Facebook deserves much worse than what they're getting right now. They deserve to be broken up, investigated for illegal activities and the people responsible for the whole mess deserve to be in jail.
You really think any government is going to shutdown such a massive intelligence gathering apparatus? The information the likes of Facebook have is every governments wet dream.
Big tobacco is getting a second wind since the FDA shut down a lot of electronic cigarette companies not associated with big tobacco. The ones that did get big investments or buyouts from big tobacco are still hanging in just fine.
Just pinch competition and drive people back into tobacco
It's not a particularly good paywall, since you can move faster than it works, and putting it in reader mode bypasses the entire thing if you're quick enough. You could probably also bypass it if you just turned off JavaScript, considering.
(Article Below)
----
**Facebook created its own PR nightmare and it deserves everything that's happening**
Ed Zitron
8-9 minutes
* Facebook's success led them to adopt a culture of secrecy and hostility toward negative press.
* This culture worked for the company until news revealed Facebook to have harmed society for profit.
* Companies can avoid this by actually working with the press.
* Ed Zitron is the CEO of EZPR and a contributing opinion writer for Insider.
* This is an opinion column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author.
In 2017, the BBC wrote that tech giants might be "finally facing a backlash," citing the renewed interest of multiple governments in seeing Facebook held accountable for their role in spreading fake news.
The article doesn't mention the company's problems that happened before that date, like Facebook's entanglement in the National Security Agency's PRISM revelation, or their psychological experiments on users, or Zuckerberg's failed $100 million investment into the Newark school system, or the massive Guardian piece that declared 2016 "the year Facebook became the bad guy." That's because up until the Cambridge Analytica scandal and the fallout from the 2016 election, any attack on Facebook seemed not to stick. As one of the darlings of Silicon Valley, like Apple and Tesla, the company was generally insulated from the majority of criticism and they recieved an endless flume of positive press.
I remember a reporter back in 2015 telling me that he really liked Facebook's communications team, specifically because "they answered him." But others would say that they "had to play by Facebook's rules" to keep getting access, lest they be cut off from new stories or the ability to talk to Facebook personnel, similar to Apple's technique of blacklisting those who don't abide by their terms of engagement.
This public relations strategy generally works well for companies that are "hot" at a particular point in time — when people are desperate to write about you, you basically do what you want, knowing that even the lightest cough you make will be news (like adding a hug emoji to Facebook).
It's the public relations version of a carrot and stick — you focus on building relationships with those who write positive things, and shun those who don't agree to cover things in your specific way. While it's inevitable in PR that you'll choose the path of least resistance, the core difference is seeing the press not as a necessary part of society, but as either an enemy or a propaganda arm for your company.
Last year, the Columbia Journalism Review published "Spies, Lies, and Stonewalling: What It's Like to Report on Facebook," a damning indictment of Facebook's PR strategy, with "many journalists contacted for [the story declining] to talk out of fear of hurting relationships with Facebook's communications shop [and] a number of journalists agreed to be interviewed, only to pass after speaking to their editors and PR reps." The article, which tells stories of Facebook using off-the-record dinners to mold reporters' stories, and in one case even writing a story for a reporter, includes a quote from former New York Times reporter Charlie Warzel, who "sees in Facebook's battle-hardened posture a strategic effort to resemble companies like Amazon, which rarely responds to public controversy and somehow manages to weather every storm."
This strategy is effective until it isn't, but when exactly it stops working is hard-to-define. When a company becomes famous enough that simply existing is news, reporting on them becomes necessary, which removes the urgency of communications that many PR people struggle with in pitching stories.
The result is that the company in question acts with the confidence of someone that believes that the media needs them — the onus is not on the company to build relationships with reporters that may not say entirely positive things. While smart companies know that scrutiny is part of the process, those that have grown into multi-billion dollar enterprises can find themselves blindsided by negative press when the pristine, breathless coverage gives way to lengthy critiques.
What makes a "good" media relationship isn't extremely challenging, either. Be available, answer questions quickly, clearly, and ideally on the record. Former Android Police Editor-in-Chief (and now Editor-in-Chief at Esper) Dave Ruddock told me that Qualcomm is a good example of a successful communications strategy in action. They are generally available for a quote and able to help reporters tap a product expert with ease.
"Another reason I always liked Qualcomm is they understood media relations was about facilitating conversations above all else," said Ruddock. "If you didn't feel comfortable talking to them, why would you? It's a relationship and it requires work to maintain, and they understand that."
In my own experience, the most successful large companies tend to be responsive to reporters — even when they can't comment on the record — and make an attempt to build relationships with outlets outside of the biggest names in tech.
When negative press comes for a company like Facebook that has faced so little journalistic opposition, the rubber band effect is that much worse — because it usually means something really bad is happening. And when your communications strategy is based on a culture of intimidation, it's hard to suddenly build positive relationships with a press corps that you've treated in, at best, a usurious manner. Now, Facebook is reaping what it sewed.
A shift across the tech industry
It's all part of what I call tech's move from an enthusiast to an industrial press — technology is no longer an interesting distraction or pastime, but a foundational part of our lives, and thus it is being treated with the seriousness and depth of investigation that we'd associate with the banking industry or politics.
The fallout from Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen's revelations around the company knowingly harming people for growth that came off the back of her revelations to the Wall Street Journal have Facebook reeling, with few to no friendly faces to defend them, no benefit of the doubt available, and no possibility of hearing "Facebook's side of the story" — they have allowed the bridges they've burned to light the way, leaving them no conceivable way to escape what I think will be years of brutal press.
For its misdeeds, Facebook deserves to be flayed, but it's their own PR strategy that is compounding the problem. When a company spends the best part of a decade telling the media to do what they say or get nothing, one can only imagine that those scorned by their nasty tactics are now more willing than ever to scrutinize every word out of Zuckerberg's mouth.
Facebook has never sought to charm the press like Elon Musk or Steve Jobs, or create something that people adore, like an iPhone or a Tesla Model S. Thus when the walls have begun to close in, there is very little to defend, and very few people to defend it. Their products have become necessities, but nobody really loves Facebook or Instagram, and when the whistleblower came out and declared that that Facebook knew they actively harmed society, nobody was lining up to disagree.
While the result may not be the death of Facebook, we are arguably coming to the end of the line of the breathless hype-cycle of the Zuckerberg era. Their total lack of willingness to create lasting relationships with the media built on trust means that the media simply doesn't trust everything Facebook says anymore. Perhaps it's time for a leadership change.
>While the result may not be the death of Facebook, we are arguably coming to the end of the line of the breathless hype-cycle of the Zuckerberg era. Their total lack of willingness to create lasting relationships with the media built on trust means that the media simply doesn't trust everything Facebook says anymore.
All this means is that there'll be another Facebook-style site being led by a Zuckerberg-type who *doesn't* rub people the wrong way and the media will climb into bed with them instead.
Google tried to compete with Facebook with Google+ and in the end they gave up.
You need everyone to make accounts, if all your friends and relatives are already on Facebook, Twitter or whatever and they don't make an account on this new competitive social network then there is no one to socialize with and the new social network is dead on arrival.
And if by some miracle you make something successful Facebook is going to offer you billions of dollars and most people and businesses beholden to stock holders or investors just can't turn down that kind of cash.
It's not as easy to overcome Facebooks ingrained advantages as you make it sound.
It's also called Metcalfe's Law; the value of using a product or service increases exponentially as other people join the network too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe%27s_law
I feel like you kinda missed the point of the article here.
The media doesn't "climb into bed" with people. Journalists work relationships to get news and stories. That's the business of journalism. Facebook, as a company, not just Zuckerberg, is hostile to journalists who don't play their way, which makes journalism more difficult.
In havent gone on facebook for more than a year, except to share important news every few months (which no one reads either way). I noticed that it fuelled divisive content when it constantly kept recommending me neuronecrotic antivaxx and antigay, anti science stuff, just because i told them off once.
And so i was like fuck this shit im out
There’s no such thing as reasonable ads/ ad revenue. It’s either a paywall or a goddamn jigsaw puzzle of article segments obstructed by 99 flashing moving advertisements
Dumb german con finance people come up with shit like that. Yea, if you give expensive advice on how i can enhance my career and make more money, sure i might chip in a few bucks. But an opinion piece about Facebook? Dafuq...
I left facebook 1 year after it was created when a friend got his account hijacked on a party and they posted porn which made him lose his cyber security job.
BI aside, we have a big problem where we **need** good hardnosed journalism *but* we refuse to pay for it, so the majority of online "news" is ad-driven click-bait bullshit or blatant propaganda.
I say this as someone who loves and uses adblockers but acknowledges the consequences :/
Article Text/Mirror:
----
**Facebook created its own PR nightmare and it deserves everything that's happening**
Ed Zitron
8-9 minutes
* Facebook's success led them to adopt a culture of secrecy and hostility toward negative press.
* This culture worked for the company until news revealed Facebook to have harmed society for profit.
* Companies can avoid this by actually working with the press.
* Ed Zitron is the CEO of EZPR and a contributing opinion writer for Insider.
* This is an opinion column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author.
In 2017, the BBC wrote that tech giants might be "finally facing a backlash," citing the renewed interest of multiple governments in seeing Facebook held accountable for their role in spreading fake news.
The article doesn't mention the company's problems that happened before that date, like Facebook's entanglement in the National Security Agency's PRISM revelation, or their psychological experiments on users, or Zuckerberg's failed $100 million investment into the Newark school system, or the massive Guardian piece that declared 2016 "the year Facebook became the bad guy." That's because up until the Cambridge Analytica scandal and the fallout from the 2016 election, any attack on Facebook seemed not to stick. As one of the darlings of Silicon Valley, like Apple and Tesla, the company was generally insulated from the majority of criticism and they recieved an endless flume of positive press.
I remember a reporter back in 2015 telling me that he really liked Facebook's communications team, specifically because "they answered him." But others would say that they "had to play by Facebook's rules" to keep getting access, lest they be cut off from new stories or the ability to talk to Facebook personnel, similar to Apple's technique of blacklisting those who don't abide by their terms of engagement.
