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Mark Zuckerberg's manifesto for Facebook offers a social dystopia
- dang 10y agoI bless whoever hides those substantive titles in the URLs.
- pygy_ 10y agoDid you kill your own comment? It was marked [dead], not [flagged]... I just vouched for it to reply, I'm a bit surprised that users can hide a mod's post...
- scintill76 10y agoI think this happens when the URL is assigned based on the title first entered, then the title is changed later. At least I think I've seen that happen on Wordpress. It's a fun little easter egg though.
- bicknergseng 10y agoNot to be overly melodramatic and totally dodging the contents of the article, but aren't we already in a social dystopia? Is there any way of qualifying "how dystopic" a society is?
- Andrex 10y agoI think a recent Black Mirror episode dealt with this exact subject.
- spamlord 10y ago"an imagined place or state in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmentally degraded one." where the hell do you live? remind me to never visit.
- grx 10y agoProbably the US! /s
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- sveme 10y agoHave we reached peak Facebook yet? I started using Facebook quite early in my country and used it mostly as a social network, communicating and exchanging stuff with friends from all over the world. A couple years later I deleted my account, being disgusted by the potential abusive potential of all the information Facebook had. I came back years later as it became THE tool for ad hoc social initiatives and a way to follow news from things of importance to you, like the local climbing gym or a band I like. Though I did not use it as a social network, I nevertheless used it. That is currently changing and I experience Facebook fatigue. The comment sections are either empty, used as a notifier for friends or are right-wing/left-wing troll battle fields. Everyone seems overly emotional to get the most likes and bubble to the top. I removed subscriptions for newspapers to not accidentally have to stumble upon the inanen comments, something I dreaded only with youtube comments so far. Have the social network aspects of Facebook (and youtube) been destroyed by fatigue, other ways (WhatsApp?) of exchanging stuff immediately and ideological troll battles?
- CodingGuy 10y agoIf Google Trends is somewhat right, we've definitely reached peak Facebook: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=Facebook https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=Facebook
- alehul 10y agoThis is likely more indicative of society: A. Becoming more computer-literate and going straight to sites as opposed to always Googling it before clicking, even once familiar with the URL, which won't correlate to usage B. Visiting the site enough for AutoFill to take effect, which is ever-so-slightly inverse in correlation in terms of search popularity to site popularity Here's a FB-related search term people will still use, even with AutoFill for Facebook, as some evidence. The rise is a similar pattern, but lacking the major drop: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=Facebook%20contact https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=Facebook...
- anxrn 10y ago
- dmitrygr 10y agoWhy is it that every little single-purpose-at-best company nowadays acts like they are out to save the world in the most noble way possible? Mark, please! You're a spam-your-friends-with-fake-news-and-baby-photos service at best. The world will go on long after Facebook ceases to exist. Please stop pretending that you're Mother Teresa here.
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- zzalpha 10y agoIt's the tech delusion. I don't know a start-up that doesn't have some grandiose vision of themselves as the future saviors of humanity. Uber, Tesla, Facebook, Airbnb, you name it... it's all the same "save the world" rhetoric. The scary thing is, I think a lot of people on the industry actually believe their own BS...
- azernik 10y agoAt least Tesla's one thing is inherently important because of the climate change implications.
- oldsj 10y agoYea I have to say Elon's actions seem to really be for the overall benefit of society unlike most other tech / business leaders
- bamboozled 10y agoI like to remain skeptical about Elon's vision, he seems like a great guy, but he is still a business man, maybe he isn't able to see that for himself. Just remember we're not just getting free lithium, aluminum and copper from another dimension to build all those cars, and when we're done with the cars, they're not just going to biodegrade back into forrests and coral reefs. Mining those minerals can have a pretty serious environmental impact. There is some cognitive dissonance going here, we see a solution to climate change, but we don't want to observe the other side of the coin.
- dahdum 10y agoWhile I live in Silicon Valley and mostly agree with the prevailing morality, it's alarming to see Facebook (and others like Reddit/Twitter) move so aggressively towards social engineering the entire world.
- grx 10y agoIt's like everyone builds a political army from its user base, steering it by manipulation with algorithms and bots. This works since the beginning of humanity, I don't see why it surprises people that new technology resorts to proven methods.
- jerf 10y agoCybercolonialism. I don't just mean that as a snarky crack. It's worth pondering the idea a bit. They've been headed in this direction for a while, but it's becoming undeniable. (Remember, Facebook is more than just America. They and their stock valuation aspire to be global.)
- dgudkov 10y agoOr cybergovernment. Internet giants are becoming fundamental services for millions of people. They're not just too big to fail -- they are essential, which makes them comparable to governments.
