Zuckerberg Had a 'Crazy Idea' in 2022 For Facebook - Purge All Users' Friends (businessinsider.com) 47
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg considered resetting all Facebook users' friend connections to boost the platform's declining relevance, according to internal emails revealed Monday in a landmark FTC antitrust trial. In a 2022 message to executives, Zuckerberg proposed "wiping everyone's graphs and having them start again," referring to users' friend networks. Facebook head Tom Alison questioned the idea's viability, citing Instagram's reliance on friend connections. Zuckerberg later testified that the plan was never implemented and that Facebook has "evolved" from its original purpose.
The FTC argues Meta violated competition laws by acquiring Instagram ($1B) and WhatsApp ($19B) as part of a "buy or bury" strategy outlined in Zuckerberg's 2008 email stating, "It is better to buy than compete."
The FTC argues Meta violated competition laws by acquiring Instagram ($1B) and WhatsApp ($19B) as part of a "buy or bury" strategy outlined in Zuckerberg's 2008 email stating, "It is better to buy than compete."
Recommendable (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Zuckerburg's reason to do that was not the same as yours. He proposed it in order to get millions of people to do work for his benefit.
Re: (Score:1)
I am not clear what he hoped to gain for this. It would probably boost engagement briefly while everyone busily searches for their friends profiles and sends new friend requests, and approves the ones they get.
Then what?
I am sure there would be some 'Oh wow George, have not heard for you in years' and conversations that follow but I suspect not a ton of that because George is busy trying to remember every other acquaintance he has made since high school and sending them requests as would be the requestee.
I
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
I'd have thought they have this information anyway.
Re: (Score:2)
I would think they do as well. The have direct indicators who people are fiends with but have followed vs un-followed. They know what users message each other, they know what users tag each other in posts and images.
They should have plenty of passive indicators as well, profiles visited multiple times etc.
link rot (Score:2)
Speculating here that the demographics of Facebook and long time users dropping off of it, there is an increasing amount of unused for years links between users and their friends.
He may have been advocating deleting an existing database for IT reasons and letting the users build out a new data set in a go forward database.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I think it would have had the opposite affect, most people would have sighed, gone "I'm not going through all that again, and besides, most of my friends are on Tumblxadonsky" and just stopped using Facebook.
Which means it's a shame he didn't do it.
Re:Recommendable [not to think too much] (Score:2)
It must have to do with the profit-driven objective of creating lots of docile, happy slaves while accidentally producing lots of angry cretins with guns?
Who's going to pay for the collateral damage? Maybe the cesspool formerly known as Twitter could be taxed from its enormous profits? The YOB could call it a penalty for losing the anger creation war? That's after the YOB turns on the Musk, of course.
Yeah, it was a weak attempt at humor. Today's blame goes to side effects of Don't Read This Book if You're
Re: (Score:2)
Why is there a trial at all ? (Score:4, Insightful)
Was Zuckerburg's campaign contribution to Trump not big enough ?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Democrat voters are also for reigning in campaign donations, but the GOP-stuffed SCOTUS ruled against limiting donations, so we have to bribe also to keep up with GOP bribers.
Voters on both sides of the aisle are for this. But the congress critters who they vote for aren't. Not even in the slightest. Congress critters may say they are for it, but once the election is over you don't hear them say or do anything about it until the next elections.
Granted, occasionally some fresh faced junior congress critter gets in and tries. But they either give up because it's like trying to stop an avalanche with a toothpick or they get primaried out of office.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
And how many Republicans have you discussed this topic with? Because I've never spoken with anyone, left, right or center, who thought, "oh yes, politicians need less limits on campaign donations."
My guess is the only people you've talked this over with are ones who agree with you or are imaginary.
Re:Why is there a trial at all ? (Score:5, Informative)
Was Zuckerburg's campaign contribution to Trump not big enough ?
He didn't make one to Trump,
He did. He donated a million dollars to Trump's inauguation gala: https://www.usatoday.com/story... [usatoday.com]
Turned out to be a poor investment, though: https://edition.cnn.com/2025/0... [cnn.com]
though he donated $550M to Democrats 2 years ago. Twice as much as Elon made to Trump.
