I recently graduated from college and was heavily involved in national hackathons, and this story is just BS. It's so laughably BS that this story can be used as proof of the New York Time's willingness to publish anything that'll hurt Facebook.
Facebook goes to the best schools in the country and hires the best of the best.
Which basically confirms that the media is out to get Facebook.
I mean I suspect the same thing, but I wish everyone would be upfront with their motives instead of acting like they're just concerned citizens. Facebook's biggest critics are the same people that hated Facebook before they did any of this.
> Their lack of willingness to make executive-level changes is appalling given what has come out in the last 12 months.
They're under no obligation to. Firms don't (and shouldn't) make personal decisions based on the whims of the mob.
> They still refuse to fully cooperate on various investigations involving foreign interference, and have shown practically no remorse for their negligence in these cases.
How many times does a company need to say sorry? I mean honestly, who would have thought a foreign government would do such a thing?
Plus the foreign interference is overblown. The amount of ads and groups Russia was pushing was miniscule compared to amount of content pushed everyday and political advertising that political parties does.
I don't care about 'sorry'. I'm not even sure what it means for a corporation to 'say sorry'.
I know what it means for humans to apologize for something serious. That involves taking responsibility for the bad act, being willing to honestly, candidly and forthrightly discuss the problem in question, take concrete steps to attempt to remedy the injury, and demonstrate how one is trying to make sure it doesn't happen again.
So FB can prove that. They can show a trustworthy third party[1] evidence that what is currently publicly known about that situation (which is not their only scandal by a long shot) is the full extent of what happened, what they're doing about it, and state in a non-weaselly way that they understand the importance that we don't find out later they're lying again. Sunshine and some time is a magic combination.
But of course, nobody's under an _obligation_ to attempt to regain trust. And given that nobody really expects current management to willingly give up power, I predict that they won't attempt it, because they've shown no material change to their overall behavior at all so far - in fact, they keep doubling down on sneaky, nasty and dishonest to try to keep pushing forward with their plans.
So I predict that they'll keep trying to obfuscate their way through the news-cycle, only later for it to be shown that whatever it is this time, it was worse, and in ways nobody even previously considered. Until they blow something else sufficiently important up that 'the mob' (AKA the rest of the folks on this planet who are sick of jerks blowing important things up, AKA FB's feedstock) decide that's gotta stop.
I also predict it won't be 'the mob' with torches and pitchforks. It'll be the one with Bloomberg terminals.
[1] Given that they have serially obfuscated, to outright lied, to hired firms to spread antisemitic smears against critics, nobody in their right mind would trust anything self-interested said by Zuckerberg or Sandberg.
Yeah it's really off putting. A lot of people here cannot come to grips with the fact that many tech companies are big because their customers people love their products; this includes Apple, Google, Facebook, and Amazon.
Nobody is pulling a fast one on me when I buy my iPhone and Mac. I know full well what Google and Facebook are doing with my data when I use their sites.
I. Don't. Care.
They have products and services that I want and I'm happy to fork over cash or data to get them. Please take your conspiracies elsewhere.
I used to be like you. I've defended Google until recently.
But after China, the killer drones and how they are destroying other players for no other reason than greed and carelessness I don't defend them anymore.
I still trust them with my data in their cloud, for now, but I try to reduce their power.
If we are lucky they might even become nice again in the future.
They used to be wildly profitable even when they were nice.
The problem with that plan is that if Google were to release such a service in the EU, the EU would then fine Google for using their search monopoly to prop up a service in another industry (News). The EU did something similar when Google used their search monopoly to promote Google Shopping.
Sure, but if google decides to pull out of european news, someone else might find it an attractive idea. And , considering that (if this passes) EU will have made it impossible for a european company to do that, it will be somewhere outside the EU.
And it's so transparent at this point. I've listened to podcasts with reporters and they lament the rise of Facebook and how "Facebook is stealing their business" through ads and algorithm changes that hurt them.
But the bias doesn't matter because everyone on the internet hates them (and Google) so they just rush to pile on. Anything negative about Facebook gets to the front page very quickly. The thing is, Facebook has billions of users and you don't get billions of users by being evil. People may not love Facebook, but there really isn't a better way to keep up with friends, family, and to organize get togethers. I don't use Facebook that much, but I'll never delete it. It's just too valuable in my life.