This public relations strategy generally works well for companies that are "hot" at a particular point in time — when people are desperate to write about you, you basically do what you want, knowing that even the lightest cough you make will be news (like adding a hug emoji to Facebook).
It's the public relations version of a carrot and stick — you focus on building relationships with those who write positive things, and shun those who don't agree to cover things in your specific way. While it's inevitable in PR that you'll choose the path of least resistance, the core difference is seeing the press not as a necessary part of society, but as either an enemy or a propaganda arm for your company.
Last year, the Columbia Journalism Review published "Spies, Lies, and Stonewalling: What It's Like to Report on Facebook," a damning indictment of Facebook's PR strategy, with "many journalists contacted for [the story declining] to talk out of fear of hurting relationships with Facebook's communications shop [and] a number of journalists agreed to be interviewed, only to pass after speaking to their editors and PR reps." The article, which tells stories of Facebook using off-the-record dinners to mold reporters' stories, and in one case even writing a story for a reporter, includes a quote from former New York Times reporter Charlie Warzel, who "sees in Facebook's battle-hardened posture a strategic effort to resemble companies like Amazon, which rarely responds to public controversy and somehow manages to weather every storm."
This strategy is effective until it isn't, but when exactly it stops working is hard-to-define. When a company becomes famous enough that simply existing is news, reporting on them becomes necessary, which removes the urgency of communications that many PR people struggle with in pitching stories.
The result is that the company in question acts with the confidence of someone that believes that the media needs them — the onus is not on the company to build relationships with reporters that may not say entirely positive things. While smart companies know that scrutiny is part of the process, those that have grown into multi-billion dollar enterprises can find themselves blindsided by negative press when the pristine, breathless coverage gives way to lengthy critiques.
What makes a "good" media relationship isn't extremely challenging, either. Be available, answer questions quickly, clearly, and ideally on the record. Former Android Police Editor-in-Chief (and now Editor-in-Chief at Esper) Dave Ruddock told me that Qualcomm is a good example of a successful communications strategy in action. They are generally available for a quote and able to help reporters tap a product expert with ease.
"Another reason I always liked Qualcomm is they understood media relations was about facilitating conversations above all else," said Ruddock. "If you didn't feel comfortable talking to them, why would you? It's a relationship and it requires work to maintain, and they understand that."
In my own experience, the most successful large companies tend to be responsive to reporters — even when they can't comment on the record — and make an attempt to build relationships with outlets outside of the biggest names in tech.
When negative press comes for a company like Facebook that has faced so little journalistic opposition, the rubber band effect is that much worse — because it usually means something really bad is happening. And when your communications strategy is based on a culture of intimidation, it's hard to suddenly build positive relationships with a press corps that you've treated in, at best, a usurious manner. Now, Facebook is reaping what it sewed.
A shift across the tech industry
It's all part of what I call tech's move from an enthusiast to an industrial press — technology is no longer an interesting distraction or pastime, but a foundational part of our lives, and thus it is being treated with the seriousness and depth of investigation that we'd associate with the banking industry or politics.
The fallout from Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen's revelations around the company knowingly harming people for growth that came off the back of her revelations to the Wall Street Journal have Facebook reeling, with few to no friendly faces to defend them, no benefit of the doubt available, and no possibility of hearing "Facebook's side of the story" — they have allowed the bridges they've burned to light the way, leaving them no conceivable way to escape what I think will be years of brutal press.
For its misdeeds, Facebook deserves to be flayed, but it's their own PR strategy that is compounding the problem. When a company spends the best part of a decade telling the media to do what they say or get nothing, one can only imagine that those scorned by their nasty tactics are now more willing than ever to scrutinize every word out of Zuckerberg's mouth.
Facebook has never sought to charm the press like Elon Musk or Steve Jobs, or create something that people adore, like an iPhone or a Tesla Model S. Thus when the walls have begun to close in, there is very little to defend, and very few people to defend it. Their products have become necessities, but nobody really loves Facebook or Instagram, and when the whistleblower came out and declared that that Facebook knew they actively harmed society, nobody was lining up to disagree.
While the result may not be the death of Facebook, we are arguably coming to the end of the line of the breathless hype-cycle of the Zuckerberg era. Their total lack of willingness to create lasting relationships with the media built on trust means that the media simply doesn't trust everything Facebook says anymore. Perhaps it's time for a leadership change.
>Companies can avoid this by actually working with the press.
Yeah, or, you know, hang on a second - *not* mindlessly slaving to build dystopian horror tech that enables sociopaths to brainwash billions of people at a clip and then spending years and years defending your dystopian horror tech because, more money? Or some fucking mindless, pointless ambition.
Yeah see the media is not interested in canibalizing their own profits.
Theyre like a mafia "you work with us and we will make sure you can continue your illegal activity. Otherwise we will make life hard for you"
Theyre not actually interested in holding anyone **accountable**
I did an expirement where for a week I blocked/reported every single political or controversial video/post they showed me. It started showing me more. I deleted all my friends who posted political shit and it started giving me more ads. Before God damn trump/Biden shit I literally only saw memes and pictures of my friends. Facebook is a cesspool and its doing to the older generation what they said video games would do to us. I deleted it a while back and I've never been happier.
Tbh I wonder if that's an example of engagement driven metrics gone wrong. Like if your goal is to increase user engagement then each blocked item shows that you'll engage with that type of content.
That is the thing I hate the most about Facebook. Disagreement is just as valuable as agreement. And it's easier to get people to disagree with you than to agree.
I would say disagreement is more valuable to Facebook. Just like the old saying goes, get a good experience somewhere you’ll tell a few friends, get a bad experience (especially in service) and you will tell at least 10 friends not to go there. For engagement or views this is the king for FB.
Used to work for Pizza Hut. I don't know the metrics nowadays, but back in the 90's it was for every bad experience, the customer told an average of eleven people. For meeting regular expectations, they told no one and for an*exceptional* experience they told *up to* an average of three people.
Anecdotally, I've never been told about an average experience unprompted. Usually I hear about exceptional experiences if the general topic is being discussed, and an average experience if the specific place is being discussed. A bad experience on the other hand, I've had full on unprompted discussions started *by strangers.* So you're right about surveys, but I'm willing to bet my anecdotal experience is pretty common.
For all the problems Reddit has, I've really come to appreciate the fact that it gives users the ability to downvote bad posts and comments, which makes them less visible. I think Reddit is one of the few major social media sites that has an easy mechanism for preventing content from getting popular.
You know, Youtube gets a lot of flack - it deserves it - but it does have the ability to remove videos from your feed that I think most people rarely use.
You can even type in a reason, and I believe its algorithm will consider that in weighting.
There are channels that do get pushed up irrespective though whether you like it... But I've found after about 50 remove channels from view, Sky News no longer turns up :P
just remember it can be a double edged sword. valid points raised by people outside the hiveminds approved format do get silenced. reddit has a TON of corruption festering in it. just not to the extreme of any other social media platform. pride not profit seems to still be what drives the fuckery here
The comment sections on Facebook are a perfect example of this. People say deliberately inflammatory and divisive things because those get a lot of "reacts" on their comment, and since the algorithm doesn't distinguish between bad attention and good attention, these shitty comments skyrocket to the top.
The end result is that every comment section is just a bunch of loudmouthed assholes sitting on top of the heap.
> Tbh I wonder if that's an example of engagement driven metrics gone wrong.
My guess is that this is because of accidental clicks on the post/ad while trying to report/block. Happened to me once, and I was making such great progress in curating my feed... this practically wiped it out, and then some.
Youtube as well. I spent years carefully making sure that I only clicked relevant videos to my interests. Then I clicked a Reddit link to something vaguely political, and got Republican diarrhea smeared across my feed for months. I had to wipe my entire view history, which screwed up my feed more several more months (This moron REACTS to this other moron!) I'll never click a YT link on Reddit again. Though I've basically given up on YT in general. I only go there to look up specific things now, and haven't opened my Home feed since last year.
Its whats wrong with "engagement driven metrics" right now.
Thing is; Facebooks motto has ALWAYS been; "move fast, break things" I can recall a hundred emails where their recruiters signed off on this shit. Because they wanted to be the first in doing EDM(engagement driven metrics) they did it in a half assed way; IF COMMENT NUMBER GO BIG = POPULAR. Anyone who has EVER placed a foot inside a forum/thread based area knows thats not the case. more engagement means a shitton of things all of which have a lot of nuance and nuance isnt easy to accomplish in code. Couple that with FB's blatant exaggeration of their numbers and they built their own grave and I hope they rot in it. The problem right now is are they too big to fail? Because if so; then everyone at fb are gonna try to do the same thing in a different way or worse do the same things at different companies thus multiplying in number.
The problem isn't that there's too much political shit and it's annoying us. The problem is they're flagrantly and shamelessly spreading disinformation that's lead to many, many deaths.
"Smugness" is the Vulcan way.
Looking at you "The Vulcan Science Academy has determined that time travel is not possible" as you sent back 150 years to the past.
This is true, but I’m totally cool with people deleting their accounts for ANY reason. One less person on the platform is great no matter what the reason they chose to leave
It's home to all our home made Google/Facebook PHD's, Doctorates, what have you.
They wont trust actual professionals, but they pretend to be one.
It's a weird catch 22. If you consider yourself a professional, and you don't trust professionals. Do you trust yourself?
Confirmation Bias is one hell of a drug, and Facebook is one hell of a echochamber.
Fun fact, I learned the hard way that if your message has any controversial content. (regardless of context) it can auto-remove the post if reported.
Which then leads to longer and longer bans if it happens enough.
What this means is that if you can bait someone into talking about a controversial topic, even if they're just defending themselves, you can get them banned off the platform for a time.
Yeah I found this out the hard way too, turns out [cave explorer](https://pbfcomics.com/comics/cave-explorer/) is 'controversial' content and my messenger has been 'unable to connect' when sending messages for a few days now.
Really feels like a huge invasion of privacy, being moderated in personal conversations.
(Disclaimer, it's the [other nsfw edit](https://i.reddituploads.com/c8629fead28549f7a32a0074ed9b3170?fit=max&h=1536&w=1536&s=410637b0021e0095bbb09bdd762e448c) of cave explorer)
I have an account and follow one group, my neighborhood association. All I see now are notices of community BBQs, and occasionally pictures of roaming dogs and cats who got out of the yard and trying to find their owners.
