> As a corporation, Facebook truly seems to be trying to improve its behavior for the benefit of society at large
Sorry, that's a hard disagree from me and I think you couldn't be further off the mark.
Facebook's entire raison d'etre from day 1 is to take as much data from as many sources as possible, then use the most powerful computers, programmed by the brightest minds, to use that data to maximise their profit with no regard for what damage that may do to you or society at large - look at what Jonathan Haidt talks about wrt to mental health problems and social media.
They use the dirtiest psychological tactics to ensure that you never put down your phone and to ensure that you only see what they deem to have maximum engagement (whatever the f that means) and only put their hands up to any nefarious shit when a spotlight is on them for it.
I can understand Facebook wanting to clean up their image from a PR perspective but it's nothing to do with altruism or wanting to serve the public better... if they can make more money from looking like a decent bunch, they'll do it.
> Facebook's entire raison d'etre from day 1 is to take as much data from as many sources as possible, then use the most powerful computers, programmed by the brightest minds, to use that data to maximise their profit
My impression was that on Day 1 it was really just to rate the attractiveness of the coeds at Harvard.
My point is that Facebook can improve its behavior only by putting its business at risk.
If Zuckerberg, Sandberg, et al could improve Facebook's behavior without putting the business at risk, they would do it in a heartbeat. But it appears they can't.
Their efforts are thus sincere but highly constrained: They will never voluntarily do anything that would put the business -- their life's work -- at risk.
If I may use an imperfect analogy: Facebook is a "polluter of society" that can't afford to stop polluting until all its competitors are forced to stop polluting society too.
> If Zuckerberg, Sandberg, et al could improve Facebook's behavior without putting the business at risk, they would do it in a heartbeat. But it appears they can't.
I think the point is they literally can't improve Facebook's behavior because their behavior is their business. They don't have any products that can function without their panopticon and Skinner boxes.
It's not that they can't compete by changing their behavior but cease to be a viable business that can even operate.
Of course it’s profitable to be a monipoly and doing the “right thing” might be to allow competitors in but one could basically never truly do that while the bottom line is the most important thing.
It’s so strange to me that so many truly believe a profit motive is all that’s needed to have good outcomes. It was never so, only starting in the 80s did companies care about shareholder value over everything else.
> It’s so strange to me that so many truly believe a profit motive is all that’s needed to have good outcomes.
Not strange. In the U.S. at least, we're acculturated to this ideology our whole lives through education and media.
That said, many/most of the wealthiest or influential market participants, fortune 500 CEOS, academics from top biz/econ programs understand the importance of trust in the economy and the role that an effective government (contracts, the rule of law, and regulation) play in enabling that trust.
If you or your industry are the target of regulation, though, government BAD, regulation BAD, regardless of what you philosophically believe.
People still think they’re getting a good deal which is mostly laughable. I’ve been in industries while wanting more regulation in them - it’s always shocking for me to imagine the amount of unreturned loyalty businesses will get from their employees.
> Facebook can improve its behavior only by putting its business at risk. ... They will never voluntarily do anything that would put the business -- their life's work -- at risk.
I don't understand how, given this, you could possibly sincerely open your original post with
> As a corporation, Facebook truly seems to be trying to improve its behavior for the benefit of society at large
I can't tell what your position is. Your opening sentence sounds like you think that Facebook should be given the benefit of the doubt because they mean well, when what the rest of what you're saying is that Facebook needs to have costs imposed on it in order to enable it to improve its behaviour
Your original point says that they are looking to change for the benefit of mankind...
They aren't. They have no sincerity. They will do what makes money. Period.
They have shown time and again they don't give two fucks about humanity, mental health, regulators etc until they are about to generate bad PR from it.
The government seems to be aiming at them right now although I suspect that once the brown envelopes stuffed with cash start passing around that will be diluted down to "honest gov, we'll start doing right!".
Their clock is about to be cleaned by Apple when they roll out the changes to apps requiring them to tell people the data that's being harvested... Facebook will quite rightly be worried right now.
If Google did the same... well, we'd see some folks bailing quick-sharp I reckon... rats and sinking ships and all that.
I'm finding these two sentences hard to reconcile.
> If Zuckerberg, Sandberg, et al could improve Facebook's behavior without putting the business at risk, they would do it in a heartbeat. But it appears they can't.
> Facebook truly seems to be trying to improve its behavior for the benefit of society at large
Imagine yourself as the CEO of a manufacturer that pollutes rivers, and you sincerely want to stop polluting, but if you stop polluting, the company's costs would increase to the point it would no longer be able to compete against all the other companies that continue polluting -- and they're trying to eat your lunch you every day. So, if you stop polluting you would quickly lose relevance, be forced to shut down plants, be forced to fire lots of decent people, and eventually go out of business.
Moreover, when the company was started, no one anywhere realized that polluting rivers was so bad for everyone. No one knew back then; no one thought of it as a problem.
Your choices are: (a) act in the best interest of society and get f#cked by competitors; or (b) remain a dominant force in the market, but as a side effect, f#ck everybody. All your options appear to be a mix of those two horrible choices.