- grogenaut 10y agoI love the silicon valley hyperbole. Lets rank facebook being down for 2 weeks with: Shut down all the banks 2 weeks, eg no access to any money. Shut down all Gasoline for 2 weeks. Eg no personal transit (shut up you smug Tesla drivers I'm getting you next). Shut down all electricity for 2 weeks. No Power. (All you with power on your roofs and teslas... this gets your grocery store fridges). I think you need to re-evaluate what is "essential".
- blakes 10y agoI agree, "essential" is maybe too strong of a word. But I do like to ponder the thought of all Google services, or all Amazon services shutting down for 2 weeks. Clearly not as essential, but the impact on the daily life of at least most of the US would at least be noticeable. I believe these are still the early days of "internet giants". They seem giant now, but with MS, Google, Amazon, and other "giants" aiming to provide much of the structure of not only the internet, but also some of our daily lives (delivery, web, phone, internet access, information/news), I can imagine twenty years from now the reach of these "giants" to be far closer to "essential" then we feel they are now. Who knows, maybe we will forever be in a cycle of "giants" growing, evolving, and failing without ever becoming essential. I don't know how it will work haha, but interesting to consider.
- Bedon292 10y ago>> If you type "how to leave" into the Google search window, "how to leave Facebook" will be the first suggestion. Am I being too critical for thinking someone writing an article like this should know that Google searches / suggestions are personalized? Just because its suggested for them does not mean its universal.
- rush340 10y agoYou're not. It really annoys me when people cite google search suggestions as meaningful. In my google search suggestions, it falls behind "how to leave a group chat" and "how to leave a meetup group". Therefore it must be true that more people are trying to figure out how to get out of group chats or break it off with their meetup group than leaving facebook. This also must be a sign of the demise of group chat.
- paulddraper 10y agoMine: > how to leave a group text on iphone > how to leave a google review > how to leave a review on etsy > how to leave a group chat
- FabHK 10y agoLove me my ad/cookie/tracking blocking. I get: > how to leave facebook > how to leave a club in lol (??) > how to leave ashran (??) > how to leave a discord server (??) Seems Google has me pegged as a gamer... (I'm not, had to DDG all the suggestions marked with a question mark)
- whoopdedo 10y agoI use Google infrequently and block google-analytics, so I believe I'm mostly outside the search bubble. I get "how to leave group chat", "how to leave your wife", "how to leave a review on etsy", and "how to leave group text". The questions about chat and text both give answers about iOS. Is Google the default search engine for Siri? The other questions, hmm. Another way to bypass customized results is to use StartPage. The only suggestion I get from there is "how to leave town"
- paganel 10y ago> The algorithm prioritizes what it shows a user based, in large measure, on how many times the user has recently interacted with the poster and on the number of "likes" and comments the post has garnered. FB has changed so much for the better for me since I've joined an AutoRetro group featuring cars at least 25 years old and since I've started like-ing that group's posts. Now almost half of my feed is filled with photos of old Trabant, Lada or Opel Kadett cars, and I love that. The other half is indeed filled by mothers sharing their kids' stuff, which I don't give a crap about, and some fiery political stuff, which I care about but which I generally ignore, the reason being that there's not that much that I can change, politically-wise, by commenting on the Internet. I've also found out that I've been a lot more relaxed and generally better off since I've stopped checking my feed on the phone when in public places (tramway, waiting in line at the Post office or at a general store). For those situations I always carry a magazine (the Economist folds really well) or a pocket book with me, and it's been for the best.
- dopamean 10y agoThis sounds a lot like what I tell people who don't like using reddit. I love using reddit because I follow the subs that are related to my interests and as a result I find a lot of really, really awesome content. I think if you approach a massive social network as a passive or casual user you will be subjected to worst that network has to offer.
- nether 10y agoEven in the hobbies, particularly sports, subreddits I see a lot of narrow mindedness that I don't see in other forums for the same activities. Like asking how to do X type of cycling, the top comment will be some exhortation on how you must do ABC with Z bike or you will die. Versus bikeforums.net, where people will chime in with a more "anything goes" attitude, and seem to have greater depth and breadth of experience.
- projektir 10y agoIndeed. I had plenty of positive experiences on Reddit, but many subreddits are very chaotic relative to how popular the subject is and who ended up there. The voting system just doesn't scale well in my opinion.
- shurik1917 10y agoSomething happened with this Zucker guy lately. This bizarre Manifesto... how can he not feel that just everyone, left or right, would just throw up reading that? Is it his idea of a Better World? In which everybody pukes nonstop?