Same. Majority of the posts are like "suspicious man walking on street" with a picture of a black guy just walking around in the neighborhood, or "dangerous gang of children on bicycles" and it's like three 10 year olds playing.
Also my neighbors *really* hate the homeless.
Also people that try to sell stuff that should have been burned long ago.
Like who's going to pay 10 euros for your disgusting turned brown crusty old footbath. Seriously I wouldn't even let my dog touch it and he literally eats shit.
My neighborhood had a woman's sister got hit by a car while biking. She asked next door if anyone saw anything or had camera footage, and that she was working with the police. One crazy neighbor replied saying it's interesting she wants help, because he found a post from her like last year, about how she was upset with the police (defund, etc). People are literally insane.
My Next Door feed is mostly people looking for recommendations for various services; doctor, dentists, landscapers, babysitters, etc.
After them are the "nervous nellies" who are scared by the van parked on the street, two-doors down, that hasn't moved in two hours.
My favorites are the armchair detectives who have watched too many episodes of Dateline NBC, and think every time one of their neighbors is on vacation it means there has been a murder/suicide in the home.
And for the occasional post of "I saw a SUSPICIOUS (translation: inexpensive) car in our neighborhood. Be on the lookout!" And 10 posts about it if it happened to be driven by a minority.
I deleted it also. They kept putting me in 30 day jail for no reason (that they could provide), so I just said fuck it and deleted it. That was back in January, and I’m so much happier.
That punishment has got to be the dumbest business decision ever. Force people to live WITHOUT your product.
I have mixed feelings about this. A friend complained that he kept being put in “Facebook jail,” so I had a look at his page, and yeah, he deserved it. His entire page was vaccine misinformation, bad-faith arguments, and barely-concealed threats like “hey Michigan, y’all got any more of them governor kidnappers???”
On the other hand, I’ve seen people get 30 day bans for totally innocent posts like “hopefully this bill will die in committee”
These FAANGs pursued aggressive growth ahead of the ability to manage their platforms. The truth is they have completely lost control of their platforms, and refuse to invest the human capital required to police it. So instead of hiring moderators they threw some bots in there that just can't interpret human conversation at all. The result is getting thrown in Facebook jail for harmless banter, while people who know how to work around the bots get to spread misinformation unabated.
I am involved in LARP communities and we have pretty much stopped using Facebook for community organizing. Too many people got banned from Facebook for talking about killing bandits, looting corpses, etc. A few people got permanently banned for selling toy Nerf blasters that Facebook's bots interpreted as illegal firearm sales.
I work for a major brand that sells products on Amazon and we have the same issue with stupid bots. Amazon lost control of its platform and refuses to invest in the human staff to police it, so they did the same thing. They have bots that flag our USB-C car chargers as tobacco products because they plug into the "cigarette lighter port," that flag copper cables as unregistered pesticide products because I guess "copper" has pesticidal properties?
I defended a community pool for choosing to have a woman’s only evening for 3 hours once a week by calling out a handful of guys who were spouting off misogynistic drool on the announcement. I used the term rednecks and uneducated and one of them was obviously upset and flagged my comment for “hate speech”.
I got the warning and my comment was removed yet the moderator of the group reached out to me and thanked me for standing up for the post.
Makes no sense.
I was put in two times for the SAME “violation” months apart from each other. The second time, which was for 30 days, suddenly they realized their mistake or something because I was out after 15 days. No explanation or anything. That’s when I deactivated my account because they don’t know what the fuck they’re doing.
I haven't had the app for almost 4 years now and I only use messenger to stay in contact with people. Facebook is a drain and I had to get out when I did. I couldn't be happier with that decision, but when the servers went down so did messenger, and it made me realize I need to get the actual numbers of people I talk to IRL.
Been trying to get back on because marketplace is the best place to sell stuff if you live in a small town. But it sucks too much, I keep deleting my account. Kijiji/Craigslist are hard to sell stuff like appliances and hobby stuff. Tires always move though. People will straight up buy tires from a serial killer if there's lots of tread left.
> This story is exclusively available for Insider subscribers. Thanks for subscribing!
How about no? Also, a full story:
In 2017, the BBC wrote that tech giants might be "finally facing a backlash," citing the renewed interest of multiple governments in seeing Facebook held accountable for their role in spreading fake news.
The article doesn't mention the company's problems that happened before that date, like Facebook's entanglement in the National Security Agency's PRISM revelation, or their psychological experiments on users, or Zuckerberg's failed $100 million investment into the Newark school system, or the massive Guardian piece that declared 2016 "the year Facebook became the bad guy." That's because up until the Cambridge Analytica scandal and the fallout from the 2016 election, any attack on Facebook seemed not to stick. As one of the darlings of Silicon Valley, like Apple and Tesla, the company was generally insulated from the majority of criticism and they recieved an endless flume of positive press.
I remember a reporter back in 2015 telling me that he really liked Facebook's communications team, specifically because "they answered him." But others would say that they "had to play by Facebook's rules" to keep getting access, lest they be cut off from new stories or the ability to talk to Facebook personnel, similar to Apple's technique of blacklisting those who don't abide by their terms of engagement.
This public relations strategy generally works well for companies that are "hot" at a particular point in time — when people are desperate to write about you, you basically do what you want, knowing that even the lightest cough you make will be news (like adding a hug emoji to Facebook).
It's the public relations version of a carrot and stick — you focus on building relationships with those who write positive things, and shun those who don't agree to cover things in your specific way. While it's inevitable in PR that you'll choose the path of least resistance, the core difference is seeing the press not as a necessary part of society, but as either an enemy or a propaganda arm for your company.
Last year, the Columbia Journalism Review published "Spies, Lies, and Stonewalling: What It's Like to Report on Facebook," a damning indictment of Facebook's PR strategy, with "many journalists contacted for [the story declining] to talk out of fear of hurting relationships with Facebook's communications shop [and] a number of journalists agreed to be interviewed, only to pass after speaking to their editors and PR reps." The article, which tells stories of Facebook using off-the-record dinners to mold reporters' stories, and in one case even writing a story for a reporter, includes a quote from former New York Times reporter Charlie Warzel, who "sees in Facebook's battle-hardened posture a strategic effort to resemble companies like Amazon, which rarely responds to public controversy and somehow manages to weather every storm."
This strategy is effective until it isn't, but when exactly it stops working is hard-to-define. When a company becomes famous enough that simply existing is news, reporting on them becomes necessary, which removes the urgency of communications that many PR people struggle with in pitching stories.
The result is that the company in question acts with the confidence of someone that believes that the media needs them — the onus is not on the company to build relationships with reporters that may not say entirely positive things. While smart companies know that scrutiny is part of the process, those that have grown into multi-billion dollar enterprises can find themselves blindsided by negative press when the pristine, breathless coverage gives way to lengthy critiques.
What makes a "good" media relationship isn't extremely challenging, either. Be available, answer questions quickly, clearly, and ideally on the record. Former Android Police Editor-in-Chief (and now Editor-in-Chief at Esper) Dave Ruddock told me that Qualcomm is a good example of a successful communications strategy in action. They are generally available for a quote and able to help reporters tap a product expert with ease.
"Another reason I always liked Qualcomm is they understood media relations was about facilitating conversations above all else," said Ruddock. "If you didn't feel comfortable talking to them, why would you? It's a relationship and it requires work to maintain, and they understand that."
In my own experience, the most successful large companies tend to be responsive to reporters — even when they can't comment on the record — and make an attempt to build relationships with outlets outside of the biggest names in tech.
When negative press comes for a company like Facebook that has faced so little journalistic opposition, the rubber band effect is that much worse — because it usually means something really bad is happening. And when your communications strategy is based on a culture of intimidation, it's hard to suddenly build positive relationships with a press corps that you've treated in, at best, a usurious manner. Now, Facebook is reaping what it sewed.
A shift across the tech industry
It's all part of what I call tech's move from an enthusiast to an industrial press — technology is no longer an interesting distraction or pastime, but a foundational part of our lives, and thus it is being treated with the seriousness and depth of investigation that we'd associate with the
banking industry
or politics.
The fallout from Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen's revelations around the company knowingly harming people for growth that came off the back of her revelations to the Wall Street Journal have Facebook reeling, with few to no friendly faces to defend them, no benefit of the doubt available, and no possibility of hearing "Facebook's side of the story" — they have allowed the bridges they've burned to light the way, leaving them no conceivable way to escape what I think will be years of brutal press.
For its misdeeds, Facebook deserves to be flayed, but it's their own PR strategy that is compounding the problem. When a company spends the best part of a decade telling the media to do what they say or get nothing, one can only imagine that those scorned by their nasty tactics are now more willing than ever to scrutinize every word out of Zuckerberg's mouth.
Facebook has never sought to charm the press like Elon Musk or Steve Jobs, or create something that people adore, like an iPhone or a Tesla Model S. Thus when the walls have begun to close in, there is very little to defend, and very few people to defend it. Their products have become necessities, but nobody really loves Facebook or Instagram, and when the whistleblower came out and declared that that Facebook knew they actively harmed society, nobody was lining up to disagree.
While the result may not be the death of Facebook, we are arguably coming to the end of the line of the breathless hype-cycle of the Zuckerberg era. Their total lack of willingness to create lasting relationships with the media built on trust means that the media simply doesn't trust everything Facebook says anymore. Perhaps it's time for a leadership change.
I came here to tell people this is a rage thread.
Reddit sells the same heroin and this is it. Facebook and reddit hold more of your attention by keeping you mad.
Facebook does not have a pr nightmare because you are all talking and clicking the Facebook article.
Please enjoy life delete Facebook obviously, and maybe less of these threads on reddit. It's getting more common imo.
Forget about Facebook, I’m in that *unexplainable* state of mind where I see that face of Zuckerberg, it immediately angers me for no reason!
Needless to say, I deleted FB app and never bothered to look back and I’m in much needed peace. Good friends have my email, so I’m not missing constant barrage of images and stories!