As an aside: we're all engineers here, and if Facebook offered you guys a job, almost everyone here would take it. Their engineering team, quality of life, and compensation is extremely hard to beat. The NY Times found a couple college kids who don't want to work for Facebook. Okay. As a recent college graduate I can assure you that almost everyone in my graduating class would have taken a job at Facebook if given the chance. Facebook came and hired the smartest of my graduating class and the "hackathon" crowd puts Facebook at close to the top of their list of companies to work for. Facebook isn't hurting for talent and they have the compensation packages to compete for the best of the best.
> Anything negative about Facebook gets to the front page very quickly.
Pretty much everyone (whether you're a Facebook user or not) got their privacy violated by Facebook. The majority doesn't know it but we're on HN and everyone is aware of what's happening, so it's not too surprising that people feel bitter about it. I feel bitter about it too.
> Facebook has billions of users and you don't get billions of users by being evil.
They got billions of users back when they actually had a decent product, nowadays it's just network effects - nobody signs up for the product itself. In fact, they're perfectly aware that Facebook (the product) is on its deathbed, otherwise they wouldn't be chasing new trends by buying Instagram & WhatsApp.
> Facebook puts a tax on being human, on trying to exist outside of a social vacuum.
I don't know what "trying to exist outside of a social vacuum" means. I also don't know what type of "tax" Facebook puts on being human that isn't levied--to at least some extent--by every other technological advance (telegraph, phone, internet, email, SMS...)
The thing is, Facebook has billions of users and you don't get billions of users by being evil
This is such an obviously nonsensical thing to say. What about the tobacco industry? What about sweatshop-manufactured clothing? It’s easy to find examples where being evil is in fact a necessary prerequisite of getting billions of users...
Testifying before Congress doesn't mean one is in crisis. People are called to testify before Congress all the time and you don't hear about it because the testimony is irrelevant.
Look, Facebook needs to get its act together. They are in need for serious reform. However, mainstream media knows that Facebook is under a ton of pressure and these types of stories generate a ton of clicks. I know people want Facebook to die, but Facebook's usage has remained pretty much the same during all these negative stories. The public is not hating Facebook as much as people want to believe.
But the media has its narrative and it'll continue this "Facebook is evil" beat. The same with Clinton's email server, and more recently, the same with that immigrant caravan coming up from Central America.
> The public is not hating Facebook as much as people want to believe.
> But the media has its narrative and it'll continue this "Facebook is evil" beat. The same with Clinton's email server, and more recently, the same with that immigrant caravan coming up from Central America.
The media doesn't just report on the public's current taste; its also an agent for advising the public to change their taste. To throw light on darkness. The article is not just some slander on Facebook, it goes into detail about exactly how much Facebook execs knew about the problem and the (extreme, IMO) political steps they've taken to protect their interests.
About second half 2016, iirc, Facebook changed the News Feed, so instead of showing first Pages content in your feed, they were showing what your friends posted/shared first. One could argue this was a good thing. What happened after is that many, if not all pages got a hit in reach/traffic. Who do you think has been hit the most by this? Media maybe? (less traffic redirected to their websites, less opportunities to show adds on said websites, less money for them). I think there even was a story about Murdoch trying to persuade Zucky to change his mind, found one: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/12/facebook-rupert-murdoch-thre...
Because of Trump and the US Government abdicating all responsibility in checking the Executive Branch? NYT's subscriptions jumped after the 2016 election because a free press is extremely vital at this point.
The US is in a very weird spot right now with Democratic norms sliding. Once we exit this weird period and US Government returns to normal, lets see how the NYT's stock price fares then.
> The US is in a very weird spot right now with Democratic norms sliding. Once we exit this weird period and US Government returns to normal, lets see how the NYT's stock price fares then.
I don't think the US Government will ever return to what it used to be pre-Trump, and I think its a good thing. One thing we've seen is just how brittle our Republic really is; how much we rely on so many people doing the right thing. I suspect the new wave of younger Congresspersons, who campaigned in an environment with a completely undemocratic and vile POTUS, will be deeply suspicious of unchecked Presidential authority. And I would argue that's a good thing.
