This all seems to have gotten utterly out of hand and gone a bit crazy.<p>I stopped using Facebook when my friends started to express political views more than social content. I wanted a place to hang out with friends, not rage. People don't do that in real life. Not that much, anyway.<p>Somehow it seems like over the next five years or so it all descended into madness and everyone became a politician.<p>What went wrong?<p>How can Facebook even be used to 'spread a narrative' if it's just my friends? Why are my friends posting this nonsense rather than stuff about their lives?<p>Something just doesn't add up to me. I don't understand what other people want from a social platform.<p>The same seems to apply to Twitter. Everyday, normal people, seem to be spending their lives raging at each other. What gives?<p>I want a pint now. Damn. The real world is stranger than fiction.
I'm not going to defend Facebook but one of the problems with media criticism of Facebook (and Google) is that Facebook (and Google) has crushed a lot of media. They have become vassals of Facebook (and Google) in order to harvest the clicks they desperately need. They have very little control of their advertising and distribution model now.<p>This has also driven Madison Ave. nuts. Anecdotal but friends I have working in that space have no lost love for Facebook (and Google).<p>My point is there is incentive for media to criticize Facebook and we just don't seem to see this disclosure.
Question about PR, when an event like this happens, why not be transparent?<p>Unless facebook is actively working to help one side, this could be resolved by telling everyone what they know, and any new information...<p>What I'm most concerned about is that they knew it was happening and were okay with it.
But where can I post pictures of my baby so granny can see them? Sure I’ll have to wade through the Russian misinformation to do it and have my entire data file stolen by a shady right wing political entity but I refuse to send baby pics via email.
I'm no fan of facebook, and obviously there's a lot we need to examine regarding social media impact on society at large, etc, but I wonder to what extent this recent demonisation is a result of the existing press powers flexing their muscles. For example, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/12/facebook-rupert-murdoch-threatened-mark-zuckerberg-in-2016-with-a-war.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/12/facebook-rupert-murdoch-thre...</a>
Serious question, is someone bombing facebook in the press for some reason. I have seen no less four discussions bashing facebook on HN in the last day. Not defending or attacking FB in anyway, but the sheer coincidence warrants suspision.
I like how you can tell the specific kind of criticism that a MSM article on FB will contain by looking at the unflattering stock photo of Zuck appears in the masthead. Here, the photo says "incompetent bureaucrat".<p>This sort of attack is nothing new. Did FB have any obligation to do anything other than follow the law? No. There's no betrayal here.<p>You have to keep in mind that outlets like The New Republic are dying, paying writers peanuts, and attracting a contributor group that has the same sort of uniformly authoritarian and strident political philosophy that's damaged the freedom of expression on college campuses and in larger tech companies. They see disagreement with their worldview as morally repugnant and they demand that institutions use their power to censor this disagreement and punish the critics. It's a philosophy I reject.<p>To be smeared by The New Republic as "betray[ing] America" is kind of an honor.