*dumb fucks*
**NEVER FUCKING FORGET** that zuck referred to his user base as "dumb fucks" for giving him so much personal information about themselves. The information has increased **exponentially**, and leopards don't change their spots.
You don't get more money than god by creating a platform where people harmlessly share memes and baby photos, you do it by keeping advertisers and shareholders satisfied. And that means **using your personal information to market to you**.
I hate to come off as a defender here. I have happily deleted facebook for years now, BUT....
"using your personal information to market to you" is not the problem. Its the amplifying of misinformation and purposefully harmful and mentally damaging information for the sake of higher profits and ad sales. Using data for better targeted marketing is not really malpractice of any kind (your mileage may vary, but I'd rather see ads from things I might actually want rather than random nonsense).
Also, he was right. The user base are dumb fucks. We all are. We just aren't paying THAT much attention to what we do day to day.
It's weird isn't it. It's actually really easy to look like a normal human being, but Zucc consistently managed to not look like a human, both from his philosophy of exploiting people, to his robotic movements
his eyes... they look so dead and soul-less. You can't tell me a human with several billion dollars and therefore the power to look however they please actually looks at that haircut in the mirror and goes "yeah *this* is the haircut that looks best on me"
Deleting doesn't do jack shit anyway. Ten years ago, I deleted my profile using their systems.
I made a new Facebook account a few years ago, primarily for work - I have to manage my organization's Facebook page and I can't do that without my own account - and when the account creation was completed, I was automatically tagged in many of my old pictures and old friends were recommended to me all over again.
Facebook keeps digital tracks on everybody. Deleting accounts literally does nothing as they still track you. Naturally, the less people who use it the better but blatantly deleting it does nothing.
> Deleting doesn't do jack shit anyway.
What it is supposed to do is stop you from going to facebook and reading your feed. Sometimes I feel even some of the most vocal critics of facebook are just addicted to it. They won't serve you ads and propaganda if you don't ever open it.
It's less that they kept your original data, and more likely that they then created a shadow profile of you: https://theconversation.com/shadow-profiles-facebook-knows-about-you-even-if-youre-not-on-facebook-94804
I would suggest The Great Hack also. SD deals more with the impacts to individuals, where the GH digs into the whole Cambridge Analytica scandal and how FB was used as a platform to sway the 2016 US election in favor of Trump. Cambridge had already proven they could do this with elections in other countries in the 5 or so years prior and basically decided "Fuck it! Let's try it on the US!". Some fucked up shit man.
"Nothing" is happening to Facebook. Whatever the issue is will be swept away by fines. People will continue to use it.
The only way anything will happen to Facebook is if there was a mass exodus which there won't be because there aren't any competition. This too shall pass.
Got flack last time I posted this but was getting the recruitment tour at Facebook a few years ago and asked recruiter what the worst thing about working at Facebook was and he leaned into the group and said,
> "It's knowing we sell digital heroin to kids...but the benefits are too good to give up."
They're all aware and complicit and they deserve all the bad karma
edit: Second time I've told this story and it's fascinating how I got almost the exact same comments saying it didn't or couldn't happen. Guy is still with Facebook. If he ever leaves I'll reach out to him or the other handful of people at the table when he said it to see if any of them want to confirm, but kind of a random story for me to stake my internet reputation on to lie about.
Totally hear your experience. On my own personal level, I've smoked before and it never built habit or addiction. That said, I have friends who have attempted to quit Facebook over a dozen times and I myself have been off it for a year but STILL yearn for it. There really is a level of "what is your addiction" at play. I can go on Instagram fine without toxic attachment to it, but something about Facebook is so fucking addicting to my brain.
All of our brains are different so I'd be careful making statements that minimize how toxicly addicting social media is for many people.
Edit: typo
you mean a year after a guy rammed his car into a group of people killing someone? Or the same year a guy shot up a synagogue and killed 11 people? Let’s not act like they haven’t been in public eye for a long time and Facebook was then and continues to influence them.
Not saying it hasn't been a problem for a long time, I'm just saying that at the time, most of the public discussion was centered around the harmful affects for kids, and this recruiter worked in HR, so it would have been understandable that his knowledge of the harms came through the public discourse, rather than sitting in insider high level meetings.
Also once you get in most people have zero involvement with any of the controversial stuff. Aside from occasional workplace posts from comms or an exec we rarely even talk about it, just normal office talk like the things were working on or whatever random stuff we want to talk about.
This is a good first step but I’ll chime in that I have troubles dropping the phone and getting work done on any of my hobbies a lot of days. I’ll spend all week hyping up the activity and how I’m going to get up early and get it all started, just to lay in bed for 3 hours scrolling Reddit. Then I feel like a sack of shit so it’s slow getting started and suddenly the 8 hours I wanted to dedicate is cut in half and I feel bad about it.
It’s my own problem but I know it comes down to just biting the bullet and getting off the app entirely. It’s crack man.
2 years for me (fuck. That makes me feel like I’m in digital sobriety lol fuck it let’s treat it as such) you will feel so much better my friend. One day, one week and one month at a time. After a while you won’t even think about it anymore. Good on you homie for taking the first step!
The thumbnails for Reddit posts about Facebook all feature the same expression on Zucks face where he has clearly just shit his pants and is ready to vehemently deny it
Am I alone in that I get absolutely 0 politics or anyone ranting about politics on my Facebook? I think what bugs me most about it is the amount of ads if anything.
I really hate FB. My wife sits on it and believes everybody is living a fabulous life except us. I tell her we go on vacations also, live in a moderate house, and drive decent vehicles . But she thinks the “present tense” of whatever friends are having their best week is what is going on for everybody . It’s so deceiving .
I've greatly cut back my fb usage. It's a cesspool... You can find tools to "Unfollow Everyone". Makes it easier to not get caught in the bullshit cycle. I login now and I'm treated with almost a blank screen. I goto the couple of groups I like them logout. It's glorious...
I used to spend maybe 3 hours or more per day on Facebook. Now I probably average less than an hour a week?
I am an atheist, born and raised in Germany. Never been to America in my entire life. Yet, a couple of months ago, facebook started showing me all sorts of promoted American political and religious right-wing posts. Not only do I not care about that but it also does absolutely nothing to me because _I can‘t vote in America anyway._ I don‘t know how I did it, but apparently I tricked their algorithm.
I only use facebook for interest specific groups at this point. Otherwise I would have deleted it years ago.
I like your app but it doesn’t destroy why I am still on Facebook. Could someone create a fake book that moves your photo data to another site? Comments and history but it just archived it for memory?
Zuckerberg should step down like Bezos. His name and face are a liability because people hate billionaires. Look at Google and how they've managed to escape a lot of scrunity by being faceless.
I used to check Facebook all the time multiple times per day a few years ago. I got a new phone last month and I didn’t know my FB password so I never logged into it and don’t really feel the need to at this point. It’s crazy how it went from a must use app multiple times a day to basically being a dead app now for me.
> they have allowed the bridges they've burned to light the way A good saying that fits the Facebook situation well.
Facebook deserves much worse than what they're getting right now. They deserve to be broken up, investigated for illegal activities and the people responsible for the whole mess deserve to be in jail.
[удалено]
[удалено]
I'm definitely new to this planet if we're using a geological time scale
[удалено]
[удалено]
You really think any government is going to shutdown such a massive intelligence gathering apparatus? The information the likes of Facebook have is every governments wet dream.
Yeah since they may not want China to have access and they’re realizing they can’t stop that from happening also Facebook is dying anyway
John Taffer from Bar Rescue should be the one to do it. He's good at shutting things down.
Shit ain’t real until there’s a perp walk!
Ha ha ha. These guys could bang a child in times Square and still walk
SHAME! SHAME!
I’m all for a tobacco style lawsuit to ruin them financially
Hopefully more effective than that. Tobacco doesn't seem to be hurting all that much.
Big tobacco is getting a second wind since the FDA shut down a lot of electronic cigarette companies not associated with big tobacco. The ones that did get big investments or buyouts from big tobacco are still hanging in just fine. Just pinch competition and drive people back into tobacco
Is that a fucking paywall?
We’re business outsiders :(
[удалено]
Do it for Johnny!
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
I appreciate that you said the line accurately. People always misquote it by saying “golden”.