Not just a company that pollutes rivers, but Filthy Frank's River Wreckers Pollution Distribution Specialists LLC, A company who's entire core mission, and reason for existing is the polluting of rivers.
I can imagine it of course but can't see parallels to Mark Zuckerberg. He hasn't done a substantive thing to show societies health is a priority. A tax break foundation that works on ways to spread Facebook further is not it.
Agressively lobby for criminal penalties (as in all the CXOs go to prison) for any company that continues to pollute after <date the law passes + 1year or so>, while loudly telling everyone that you will stop polluting as soon as your competitors are forced to do likewise.
Please cite any privacy legislation supported by Facebook/Zuckerberg under which CEOs or other responsible parties (not disposable middle managers) actually end up in prison (not pittance fines) for violations.
I think as many companies have started to do today, one can spin green manufacturing as a PR thing, and possibly market your product towards customers who are willing to pay more for greener manufacturing practices. Along the way, hopefully you could invest in green manufacturing improvements to make the tech cheaper at scale.
I don’t think it has to be an a or b situation. I think the best and brightest could solve the problem without decimating their profits. Perhaps I am not that smart, but surely Facebook is. (They have significantly more resources than their competitors, I imagine.)
Is it really true that Facebook would go bankrupt by being more ethical? I’m not so sure. They have a captive user base. A lot of older folks who aren’t great with tech are on Facebook, and they won’t be going anywhere that quickly. With as many users as they have — a seventh of the world’s population - I can’t imagine people will leave in droves that quickly. One of Facebook’s biggest advantages is the network effect of “everyone you know is already here”.
My opinion is that Facebook does in fact have the resources to be more ethical without loosing so much profit that they go out of business.
I think the problem partially is maximizing revenue at the cost of everything else. I’m not sure I buy into the idea that they must maximize revenue. Couldn’t they be more ethical at the cost of some money, and then that new revenue amount still is enough to cover expenses?
> I don’t think it has to be an a or b situation. I think the best and brightest could solve the problem without decimating their profits.
I hope you're right! But so far, it appears no one at Facebook has figured out how to escape this "tyranny of horrible choices."
> I think the problem partially is maximizing revenue at the cost of everything else.
I disagree. I think the problem, from the perspective of Facebook, is figuring out how to do The Right Thing while remaining relevant and competitive against the many companies trying to dislodge Facebook from its dominant position. Many of Facebook's users are addicted to the social-media-crack; if Facebook stops providing it, they will migrate to other social networks that provide it. And many of Facebook's customers -- advertisers and propagandists -- want Facebook to continue to modify user behavior on their behalf; and if Facebook stops doing that, those customers will migrate to the competition.
> the many companies trying to dislodge Facebook from its dominant position
Such as? Can you find me one company that provides a similar feature set to Facebook (cross-platform messaging & calling, personal & business pages with unlimited media uploads, groups, marketplace, dating and the network effects of everyone you know already being on it with their real name and no usernames to worry about)?
Furthermore, if Facebook stops or tones down paid advertising and unpaid spam/clickbait it will be yet another reason for users to prefer them versus the competition.
> Facebook's users are addicted to the social-media-crack
Are they? Facebook users are primarily there for keeping in touch with their friends, and happen to get sucked down the rabbit hole of bullshit by Facebook's algorithms which prioritizes engagement. Removing the engagement-generating crap won't suddenly remove the need for people to socialize.
> many of Facebook's customers -- advertisers and propagandists -- want Facebook to continue to modify user behavior on their behalf; and if Facebook stops doing that, those customers will migrate to the competition.
These customers want to go where the users are. If Facebook stops advertising but all the users remain (partly because of the lack of advertising), advertisers do not have a magic wand to move people across to another platform where they can advertise, short of paying those people to move (in which case it would be a win-win situation as people would be compensated for their time & attention).
I would choose to use my skills working for a different company in a different industry.
If Zuckerberg really had a problem with what Facebook was doing, but didn’t feel he could ethically risk the company’s growth and financial performance by changing its direction, he could quit and sell all his shares. He might take a financial hit, but he would still be one of the world’s richest people.
> If Zuckerberg really had a problem with what Facebook was doing, but didn’t feel he could ethically risk the company’s growth and financial performance by changing its direction, he could quit and sell all his shares. He might take a financial hit, but he would still be one of the world’s richest people.
He is one of the world's richest people. He seems to have concern (or at least feigns it) for the problems Facebook is causing. If he resigns and allows someone else, who is more hungry and motivated by money to take over, you believe Facebook's behavior would improve?
Imagine that you invent the idea of polluting rivers, and you set up a company to monopolize polluting rivers, and you tell people for decades that you want to stop polluting rivers, but every year the rivers get polluted by you.
The logical conclusion of your argument is this - Facebook cannot be operated safely and still make a profit and should shut down as soon as possible.
> The logical conclusion of your argument is this - Facebook cannot be operated safely and still make a profit and should shut down as soon as possible.