False news, sorry. Zuckerberg donated $419 million to the Center for Tech and Civic Life and the Center for Election Innovation & Research. These are nonprofits dedicated to aid in-person voting, not political campaigns, and not Democrats. Here's a Forbes link. Forbes is not noted for being left wing. https://www.forbes.com/sites/d... [forbes.com]
But only billionaires donating to Republicans counts as "oligarchy," right?
Since Republicans have foaming at the mouth about how elections need to be reformed, donations to improve election technology and to increase in-person voting clearly must count as billionaires donating to Republican causes.
Here are the websites, if you care: https://www.techandciviclife.o... [techandciviclife.org]
https://electioninnovation.org... [electioninnovation.org]
Re: (Score:1)
When I saw that name I was sure it was a program to bus the most likely people to vote Democrat to the polls. Looking it up [techandciviclife.org] it really does look nonpartisan and beneficial. They give out grants to polling places to administer elections and modernize equipment. That's it.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
> Was Zuckerburg's campaign contribution to Trump not big enough ?
Hmm, time for a fact check:
Re: (Score:2)
He didn't make one to Trump, though he donated $550M to Democrats 2 years ago. Twice as much as Elon made to Trump.
But only billionaires donating to Republicans counts as "oligarchy," right?
your assertion doesn't pass the sniff test on several levels
https://apnews.com/article/fac... [apnews.com]
That would have been beautiful. (Score:5, Insightful)
Sever all friend connections and Facebooks relevance, even as low as it was at the time, would have plummeted into oblivion. Too bad he didn't pull the trigger on it. One of the biggest complaints I heard over the years about Facebook from folks who were active on it was that it became harder and harder to find content from the folks you were actually trying to follow or remain "friends" with, and it became more and more about the advertising and garbage that Facebook itself wanted you to see. Completely removing the reason most people go to Facebook at all would have done a lot more damage to the userbase, and may have given some of its more ardent fans a reason to just give up on it altogether.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah this is my biggest gripe with it now. I have friends set to 'following' they post stuff. I don't see days or weeks later I think 'Bill hasn't posted in a while what is he up to' go specifically visit his page, he has been posting all along, none of it ever hit my feed, but I saw plenty of deranged political posts from people I don't know and AFAICT are not even in members of any 'groups' I am in etc. Also lots 'reels' with cats, I did kind like those...
Re: (Score:1)
I think it’s happening, just on a slower schedule. For my circle of friends, FB peaked as an online social construct 10 years ago, then declined in the wake of Cambridge Analytica. This accelerated after last November, with even promiscuous posters bailing. I started using FB P****y and with the ads and AI slop filtered out it takes under 15 minutes to catch up, which I only need to do every 2nd or third day.
Re: (Score:2)
Closest to my reaction, but the very idea of an innovation to help the users of Facebook escape the monster is obviously negated by the Zuck quote about avoiding competition by acquiring--which really means hating freedom in my book. The thing that makes the corporate cancers (like Facebook) special in the worst way is not that they dominate and monopolize their niches, but that they actually hate change and innovation. Once you are #1 the biggest threat is change to a lower rank. They do not want to play n
battle network villain (Score:2)
This does sound more like a megaman battle network or starforce villain scheme than a plan.
Which he should had done, as the scandal itself probably would either kill facebook (a net good for humanity), or make it popular (a net good for him)
So we already know he's incompetent (Score:2)
Yeah well (Score:2)
Facebook has "evolved" from its original purpose" (Score:2)
Good for Reconnecting with the Dead (Score:2)
I'm old enough to have deceased FB friend accounts still connected. Some have gone away, maybe families delete their pages. But it is nice to click on an old friend's page sometimes while it is there.
A wipe of friends lists would eliminate that. Bummer and I can "live" with it. But the next thing to deal with is I already have too many friend requests by fake accounts that use info from existing "real" friends. So it will be very hard to re-constitute a new friends list because I don't know who is real and
Yes, do this. (Score:2)
There's no way that plan can go wrong. Do it right now.
haha no (Score:1)