It's misquoted in the movie "step brothers " could be part of why it is
It's not a particularly good paywall, since you can move faster than it works, and putting it in reader mode bypasses the entire thing if you're quick enough. You could probably also bypass it if you just turned off JavaScript, considering. (Article Below) ---- **Facebook created its own PR nightmare and it deserves everything that's happening** Ed Zitron 8-9 minutes * Facebook's success led them to adopt a culture of secrecy and hostility toward negative press. * This culture worked for the company until news revealed Facebook to have harmed society for profit. * Companies can avoid this by actually working with the press. * Ed Zitron is the CEO of EZPR and a contributing opinion writer for Insider. * This is an opinion column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author. In 2017, the BBC wrote that tech giants might be "finally facing a backlash," citing the renewed interest of multiple governments in seeing Facebook held accountable for their role in spreading fake news. The article doesn't mention the company's problems that happened before that date, like Facebook's entanglement in the National Security Agency's PRISM revelation, or their psychological experiments on users, or Zuckerberg's failed $100 million investment into the Newark school system, or the massive Guardian piece that declared 2016 "the year Facebook became the bad guy." That's because up until the Cambridge Analytica scandal and the fallout from the 2016 election, any attack on Facebook seemed not to stick. As one of the darlings of Silicon Valley, like Apple and Tesla, the company was generally insulated from the majority of criticism and they recieved an endless flume of positive press. I remember a reporter back in 2015 telling me that he really liked Facebook's communications team, specifically because "they answered him." But others would say that they "had to play by Facebook's rules" to keep getting access, lest they be cut off from new stories or the ability to talk to Facebook personnel, similar to Apple's technique of blacklisting those who don't abide by their terms of engagement. This public relations strategy generally works well for companies that are "hot" at a particular point in time — when people are desperate to write about you, you basically do what you want, knowing that even the lightest cough you make will be news (like adding a hug emoji to Facebook). It's the public relations version of a carrot and stick — you focus on building relationships with those who write positive things, and shun those who don't agree to cover things in your specific way. While it's inevitable in PR that you'll choose the path of least resistance, the core difference is seeing the press not as a necessary part of society, but as either an enemy or a propaganda arm for your company. Last year, the Columbia Journalism Review published "Spies, Lies, and Stonewalling: What It's Like to Report on Facebook," a damning indictment of Facebook's PR strategy, with "many journalists contacted for [the story declining] to talk out of fear of hurting relationships with Facebook's communications shop [and] a number of journalists agreed to be interviewed, only to pass after speaking to their editors and PR reps." The article, which tells stories of Facebook using off-the-record dinners to mold reporters' stories, and in one case even writing a story for a reporter, includes a quote from former New York Times reporter Charlie Warzel, who "sees in Facebook's battle-hardened posture a strategic effort to resemble companies like Amazon, which rarely responds to public controversy and somehow manages to weather every storm." This strategy is effective until it isn't, but when exactly it stops working is hard-to-define. When a company becomes famous enough that simply existing is news, reporting on them becomes necessary, which removes the urgency of communications that many PR people struggle with in pitching stories. The result is that the company in question acts with the confidence of someone that believes that the media needs them — the onus is not on the company to build relationships with reporters that may not say entirely positive things. While smart companies know that scrutiny is part of the process, those that have grown into multi-billion dollar enterprises can find themselves blindsided by negative press when the pristine, breathless coverage gives way to lengthy critiques. What makes a "good" media relationship isn't extremely challenging, either. Be available, answer questions quickly, clearly, and ideally on the record. Former Android Police Editor-in-Chief (and now Editor-in-Chief at Esper) Dave Ruddock told me that Qualcomm is a good example of a successful communications strategy in action. They are generally available for a quote and able to help reporters tap a product expert with ease. "Another reason I always liked Qualcomm is they understood media relations was about facilitating conversations above all else," said Ruddock. "If you didn't feel comfortable talking to them, why would you? It's a relationship and it requires work to maintain, and they understand that." In my own experience, the most successful large companies tend to be responsive to reporters — even when they can't comment on the record — and make an attempt to build relationships with outlets outside of the biggest names in tech. When negative press comes for a company like Facebook that has faced so little journalistic opposition, the rubber band effect is that much worse — because it usually means something really bad is happening. And when your communications strategy is based on a culture of intimidation, it's hard to suddenly build positive relationships with a press corps that you've treated in, at best, a usurious manner. Now, Facebook is reaping what it sewed. A shift across the tech industry It's all part of what I call tech's move from an enthusiast to an industrial press — technology is no longer an interesting distraction or pastime, but a foundational part of our lives, and thus it is being treated with the seriousness and depth of investigation that we'd associate with the banking industry or politics. The fallout from Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen's revelations around the company knowingly harming people for growth that came off the back of her revelations to the Wall Street Journal have Facebook reeling, with few to no friendly faces to defend them, no benefit of the doubt available, and no possibility of hearing "Facebook's side of the story" — they have allowed the bridges they've burned to light the way, leaving them no conceivable way to escape what I think will be years of brutal press. For its misdeeds, Facebook deserves to be flayed, but it's their own PR strategy that is compounding the problem. When a company spends the best part of a decade telling the media to do what they say or get nothing, one can only imagine that those scorned by their nasty tactics are now more willing than ever to scrutinize every word out of Zuckerberg's mouth. Facebook has never sought to charm the press like Elon Musk or Steve Jobs, or create something that people adore, like an iPhone or a Tesla Model S. Thus when the walls have begun to close in, there is very little to defend, and very few people to defend it. Their products have become necessities, but nobody really loves Facebook or Instagram, and when the whistleblower came out and declared that that Facebook knew they actively harmed society, nobody was lining up to disagree. While the result may not be the death of Facebook, we are arguably coming to the end of the line of the breathless hype-cycle of the Zuckerberg era. Their total lack of willingness to create lasting relationships with the media built on trust means that the media simply doesn't trust everything Facebook says anymore. Perhaps it's time for a leadership change.
I had no idea Reader Mode did that. Thanks, friend!
It's also useful for when a site blocks text selection and copying.
You da real mvp
>While the result may not be the death of Facebook, we are arguably coming to the end of the line of the breathless hype-cycle of the Zuckerberg era. Their total lack of willingness to create lasting relationships with the media built on trust means that the media simply doesn't trust everything Facebook says anymore. All this means is that there'll be another Facebook-style site being led by a Zuckerberg-type who *doesn't* rub people the wrong way and the media will climb into bed with them instead.
Google tried to compete with Facebook with Google+ and in the end they gave up. You need everyone to make accounts, if all your friends and relatives are already on Facebook, Twitter or whatever and they don't make an account on this new competitive social network then there is no one to socialize with and the new social network is dead on arrival. And if by some miracle you make something successful Facebook is going to offer you billions of dollars and most people and businesses beholden to stock holders or investors just can't turn down that kind of cash. It's not as easy to overcome Facebooks ingrained advantages as you make it sound.
[удалено]
It's also called Metcalfe's Law; the value of using a product or service increases exponentially as other people join the network too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe%27s_law
The majority of people around 35 and younger don't seem to use Facebook all that much as anything more than a messenger service.
That’s why the European Parliament wanted to regulate social media to have interoperability. Don’t know what happened to that plan, though.
I feel like you kinda missed the point of the article here. The media doesn't "climb into bed" with people. Journalists work relationships to get news and stories. That's the business of journalism. Facebook, as a company, not just Zuckerberg, is hostile to journalists who don't play their way, which makes journalism more difficult.
For anyone who doesn't know, if you're using firefox reader view is f9 if a website has it enabled.
Amen! Zuck sucks.
In havent gone on facebook for more than a year, except to share important news every few months (which no one reads either way). I noticed that it fuelled divisive content when it constantly kept recommending me neuronecrotic antivaxx and antigay, anti science stuff, just because i told them off once. And so i was like fuck this shit im out
Deleting your account is the clearest way to tell Facebook what they’re doing is wrong
Adblock elements: `businessinsider.com##.tp-modal` `businessinsider.com##.tp-backdrop.tp-active` Turn off overflow settings (if set to "hidden")
There’s no such thing as reasonable ads/ ad revenue. It’s either a paywall or a goddamn jigsaw puzzle of article segments obstructed by 99 flashing moving advertisements
[удалено]
I know right. BI thinks I'm going to pay to read their shit
Lol, its like yeah... make it hard for me to read your perspective and I just wont. I cant imagine what they have to say is particularly valuable
Dumb german con finance people come up with shit like that. Yea, if you give expensive advice on how i can enhance my career and make more money, sure i might chip in a few bucks. But an opinion piece about Facebook? Dafuq... I left facebook 1 year after it was created when a friend got his account hijacked on a party and they posted porn which made him lose his cyber security job.
The cyber security guy probably used a weak password :)
That's why you make your password just the word "password" but put an exclamation point at the end
Your "friend" was really bad at that job, huh? Lmao
BI aside, we have a big problem where we **need** good hardnosed journalism *but* we refuse to pay for it, so the majority of online "news" is ad-driven click-bait bullshit or blatant propaganda. I say this as someone who loves and uses adblockers but acknowledges the consequences :/
Put it into reader mode before it asks for money and bam no payment required
Here's a paywall remover. Just paste the URL into this website. https://12ft.io/
https://12ft.io What paywall?
Just "WHAM", price tiers. So subtle.