I mean, you can bloody well hate some business and still patronize it. I'd wager most Americans hate their cable company.
I agree there's little risk of users deserting Facebook en masse, but what we may see is lawmakers coming down on FB like a ton of bricks. It will be popular, too: Heavily regulating social media and slapping them with massive fines will be winning issues with constituents on both sides of the aisle.
I'd wager most Americans hate their cable company.
Pro tip (no pun intended): never use residential cable service. Always sign up for business-class service. You will get more-or-less infinitely better support, less telephone tag when things go wrong, faster maintenance attention, and fewer hassles in general, all without paying much more. Anecdotally, this also keeps you off the radar of anti-piracy crusaders, since users in business-grade IP blocks are more likely to have the resources to fight back.
No takers so far after 6 hours. Expected to see at least one person.
I'm definitely not one of them. I use it for networking. Pretty much everyone in the board game industry is on Facebook at the moment (publishers, designers, developers, artists, media, etc), to get feedback from each other, coordinate events, and reach out to fans and potential customers.
I did it 3 months ago. Its really made my life so much better. No more worrying about not being good enough as my peers who live far away in a different country. No more dealing with ads.
However, I cheated somewhat and switched to twitter and continued to stay on Instagram (for sharing photos) and Whatsapp (talk to social circle).
If newspapers were only interested in clicks, no one would write such a story. No journalist would spend 6 months of their time researching such a story. Would you please stop with this simplistic media meme? This is not how things work in journalism.
Losing 2 to 4 million users out of 375 million users is hardly "significant". It's something to look out for of course, but trying to insinuate that Facebook is in trouble in Europe with those numbers is a stretch.
It's definitely significant for a company that a) has grown steadily since inception, and b) has a valuation based on continued growth. Facebook's stock is trading something like 35% below this year's peak, and this is part of why.
Agree completely. To some people, the tradeoffs between having Amazon come with a couple tax breaks and not having Amazon come at all is worth it. Nobody put a gun to the heads of these city officials - everyone knew what was going on and city officials went along willingly.
If Amazon had chosen Detroit or some city in America's heartland, the national press would have been praising Amazon for "spreading the wealth". Instead of getting mad at Amazon, policy makers should look at why Amazon chose these locations and seek to replicate these conditions elsewhere.
It's anti-competitive against companies too small to pull this type of stunt though.
It feels wrong to have everyone playing by different rules. Why should my small business across the street pay for Amazon's public services because they're able to make every city in the country race to the bottom?
Why should you pay more than the person getting the bulk discount for buying more items at a time? Why should you pay more than the person that negotiated the better car deal? That's what's happening here, a negotiated bulk discount. You can argue negotiations and discounts are unfair, but I'd argue it's unfair to outlaw conditional discounts at this high of a level. And even if you and the majority of your peers believe it is unfair, you can only vote in officials that agree, but luckily those in other communities than you can disagree about fairness and have it their way too.
Except that the law is not supposed to be a car deal but supposed to be the same for all actors.
Or do you also think you should be able to pay to ignore all laws in general?
If I follow your logic, I think a fair tool for cities and state should be the possibility to have tariffs for everything coming from outside the city/state. So now to attract Amazon not only can you say "if you come here you won't pay tax" but more importantly you can say "if you DON'T come here we will tax 50% of every sale you make in our city". Now suddenly I think many people here would not sound so keen on the idea.
It's doggone impossible replicating cities that became central shortly after the creation of the United States, or even earlier. If Amazon had picked Austin or Pittsburgh you might have had a better argument, as those are seen as up-and-coming tech hubs. Instead, they boringly chose cities that are already central to American economic and political life.
The argument for Austin or Pittsburgh isn't too different than an argument for NYC or Washington, DC.
My point is that there are cities in the United States that attracting talent, creatives, and business investment and instead of crying foul, we should learn about what they're doing and seek to replicate it.
If Amazon had chosen Austin or Pittsburgh, plenty of people would still be complaining, although Maybe not as much as NYC and Washington.
They would be complaining for fueling rent prices and gentrification in those cities. But the complaint about NYC/DC is that they are cities that have been well-established for centuries, which makes the whole contest seem like a sham that was rigged in favor of predetermined winners from the beginning.
Facebook goes to the best schools in the country and hires the best of the best.