never did. And I tend to disable javascript. But to most people that just makes me weird.
I never HAD trust in Facebook (Score:5, Insightful)
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Self-control is the key. (Score:4, Interesting)
Facebook, IG, YT, Twit, etc. are like anything else - use them in moderation. Someone spending three hours a day on FB or TikTok or Instagram is putting themselves at risk. Staring at a small, bright object in front of your face for hours can be a very intense and unhealthy experience. We're only beginning to learn all the weird neurological problems these devices can cause.
Having said that, it doesn't make sense to blame Zuckerberg, any more than it makes sense to blame, say, the CEO of Black & Decker because you burned your fingers on your toaster oven. They provide a tool. It's up to us to use it wisely and responsibly and in moderation. Cigarettes are a different story; no one takes one puff of a cigarette then puts it out. You smoke an entire cigarette, likely more than one per day, and that's very likely to lead to health problems. Whereas, social media can be used in very short stretches, e.g. get on FB and check for messages or responses to posts, then close it again.
Speaking for myself, Facebook is no longer a part of my life. I downloaded, then deleted, my entire account. I also deleted Twitter. Life goes on. I'm old enough that I grew up in the pre-Internet age, when books (and comic books) were more a part of childhood than they are now. The Usenet era was extremely useful though a time sink for sure. But social networks... it's crazy addictive and we all need to take a step back and evaluate what it's really adding to our lives versus the cost.
I did join some paying services (Abundance+ for homesteading and DIY projects like raising chickens; Discovery+ and CuriosityStream for educational content; a couple of substack bloggers for political/social commentary). I try to use Rumble instead of Youtube where possible. Rumble still sort of sucks, but it's getting there. Every time Youtube bans a content provider, Rumble benefits.
I recommend everyone try to reduce their online activities and live a bit more in the real world. Go for a walk or a run. Raise chickens. Raise children. Do something that gets you out in the sunlight every day or so. And for God's sake, avoid the aspiration of becoming an "influencer" -- don't feed the monster!
JMHO
Re:Self-control is the key. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Having said that, it doesn't make sense to blame Zuckerberg, any more than it makes sense to blame, say, the CEO of Black & Decker because you burned your fingers on your toaster oven.
Don't blame Philip Morris for making cigarettes. Blame them for continuing to do so when it is widely known how bad that stuff is, for running ad campaigns trying to entice kids to try smoking, and for putting crap in them to make them extra addictive. That's evil on a level with FB. Maybe FB is a little bit worse than that, actually, since they are not just trying to get us hooked, they are also selling us (or at least our data).
Yay or Nay? (Score:4, Interesting)
Guys, I need a show of hands. Who among us used to trust Facebook, but then lost that trust vs who never trusted those weaselly fucks since that bullshit site was started?
Re:Yay or Nay? (Score:4)
Re:Yay or Nay? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Remove Zuckerberg (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: Remove Zuckerberg (Score:3)
He's laser-focused on his project and ...
Are you sure? Why give him so much credit?
Maybe he's just good businessman, respectively an egoistic asshole.
Facebook was always about milking its users. If it hadn't been about that, they wouldn't have had shadow profiles and the inability to truly delete profiles. Even back in the day (2007-ish), when they didn't even knew how they were actually going to make any money with it, the idea always was a wet dream of an panopticon, because "surerly that's gotta be worth something to someone". Why yes it is, w
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His replacement will still have problems. Look at Microsoft. New CEOs, but same company. :P
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Not sure what they'd do at this point (Score:2)
Their core business model is exploitation of the userbase to get them close enough to spy on and then use the information they gain to help stalkers track them and hit on them for profit. If they did exactly the same thing and took money from people who wanted something harmless like opportunities to get in someone's pants rather than harmful like get into their wallet it probably would have been shut down within
FB was never abut trust for me (Score:2)
At first in 2005 ish when I signed up it was about people you were friends with in school trying to look you up and be friends, meh there's a reason we didn't keep in contact lol Deleted my account a year later or so
Back to 2012 singed up to make a business listing page and troll around and post junk, that's its.
Ya, but ... (Score:2)
Facebook has lost people's trust "for good reasons" and isn't responding well to whistle-blower claims that the social-media giant prioritizes profit over user safety, according to one of its earliest investors, Reid Hoffman. Bloomberg:
"I'm disappointed," Hoffman said Wednesday in an interview.
Is Hoffman disappointed enough to divest himself from FB?
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Clueless or disinegenous (Score:2)
He either has no idea what Facebook is, or he's playing dumb. He knows very well none of this is going to happen, period, full-stop. It is the exact opposite of what they want to do, what they're going to do, and what is possible to do while Zuckerberg continues to answer to no one.
People Have Lost Trust in Heroin... (Score:2)
So fucking what? You think FACEBOOK cares if the people who don't use Facebook have "lost trust" (if they were ever naive enough to trust a social media company) let alone lost the trust of their addicts who will continue to use Facebook regardless?
It's not about trust of customers or non-customers. It's about maintaining the indifference of regulators. That's how the company works and survives. If you can keep the indifference of regulators, the investors and advertisers will continue throwing their money
"Whistleblower" is staged (Score:1)
The so-called whistleblower is staged to distract from Facebook's real crimes, and to justify more censorship.
Zuckerberg's Millions: Did Facebook CEO Fund Election Fraud?
"Under the pretext of assisting election officials conduct "safe and secure" elections in the age of COVID, Zuckerberg donated $400 million — as much money as Congress appropriated for the same general purpose — to nonprofit organizations founded and run by left-wing activists.
https://freedomwire.com/zuckerberg-funding-election-
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That and this "whisteblowers" handlers are all people with security clearances. Facebook and Google, like other corporate behemoths, are happy to have government regulation, because they can afford the inconvenience but it makes it prohibitive for would-be competitors.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Trust? (Score:2)
Anyone who trusted FB to do anything that wasn't in its own best interests is a fucking moron.
A fish rots from the head down (Score:2)