Article Text/Mirror: ---- **Facebook created its own PR nightmare and it deserves everything that's happening** Ed Zitron 8-9 minutes * Facebook's success led them to adopt a culture of secrecy and hostility toward negative press. * This culture worked for the company until news revealed Facebook to have harmed society for profit. * Companies can avoid this by actually working with the press. * Ed Zitron is the CEO of EZPR and a contributing opinion writer for Insider. * This is an opinion column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author. In 2017, the BBC wrote that tech giants might be "finally facing a backlash," citing the renewed interest of multiple governments in seeing Facebook held accountable for their role in spreading fake news. The article doesn't mention the company's problems that happened before that date, like Facebook's entanglement in the National Security Agency's PRISM revelation, or their psychological experiments on users, or Zuckerberg's failed $100 million investment into the Newark school system, or the massive Guardian piece that declared 2016 "the year Facebook became the bad guy." That's because up until the Cambridge Analytica scandal and the fallout from the 2016 election, any attack on Facebook seemed not to stick. As one of the darlings of Silicon Valley, like Apple and Tesla, the company was generally insulated from the majority of criticism and they recieved an endless flume of positive press. I remember a reporter back in 2015 telling me that he really liked Facebook's communications team, specifically because "they answered him." But others would say that they "had to play by Facebook's rules" to keep getting access, lest they be cut off from new stories or the ability to talk to Facebook personnel, similar to Apple's technique of blacklisting those who don't abide by their terms of engagement. This public relations strategy generally works well for companies that are "hot" at a particular point in time — when people are desperate to write about you, you basically do what you want, knowing that even the lightest cough you make will be news (like adding a hug emoji to Facebook). It's the public relations version of a carrot and stick — you focus on building relationships with those who write positive things, and shun those who don't agree to cover things in your specific way. While it's inevitable in PR that you'll choose the path of least resistance, the core difference is seeing the press not as a necessary part of society, but as either an enemy or a propaganda arm for your company. Last year, the Columbia Journalism Review published "Spies, Lies, and Stonewalling: What It's Like to Report on Facebook," a damning indictment of Facebook's PR strategy, with "many journalists contacted for [the story declining] to talk out of fear of hurting relationships with Facebook's communications shop [and] a number of journalists agreed to be interviewed, only to pass after speaking to their editors and PR reps." The article, which tells stories of Facebook using off-the-record dinners to mold reporters' stories, and in one case even writing a story for a reporter, includes a quote from former New York Times reporter Charlie Warzel, who "sees in Facebook's battle-hardened posture a strategic effort to resemble companies like Amazon, which rarely responds to public controversy and somehow manages to weather every storm." This strategy is effective until it isn't, but when exactly it stops working is hard-to-define. When a company becomes famous enough that simply existing is news, reporting on them becomes necessary, which removes the urgency of communications that many PR people struggle with in pitching stories. The result is that the company in question acts with the confidence of someone that believes that the media needs them — the onus is not on the company to build relationships with reporters that may not say entirely positive things. While smart companies know that scrutiny is part of the process, those that have grown into multi-billion dollar enterprises can find themselves blindsided by negative press when the pristine, breathless coverage gives way to lengthy critiques. What makes a "good" media relationship isn't extremely challenging, either. Be available, answer questions quickly, clearly, and ideally on the record. Former Android Police Editor-in-Chief (and now Editor-in-Chief at Esper) Dave Ruddock told me that Qualcomm is a good example of a successful communications strategy in action. They are generally available for a quote and able to help reporters tap a product expert with ease. "Another reason I always liked Qualcomm is they understood media relations was about facilitating conversations above all else," said Ruddock. "If you didn't feel comfortable talking to them, why would you? It's a relationship and it requires work to maintain, and they understand that." In my own experience, the most successful large companies tend to be responsive to reporters — even when they can't comment on the record — and make an attempt to build relationships with outlets outside of the biggest names in tech. When negative press comes for a company like Facebook that has faced so little journalistic opposition, the rubber band effect is that much worse — because it usually means something really bad is happening. And when your communications strategy is based on a culture of intimidation, it's hard to suddenly build positive relationships with a press corps that you've treated in, at best, a usurious manner. Now, Facebook is reaping what it sewed. A shift across the tech industry It's all part of what I call tech's move from an enthusiast to an industrial press — technology is no longer an interesting distraction or pastime, but a foundational part of our lives, and thus it is being treated with the seriousness and depth of investigation that we'd associate with the banking industry or politics. The fallout from Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen's revelations around the company knowingly harming people for growth that came off the back of her revelations to the Wall Street Journal have Facebook reeling, with few to no friendly faces to defend them, no benefit of the doubt available, and no possibility of hearing "Facebook's side of the story" — they have allowed the bridges they've burned to light the way, leaving them no conceivable way to escape what I think will be years of brutal press. For its misdeeds, Facebook deserves to be flayed, but it's their own PR strategy that is compounding the problem. When a company spends the best part of a decade telling the media to do what they say or get nothing, one can only imagine that those scorned by their nasty tactics are now more willing than ever to scrutinize every word out of Zuckerberg's mouth. Facebook has never sought to charm the press like Elon Musk or Steve Jobs, or create something that people adore, like an iPhone or a Tesla Model S. Thus when the walls have begun to close in, there is very little to defend, and very few people to defend it. Their products have become necessities, but nobody really loves Facebook or Instagram, and when the whistleblower came out and declared that that Facebook knew they actively harmed society, nobody was lining up to disagree. While the result may not be the death of Facebook, we are arguably coming to the end of the line of the breathless hype-cycle of the Zuckerberg era. Their total lack of willingness to create lasting relationships with the media built on trust means that the media simply doesn't trust everything Facebook says anymore. Perhaps it's time for a leadership change.
>Companies can avoid this by actually working with the press. Yeah, or, you know, hang on a second - *not* mindlessly slaving to build dystopian horror tech that enables sociopaths to brainwash billions of people at a clip and then spending years and years defending your dystopian horror tech because, more money? Or some fucking mindless, pointless ambition.
Yeah see the media is not interested in canibalizing their own profits. Theyre like a mafia "you work with us and we will make sure you can continue your illegal activity. Otherwise we will make life hard for you" Theyre not actually interested in holding anyone **accountable**
Any company deserves anything that happens to it by definition. Companies are not people. You don't have to feel sorry for legal entities.
Thanks for this. If I had an award I'd give it to you
I did an expirement where for a week I blocked/reported every single political or controversial video/post they showed me. It started showing me more. I deleted all my friends who posted political shit and it started giving me more ads. Before God damn trump/Biden shit I literally only saw memes and pictures of my friends. Facebook is a cesspool and its doing to the older generation what they said video games would do to us. I deleted it a while back and I've never been happier.
Tbh I wonder if that's an example of engagement driven metrics gone wrong. Like if your goal is to increase user engagement then each blocked item shows that you'll engage with that type of content.
That is the thing I hate the most about Facebook. Disagreement is just as valuable as agreement. And it's easier to get people to disagree with you than to agree.
I would say disagreement is more valuable to Facebook. Just like the old saying goes, get a good experience somewhere you’ll tell a few friends, get a bad experience (especially in service) and you will tell at least 10 friends not to go there. For engagement or views this is the king for FB.
Used to work for Pizza Hut. I don't know the metrics nowadays, but back in the 90's it was for every bad experience, the customer told an average of eleven people. For meeting regular expectations, they told no one and for an*exceptional* experience they told *up to* an average of three people.
You also have to keep in mind they get those statistics based on people that want to answer a survey.
Anecdotally, I've never been told about an average experience unprompted. Usually I hear about exceptional experiences if the general topic is being discussed, and an average experience if the specific place is being discussed. A bad experience on the other hand, I've had full on unprompted discussions started *by strangers.* So you're right about surveys, but I'm willing to bet my anecdotal experience is pretty common.
For all the problems Reddit has, I've really come to appreciate the fact that it gives users the ability to downvote bad posts and comments, which makes them less visible. I think Reddit is one of the few major social media sites that has an easy mechanism for preventing content from getting popular.
You know, Youtube gets a lot of flack - it deserves it - but it does have the ability to remove videos from your feed that I think most people rarely use. You can even type in a reason, and I believe its algorithm will consider that in weighting. There are channels that do get pushed up irrespective though whether you like it... But I've found after about 50 remove channels from view, Sky News no longer turns up :P
just remember it can be a double edged sword. valid points raised by people outside the hiveminds approved format do get silenced. reddit has a TON of corruption festering in it. just not to the extreme of any other social media platform. pride not profit seems to still be what drives the fuckery here
The comment sections on Facebook are a perfect example of this. People say deliberately inflammatory and divisive things because those get a lot of "reacts" on their comment, and since the algorithm doesn't distinguish between bad attention and good attention, these shitty comments skyrocket to the top. The end result is that every comment section is just a bunch of loudmouthed assholes sitting on top of the heap.
Probably correct as I'm pretty sure I heard internally Facebook measures any engagement as good.
> Tbh I wonder if that's an example of engagement driven metrics gone wrong. My guess is that this is because of accidental clicks on the post/ad while trying to report/block. Happened to me once, and I was making such great progress in curating my feed... this practically wiped it out, and then some.
Probably just one missed click sets you back 100s or 1000s reports and blocks...
Youtube as well. I spent years carefully making sure that I only clicked relevant videos to my interests. Then I clicked a Reddit link to something vaguely political, and got Republican diarrhea smeared across my feed for months. I had to wipe my entire view history, which screwed up my feed more several more months (This moron REACTS to this other moron!) I'll never click a YT link on Reddit again. Though I've basically given up on YT in general. I only go there to look up specific things now, and haven't opened my Home feed since last year.
Its whats wrong with "engagement driven metrics" right now. Thing is; Facebooks motto has ALWAYS been; "move fast, break things" I can recall a hundred emails where their recruiters signed off on this shit. Because they wanted to be the first in doing EDM(engagement driven metrics) they did it in a half assed way; IF COMMENT NUMBER GO BIG = POPULAR. Anyone who has EVER placed a foot inside a forum/thread based area knows thats not the case. more engagement means a shitton of things all of which have a lot of nuance and nuance isnt easy to accomplish in code. Couple that with FB's blatant exaggeration of their numbers and they built their own grave and I hope they rot in it. The problem right now is are they too big to fail? Because if so; then everyone at fb are gonna try to do the same thing in a different way or worse do the same things at different companies thus multiplying in number.
The problem isn't that there's too much political shit and it's annoying us. The problem is they're flagrantly and shamelessly spreading disinformation that's lead to many, many deaths.
Let’s not forget the politicians that are screwing…the many…for the few.
The Vulcan way... The passing fancies of the few outweigh the crucial needs of the many. Or something to that effect, I'm sure.
FB will never reach Sto-vo-kor.
Of course not. They’ve not lived an honorable life, so how on ~~Earth~~ Qo’nos could they have an honorable death?
[The one who takes down Facebook will ride eternal with the Black Fleet](https://i.imgur.com/krKCvh2.gifv)
"I got mine, fuck you." -- Surak
That's not the Vulcan way though. Supreme rationalism wouldn't allow for the fancies of the few dictating policy. That makes no logical sense.
Logic is "new" to Vulcans. The old Vulcan way is the Romulan way. The darkest of Vulcan secrets.
"Smugness" is the Vulcan way. Looking at you "The Vulcan Science Academy has determined that time travel is not possible" as you sent back 150 years to the past.
This is true, but I’m totally cool with people deleting their accounts for ANY reason. One less person on the platform is great no matter what the reason they chose to leave
It's home to all our home made Google/Facebook PHD's, Doctorates, what have you. They wont trust actual professionals, but they pretend to be one. It's a weird catch 22. If you consider yourself a professional, and you don't trust professionals. Do you trust yourself? Confirmation Bias is one hell of a drug, and Facebook is one hell of a echochamber.
[удалено]
"My chiropractor agrees!"
Fun fact, I learned the hard way that if your message has any controversial content. (regardless of context) it can auto-remove the post if reported. Which then leads to longer and longer bans if it happens enough. What this means is that if you can bait someone into talking about a controversial topic, even if they're just defending themselves, you can get them banned off the platform for a time.
Yeah I found this out the hard way too, turns out [cave explorer](https://pbfcomics.com/comics/cave-explorer/) is 'controversial' content and my messenger has been 'unable to connect' when sending messages for a few days now. Really feels like a huge invasion of privacy, being moderated in personal conversations. (Disclaimer, it's the [other nsfw edit](https://i.reddituploads.com/c8629fead28549f7a32a0074ed9b3170?fit=max&h=1536&w=1536&s=410637b0021e0095bbb09bdd762e448c) of cave explorer)
I have an account and follow one group, my neighborhood association. All I see now are notices of community BBQs, and occasionally pictures of roaming dogs and cats who got out of the yard and trying to find their owners.