- temp-dude-87844 10y agoThis is disingenuous critism that reiterates canned talking points, while failing to cover much of the manifesto's content. Zuck's document in question is actually fairly substantive and raises some intriguing questions that Facebook's leadership has to grapple to retain relevance in a diverse world that isn't all fairies and unicorns, but where people actually oppose each other politically, culturally, and along other axes. While he frames it in terms of being a good actor as opposed to making a profit, I can't fault him for this in what is essentially a PR post. At least it acknowledges common criticisms of Facebook's moderation, content policy, and editorial behavior, and displays an awareness that hurried knee-jerk hotfixes won't allay all concerns, but that they need a strategies to stay relevant. I'm no fan of Facebook the product, or their business model being an elaborate data harvesting scheme, but place criticism where it's due, not on long-form PR blog posts that admit they fucked up a few times and they can do better -- even if they play up examples where FB being in the right place at the right time with the right marketshare has has helped people.
- mnm1 10y agoSure, but if you name the solution to this problem "virtual identity suicide" (I had to look it up too) you're not going to get many adopters. That's like naming marriage "single status suicide". It's not even accurate. What things are named matters a lot because most people cannot tell the difference between the name and the thing named nor can they easily remove implied yet unintended meaning from text.
- pYQAJ6Zm 10y agoI agree; it’s a terrible name for it. I also googled it and found a website whose lead image is a hangman’s noose – seriously, come on. Let’s call it online identity liberation, retaking, protection, or whatever.
- Sir_Cmpwn 10y agohttps://www.facebook.com/help/224562897555674 https://www.facebook.com/help/224562897555674
- return0 10y agoTo play the devils advocate, the criticism of the article is misdirected. None of the problems mentioned were created or exacerbated by facebook. Addiction : just like any other addiction , filter bubble: people not making friends on the other side, right winger's followers: the shunning from mainstream media brought that. Facebook makes the most obvious choice of algorithms. An alternative choice of algorithms (e.g. deliberately exposing you to views you don't like) would create a much bigger backlash. Anyway facebook has a long history of "huuuge outcry" every time they make a change, but its users have the attention span of a fruitfly.
- flopdrol 10y agoBut is is to be eeóxpevted. Fzcebook veo is purple. Liz a cordeon. Better purple tjal a pissy wirh visitor pattern bitwise lut 12 bit with 8 bit mantissa and 4 bit mantissa.
- wott 10y ago> In France, rationalist Emmanuel Macron has 165,850 likes, while far-right Marine Le Pen boasts 1.2 million. "Rationalist"?? What's rational about him? The guy did not have any political existence 6 months ago, has no party, has no program, tells everyday the opposite of what he told the previous day because the audience is different, and yet gets more than 20% in opinion polls. That's a rationalist, uh?
- Veen 10y agoThe only thing on your list that has anything to do with rationalism is this: "tells everyday the opposite of what he told the previous day," and it's entirely rational. If you want to persuade someone, telling them what they want to hear is an essential first step. It would be irrational to do othwise given his goals.
- noddingham 10y agoI think The Register's take does a way better job of describing this manifesto. https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/02/17/zuckerberg_publishes_worldsaving_manifesto/?page=1 https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/02/17/zuckerberg_publishe...
- tempodox 10y agoLike all megalomaniacs, Zuckerberg fancies himself as some kind of messiah. He won't stop believing that, not even after his machine explodes in all our faces.
- dredmorbius 10y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13673691 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13673691 El Rag agrees with you.
- askafriend 10y agoIf you truly think that, then why don't we apply the same sort of "machine" criticism to any company that collects data online? There's an awful lot of them. Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, ESPN, etc etc. I mean the whole web is really one big data collection machine and that started long before the advent of Facebook though they definitely helped exacerbate it.
- csomar 10y agoI have stopped using Facebook as a source of information, unfollowed all friends and pages and stopped posting about me eating outside (I did post about my travels which I'm planning not to redo). After a while of doing that, I don't feel any urge to visit facebook and check again. I even get no more urge to see my friends profiles and what is going on with them. However, I have found it is not practical to remove Facebook because I use Messenger to talk with friends (either chat or voice). Much easier and cheaper than doing it with text (and it's way too easier for international friends). I removed the Messenger App from my phone though because it is abusive. I'm trying to find a way to communicate (P2P) with friends without facebook but it is too hard to convince them to install something else.
- vowelless 10y agoI have the exact same feelings. FYI you can deactivate Facebook without deactivating messenger. That is what I did. My messenger still works (although oddly, sharing links with friends has become a little worse ) and my Facebook profile is deactivated.
- Neliquat 10y agoYou made a throwaway to post a huge defense of facebook? Color me skeptical. Edit: Correction, you are a sockpuppet, as you admit to in your 1st post, pointing out its primary use to manipulate discussion. Go away troll.
- dang 10y agoYou can't attack other users like this on HN, regardless of how wrong you think they are. We ban accounts that do so, and already warned you about it twice. Please fix this. We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13672409 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13672409 and marked it off-topic.