Personally, I wouldn't even start or be part of such a company, simple as that. I cannot imagine somebody polluting rivers on purpose just to make money but those people exist regardless. So this question is moot for quite a few people (me including) that could never ever get in this mindset and predict what they would do.
It doesn’t matter to the people forced to drink the polluted river water if the person doing the polluting feels bad about it, or doesn’t. Feeing bad does not absolve the CEO of anything.
This analogy also ignores that Facebook is putting huge amounts of money into lobbying efforts to ensure that they continue to be able to figuratively pollute the river.
> Moreover, when the company was started, no one anywhere realized that polluting rivers was so bad for everyone. No one knew back then; no one thought of it as a problem.
Zuckerberg called early users “dumb fucks” for trusting him with their data. That’s the demeanour of someone with bad (selfish) intentions from the start. Just because the damage he ended up doing is worse than the initial damage he predicted, it doesn’t excuse his continued morally bankrupt behaviour.
When you are build on a certain core you can't change who/what you are.
Facebook is built on getting / using user data to determine what to show.
Google is built on geting / using user data to determine what to show.
To betray those goals wouldn't make sense. How they go about it can change. Facebook has always gone hard and fast. They treat you more like a raw piece of meat. They will run ab tests on you and treat you like a variable in a ongoing experiment. Google has such reach that they can make minor changes and capture vast amounts of data.
Other companies are doing the same way but instead of using it to determine what to show you they use it to determine what ads look like so you can buy their product.
I don't think it's a justifiable for risk mitigation reasons to act as the oil industry has. What they can do more of is invest in more R&D for moonshot energy products. Or invest into existing green energy areas. I believe there are just better short term returns on PR (deceiving the public as much as possible), buying help & protection from regulators, and the status quo generally. I also believe the powers that be in that industry, like many others, are old, uninspired, and unreasonably resistant to change. Like Zuckerberg, they're more afraid of lost profit than destroying the world, whether by a lot or a little.
I think you are making broad statements because you don't like facebook, this is fine, but its fails to add anything.
So here's the thing, Facebook has a few big issues they can see:
1) the FB brand is toxic
2) the Facebook app/site is being seen as a ghetto for extremists and arseholes
3) instagram is a fragile cashcow.
4) AR is the next platform, which they have to nail stay in the game, which requires trust.
We all know that facebook proper is full of arseholes. Its profitable for now, but if it continues to be a ghetto for karens and racist kevs (or is seen to be) then people won't advertise. They also know that content moderation is fucking hard.
However, those are the excuses. They have good, clear, well written content guidelines. The issue is, they are not enforced equally. Trump broke the rules, he should have had his pubic hair pulled out. However because he's a politician they don't want to be accused of editorialising content.
This is because The management team are moral cowards. They want to do the right thing, but they are scared of the blowback from politicians. As they have the power to really shit on their parade. Add to this mix, a strong hysterical bunch of activists shouting at them, inside and out.
This causes the management team to withdraw into their shell. They see themselves as an island of reasonableness. the oversight committee is a step to being a useful tool to measure policy change. However it requires trust.
The bottom line is this, being a mirror of society is tough, because society has a whole bunch of toxic noise shitbags. Modelling your self on free expression means allowing these dicks to tarnish you.
Also - you could say the same and yet much much more about Google.
Google represents 10x the threat of FB because we all use it and essentially need it - and it's more broadly deployed.
FB is just FB. Use it or not.
FB can 'have it's cake and eat it'.
There's nothing wrong with using learned user behaviours to place some ads. There are reasonably narrow contexts in which privacy really isn't invaded, there's no harm really.
Where it 'gets bad' is when they follow you across the internet (like Google does ...), or when they use 'nasty algs' for interactivity (I don't think this is as bad as it seems).
Google is reading all your email and knows every search you ever made, I find that far more invasive.
FB has overstepped their bounds but there's no reason the can't go back in.
As far as 'anti trust' - it makes very little difference that FB owns WhatsApp and Insta. Break them up - very little will change.
The 'anti trust' issue is almost entirely with Google and Apple.
Google uses their search to promote their own products over others, rips off content for their search summaries, and uses Chrome and Android as a kind of 'market dumping' to ensure Search success.
Apple's 'App Store Only' rule for content distribution is questionable.
Sorry, that's a hard disagree from me and I think you couldn't be further off the mark.
Facebook's entire raison d'etre from day 1 is to take as much data from as many sources as possible, then use the most powerful computers, programmed by the brightest minds, to use that data to maximise their profit with no regard for what damage that may do to you or society at large - look at what Jonathan Haidt talks about wrt to mental health problems and social media.
They use the dirtiest psychological tactics to ensure that you never put down your phone and to ensure that you only see what they deem to have maximum engagement (whatever the f that means) and only put their hands up to any nefarious shit when a spotlight is on them for it.
I can understand Facebook wanting to clean up their image from a PR perspective but it's nothing to do with altruism or wanting to serve the public better... if they can make more money from looking like a decent bunch, they'll do it.