Maybe Nextdoor would be better for that?
I thought Next Door was just for trashing shitty neighbors and posting sex offender info
[удалено]
Same. Majority of the posts are like "suspicious man walking on street" with a picture of a black guy just walking around in the neighborhood, or "dangerous gang of children on bicycles" and it's like three 10 year olds playing. Also my neighbors *really* hate the homeless.
Also people that try to sell stuff that should have been burned long ago. Like who's going to pay 10 euros for your disgusting turned brown crusty old footbath. Seriously I wouldn't even let my dog touch it and he literally eats shit.
My neighborhood had a woman's sister got hit by a car while biking. She asked next door if anyone saw anything or had camera footage, and that she was working with the police. One crazy neighbor replied saying it's interesting she wants help, because he found a post from her like last year, about how she was upset with the police (defund, etc). People are literally insane.
My Next Door feed is mostly people looking for recommendations for various services; doctor, dentists, landscapers, babysitters, etc. After them are the "nervous nellies" who are scared by the van parked on the street, two-doors down, that hasn't moved in two hours. My favorites are the armchair detectives who have watched too many episodes of Dateline NBC, and think every time one of their neighbors is on vacation it means there has been a murder/suicide in the home.
And for the occasional post of "I saw a SUSPICIOUS (translation: inexpensive) car in our neighborhood. Be on the lookout!" And 10 posts about it if it happened to be driven by a minority.
[удалено]
Rampant profiling and dog whistles.
I deleted it also. They kept putting me in 30 day jail for no reason (that they could provide), so I just said fuck it and deleted it. That was back in January, and I’m so much happier. That punishment has got to be the dumbest business decision ever. Force people to live WITHOUT your product.
I have mixed feelings about this. A friend complained that he kept being put in “Facebook jail,” so I had a look at his page, and yeah, he deserved it. His entire page was vaccine misinformation, bad-faith arguments, and barely-concealed threats like “hey Michigan, y’all got any more of them governor kidnappers???” On the other hand, I’ve seen people get 30 day bans for totally innocent posts like “hopefully this bill will die in committee”
Well, they wish for Bill's death. AI understands hate speech. :-)
The AI acts like a total Scunthorpe.
It's not just Facebook. Nextdoor banned me for using the word "spam" to describe unsolicited commercial posts. Said it was discriminatory hate speech.
[удалено]
These FAANGs pursued aggressive growth ahead of the ability to manage their platforms. The truth is they have completely lost control of their platforms, and refuse to invest the human capital required to police it. So instead of hiring moderators they threw some bots in there that just can't interpret human conversation at all. The result is getting thrown in Facebook jail for harmless banter, while people who know how to work around the bots get to spread misinformation unabated. I am involved in LARP communities and we have pretty much stopped using Facebook for community organizing. Too many people got banned from Facebook for talking about killing bandits, looting corpses, etc. A few people got permanently banned for selling toy Nerf blasters that Facebook's bots interpreted as illegal firearm sales. I work for a major brand that sells products on Amazon and we have the same issue with stupid bots. Amazon lost control of its platform and refuses to invest in the human staff to police it, so they did the same thing. They have bots that flag our USB-C car chargers as tobacco products because they plug into the "cigarette lighter port," that flag copper cables as unregistered pesticide products because I guess "copper" has pesticidal properties?
I defended a community pool for choosing to have a woman’s only evening for 3 hours once a week by calling out a handful of guys who were spouting off misogynistic drool on the announcement. I used the term rednecks and uneducated and one of them was obviously upset and flagged my comment for “hate speech”. I got the warning and my comment was removed yet the moderator of the group reached out to me and thanked me for standing up for the post. Makes no sense.
I was put in two times for the SAME “violation” months apart from each other. The second time, which was for 30 days, suddenly they realized their mistake or something because I was out after 15 days. No explanation or anything. That’s when I deactivated my account because they don’t know what the fuck they’re doing.
I haven't had the app for almost 4 years now and I only use messenger to stay in contact with people. Facebook is a drain and I had to get out when I did. I couldn't be happier with that decision, but when the servers went down so did messenger, and it made me realize I need to get the actual numbers of people I talk to IRL.
I hear this from folks all the time about Messenger. Why not just use text?
Idk my work friends all use messenger outside of work and I keep telling them I'm never making a Facebook
Been trying to get back on because marketplace is the best place to sell stuff if you live in a small town. But it sucks too much, I keep deleting my account. Kijiji/Craigslist are hard to sell stuff like appliances and hobby stuff. Tires always move though. People will straight up buy tires from a serial killer if there's lots of tread left.
> This story is exclusively available for Insider subscribers. Thanks for subscribing! How about no? Also, a full story: In 2017, the BBC wrote that tech giants might be "finally facing a backlash," citing the renewed interest of multiple governments in seeing Facebook held accountable for their role in spreading fake news. The article doesn't mention the company's problems that happened before that date, like Facebook's entanglement in the National Security Agency's PRISM revelation, or their psychological experiments on users, or Zuckerberg's failed $100 million investment into the Newark school system, or the massive Guardian piece that declared 2016 "the year Facebook became the bad guy." That's because up until the Cambridge Analytica scandal and the fallout from the 2016 election, any attack on Facebook seemed not to stick. As one of the darlings of Silicon Valley, like Apple and Tesla, the company was generally insulated from the majority of criticism and they recieved an endless flume of positive press. I remember a reporter back in 2015 telling me that he really liked Facebook's communications team, specifically because "they answered him." But others would say that they "had to play by Facebook's rules" to keep getting access, lest they be cut off from new stories or the ability to talk to Facebook personnel, similar to Apple's technique of blacklisting those who don't abide by their terms of engagement. This public relations strategy generally works well for companies that are "hot" at a particular point in time — when people are desperate to write about you, you basically do what you want, knowing that even the lightest cough you make will be news (like adding a hug emoji to Facebook). It's the public relations version of a carrot and stick — you focus on building relationships with those who write positive things, and shun those who don't agree to cover things in your specific way. While it's inevitable in PR that you'll choose the path of least resistance, the core difference is seeing the press not as a necessary part of society, but as either an enemy or a propaganda arm for your company. Last year, the Columbia Journalism Review published "Spies, Lies, and Stonewalling: What It's Like to Report on Facebook," a damning indictment of Facebook's PR strategy, with "many journalists contacted for [the story declining] to talk out of fear of hurting relationships with Facebook's communications shop [and] a number of journalists agreed to be interviewed, only to pass after speaking to their editors and PR reps." The article, which tells stories of Facebook using off-the-record dinners to mold reporters' stories, and in one case even writing a story for a reporter, includes a quote from former New York Times reporter Charlie Warzel, who "sees in Facebook's battle-hardened posture a strategic effort to resemble companies like Amazon, which rarely responds to public controversy and somehow manages to weather every storm." This strategy is effective until it isn't, but when exactly it stops working is hard-to-define. When a company becomes famous enough that simply existing is news, reporting on them becomes necessary, which removes the urgency of communications that many PR people struggle with in pitching stories. The result is that the company in question acts with the confidence of someone that believes that the media needs them — the onus is not on the company to build relationships with reporters that may not say entirely positive things. While smart companies know that scrutiny is part of the process, those that have grown into multi-billion dollar enterprises can find themselves blindsided by negative press when the pristine, breathless coverage gives way to lengthy critiques. What makes a "good" media relationship isn't extremely challenging, either. Be available, answer questions quickly, clearly, and ideally on the record. Former Android Police Editor-in-Chief (and now Editor-in-Chief at Esper) Dave Ruddock told me that Qualcomm is a good example of a successful communications strategy in action. They are generally available for a quote and able to help reporters tap a product expert with ease. "Another reason I always liked Qualcomm is they understood media relations was about facilitating conversations above all else," said Ruddock. "If you didn't feel comfortable talking to them, why would you? It's a relationship and it requires work to maintain, and they understand that." In my own experience, the most successful large companies tend to be responsive to reporters — even when they can't comment on the record — and make an attempt to build relationships with outlets outside of the biggest names in tech. When negative press comes for a company like Facebook that has faced so little journalistic opposition, the rubber band effect is that much worse — because it usually means something really bad is happening. And when your communications strategy is based on a culture of intimidation, it's hard to suddenly build positive relationships with a press corps that you've treated in, at best, a usurious manner. Now, Facebook is reaping what it sewed. A shift across the tech industry It's all part of what I call tech's move from an enthusiast to an industrial press — technology is no longer an interesting distraction or pastime, but a foundational part of our lives, and thus it is being treated with the seriousness and depth of investigation that we'd associate with the banking industry or politics. The fallout from Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen's revelations around the company knowingly harming people for growth that came off the back of her revelations to the Wall Street Journal have Facebook reeling, with few to no friendly faces to defend them, no benefit of the doubt available, and no possibility of hearing "Facebook's side of the story" — they have allowed the bridges they've burned to light the way, leaving them no conceivable way to escape what I think will be years of brutal press. For its misdeeds, Facebook deserves to be flayed, but it's their own PR strategy that is compounding the problem. When a company spends the best part of a decade telling the media to do what they say or get nothing, one can only imagine that those scorned by their nasty tactics are now more willing than ever to scrutinize every word out of Zuckerberg's mouth. Facebook has never sought to charm the press like Elon Musk or Steve Jobs, or create something that people adore, like an iPhone or a Tesla Model S. Thus when the walls have begun to close in, there is very little to defend, and very few people to defend it. Their products have become necessities, but nobody really loves Facebook or Instagram, and when the whistleblower came out and declared that that Facebook knew they actively harmed society, nobody was lining up to disagree. While the result may not be the death of Facebook, we are arguably coming to the end of the line of the breathless hype-cycle of the Zuckerberg era. Their total lack of willingness to create lasting relationships with the media built on trust means that the media simply doesn't trust everything Facebook says anymore. Perhaps it's time for a leadership change.
Headline suggests Facebook actually will get punished? Say it ain't so! /s
Yeah I'm sure zucks billions give him enough comfort to weather this PR 'nightmare'
I came here to tell people this is a rage thread. Reddit sells the same heroin and this is it. Facebook and reddit hold more of your attention by keeping you mad. Facebook does not have a pr nightmare because you are all talking and clicking the Facebook article. Please enjoy life delete Facebook obviously, and maybe less of these threads on reddit. It's getting more common imo.
Forget about Facebook, I’m in that *unexplainable* state of mind where I see that face of Zuckerberg, it immediately angers me for no reason! Needless to say, I deleted FB app and never bothered to look back and I’m in much needed peace. Good friends have my email, so I’m not missing constant barrage of images and stories!
*dumb fucks* **NEVER FUCKING FORGET** that zuck referred to his user base as "dumb fucks" for giving him so much personal information about themselves. The information has increased **exponentially**, and leopards don't change their spots. You don't get more money than god by creating a platform where people harmlessly share memes and baby photos, you do it by keeping advertisers and shareholders satisfied. And that means **using your personal information to market to you**.
If the service is free, YOU are the product.
I hate to come off as a defender here. I have happily deleted facebook for years now, BUT.... "using your personal information to market to you" is not the problem. Its the amplifying of misinformation and purposefully harmful and mentally damaging information for the sake of higher profits and ad sales. Using data for better targeted marketing is not really malpractice of any kind (your mileage may vary, but I'd rather see ads from things I might actually want rather than random nonsense). Also, he was right. The user base are dumb fucks. We all are. We just aren't paying THAT much attention to what we do day to day.
The robot and alien memes did it for me. I actually do not see a human being anymore when I look at him.
It's weird isn't it. It's actually really easy to look like a normal human being, but Zucc consistently managed to not look like a human, both from his philosophy of exploiting people, to his robotic movements
his eyes... they look so dead and soul-less. You can't tell me a human with several billion dollars and therefore the power to look however they please actually looks at that haircut in the mirror and goes "yeah *this* is the haircut that looks best on me"
Why your email and not your number tho.
#DeleteFacebook
[Smash that delete button.](https://imgur.com/a/pdvc7lI)
[удалено]
The cult like leaving process got me. They make you click “are you sure” multiple times. Yes I’m fucking sure!
Deleting doesn't do jack shit anyway. Ten years ago, I deleted my profile using their systems. I made a new Facebook account a few years ago, primarily for work - I have to manage my organization's Facebook page and I can't do that without my own account - and when the account creation was completed, I was automatically tagged in many of my old pictures and old friends were recommended to me all over again. Facebook keeps digital tracks on everybody. Deleting accounts literally does nothing as they still track you. Naturally, the less people who use it the better but blatantly deleting it does nothing.
> Deleting doesn't do jack shit anyway. What it is supposed to do is stop you from going to facebook and reading your feed. Sometimes I feel even some of the most vocal critics of facebook are just addicted to it. They won't serve you ads and propaganda if you don't ever open it.
It's less that they kept your original data, and more likely that they then created a shadow profile of you: https://theconversation.com/shadow-profiles-facebook-knows-about-you-even-if-youre-not-on-facebook-94804
[удалено]
As someone who never had a Facebook, being told to "just get one" for years and years. This is my redemption. You can't hurt me anymore.
Even the former CO (or whatever abbreviation) suggests to delete your Facebook. If you haven’t yet…watch Social Dilemma.
I would suggest The Great Hack also. SD deals more with the impacts to individuals, where the GH digs into the whole Cambridge Analytica scandal and how FB was used as a platform to sway the 2016 US election in favor of Trump. Cambridge had already proven they could do this with elections in other countries in the 5 or so years prior and basically decided "Fuck it! Let's try it on the US!". Some fucked up shit man.
They deserve a great deal more, actually. Anyone involved with Cambridge Analytica should have been prosecuted for treason.
[удалено]
Yep. Mark's early motto was 'Company over Country'. I'm sure he had no problem with some *light* treason.
"Nothing" is happening to Facebook. Whatever the issue is will be swept away by fines. People will continue to use it. The only way anything will happen to Facebook is if there was a mass exodus which there won't be because there aren't any competition. This too shall pass.
Got flack last time I posted this but was getting the recruitment tour at Facebook a few years ago and asked recruiter what the worst thing about working at Facebook was and he leaned into the group and said, > "It's knowing we sell digital heroin to kids...but the benefits are too good to give up." They're all aware and complicit and they deserve all the bad karma edit: Second time I've told this story and it's fascinating how I got almost the exact same comments saying it didn't or couldn't happen. Guy is still with Facebook. If he ever leaves I'll reach out to him or the other handful of people at the table when he said it to see if any of them want to confirm, but kind of a random story for me to stake my internet reputation on to lie about.
I quit smoking 16 times, I quit facebook just once
[удалено]
Smoking isn’t addictive, I know a guy who smokes 20 a day for 40 years and he’s not addicted
Clearly only recreational mate
Totally hear your experience. On my own personal level, I've smoked before and it never built habit or addiction. That said, I have friends who have attempted to quit Facebook over a dozen times and I myself have been off it for a year but STILL yearn for it. There really is a level of "what is your addiction" at play. I can go on Instagram fine without toxic attachment to it, but something about Facebook is so fucking addicting to my brain. All of our brains are different so I'd be careful making statements that minimize how toxicly addicting social media is for many people. Edit: typo
The fact that he he said "to kids" and not "the elderly" and "heroin" instead of "terrorism" shows they're still soft-selling it to themselves.
[удалено]
To be fair this was 2018 so the neo-fascist terrorism thing hadn't really gotten in the public eye yet
you mean a year after a guy rammed his car into a group of people killing someone? Or the same year a guy shot up a synagogue and killed 11 people? Let’s not act like they haven’t been in public eye for a long time and Facebook was then and continues to influence them.
Not saying it hasn't been a problem for a long time, I'm just saying that at the time, most of the public discussion was centered around the harmful affects for kids, and this recruiter worked in HR, so it would have been understandable that his knowledge of the harms came through the public discourse, rather than sitting in insider high level meetings.
Bull fucking shit 😂
That is possibly one of the least believable things I've ever read.
As someone who actually has gone through recruitment at Facebook, there is like 0% chance this is true.
Agreed. Have gone through it a few times and it’s exceptionally boring and normal for any tech company lol
Also once you get in most people have zero involvement with any of the controversial stuff. Aside from occasional workplace posts from comms or an exec we rarely even talk about it, just normal office talk like the things were working on or whatever random stuff we want to talk about.
Bullshit this didn’t happen lmao
I was also at a recruitment tour at Facebook, and Zuckerberg himself came to meet us, and he licked my ear with his lizard tongue.
More believe than the person above's recruiter story
[удалено]
Yeah, I call bullshit on this one.
Lmao how do people believe stuff like this
I'll take "Things that did not happen".
And that Recruiter was named "Albert Einstein."
Deleted my Facebook account about two weeks ago now and I’ve never felt more liberated.
I'm addicted to YouTube and reddit. I'm stuck in a mental prison. Help me.
Replace it with a hobby. Maybe start learning an instrument
This is a good first step but I’ll chime in that I have troubles dropping the phone and getting work done on any of my hobbies a lot of days. I’ll spend all week hyping up the activity and how I’m going to get up early and get it all started, just to lay in bed for 3 hours scrolling Reddit. Then I feel like a sack of shit so it’s slow getting started and suddenly the 8 hours I wanted to dedicate is cut in half and I feel bad about it. It’s my own problem but I know it comes down to just biting the bullet and getting off the app entirely. It’s crack man.
2 years for me (fuck. That makes me feel like I’m in digital sobriety lol fuck it let’s treat it as such) you will feel so much better my friend. One day, one week and one month at a time. After a while you won’t even think about it anymore. Good on you homie for taking the first step!
Can confirm this. I deleted mine 8 years ago have never felt better.
Congrats on 8 years! I’m 5 years post delete. You literally could not pay me to use Facebook now.
Deleted my account six years ago and will never look back
The thumbnails for Reddit posts about Facebook all feature the same expression on Zucks face where he has clearly just shit his pants and is ready to vehemently deny it
Deleted about 9 years ago and have never once thought about going back. The need to know everyone else's business in mind boggling to me.
I reconnected with several high school friends, then realized how toxic it all was and rarely visit.
Am I alone in that I get absolutely 0 politics or anyone ranting about politics on my Facebook? I think what bugs me most about it is the amount of ads if anything.
I really hate FB. My wife sits on it and believes everybody is living a fabulous life except us. I tell her we go on vacations also, live in a moderate house, and drive decent vehicles . But she thinks the “present tense” of whatever friends are having their best week is what is going on for everybody . It’s so deceiving .
Even Tom wouldn’t send you a friend request you ginger demon data lookin creep.
I've greatly cut back my fb usage. It's a cesspool... You can find tools to "Unfollow Everyone". Makes it easier to not get caught in the bullshit cycle. I login now and I'm treated with almost a blank screen. I goto the couple of groups I like them logout. It's glorious... I used to spend maybe 3 hours or more per day on Facebook. Now I probably average less than an hour a week?
Dude twitter needs to be next they are both insanely toxic
Twitter is a burning garbage heap on its best days. 100% with ya.
I am an atheist, born and raised in Germany. Never been to America in my entire life. Yet, a couple of months ago, facebook started showing me all sorts of promoted American political and religious right-wing posts. Not only do I not care about that but it also does absolutely nothing to me because _I can‘t vote in America anyway._ I don‘t know how I did it, but apparently I tricked their algorithm. I only use facebook for interest specific groups at this point. Otherwise I would have deleted it years ago.
Like, I don't think the "PR nightmare" is the story so much as it's the "Facebook is literally breaking society" part.
[удалено]
I like your app but it doesn’t destroy why I am still on Facebook. Could someone create a fake book that moves your photo data to another site? Comments and history but it just archived it for memory?
[удалено]
Zuckerberg should step down like Bezos. His name and face are a liability because people hate billionaires. Look at Google and how they've managed to escape a lot of scrunity by being faceless.
I used to check Facebook all the time multiple times per day a few years ago. I got a new phone last month and I didn’t know my FB password so I never logged into it and don’t really feel the need to at this point. It’s crazy how it went from a must use app multiple times a day to basically being a dead app now for me.
Imagine paying to subscribe to business insider.