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Can we talk about Zuckerberg?


Captain Ron

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1 hour ago, TexasEd said:

Facebook is going the way of AOL.  Now it is really only a glossier version of Craigslist and a social calendar event organizing tool.  

Only if somebody else pops up with a major platform that mom and pop can use, that has everything that FB already has.

AOL didn't make the leap to broadband provider, so they fell behind their competition fast. AOL was selling internet access over dial-up, and once broadband hit the mainstream scene, a big chunk of AOL's userbase no longer had a need for AOL - AOL would be yet another expense on top of their broadband bill (for many, AOL was their internet access until broadband came along).  In other words, AOL didn't evolve, while FB has evolved over time with things like Instagram, marketplace, etc.

AOL wasn't profitable in a way that FB is - their profit relied on people using their service sparingly, and when they started to fall behind the competition, they went from an hourly fee to a monthly fee in the late 90s, and it killed their profit margin when people stayed logged in trying to find horny men and women in Austin and Dallas.  FB doesn't face that dilemma because their revenue increases when usage increases.

Finally, the AOL-Time Warner merger completely turbofucked everything.  Facebook is not merging with anybody at that kind of scale.

There are very few things that can send FB the way of AOL.  It would have to be a competently run platform that offers much of what FB has, just as AOL was wiped out by broadband providing better connection services than AOL.  When broadband came along in a big way, people were willing to forego AOL for the better internet access, and would then go find AdultFriendFinder.com or whatever to bang hot ladies and dudes in Austin and Dallas.  Apple, Microsoft, and Google are the only companies that could offer a platform at that scale that could compete with FB, and Google has made runs at it, and I'm not sure Microsoft can do that for a lot of reasons (and arguably they have a platform with LinkedIn, but it's no FB).

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13 minutes ago, cmontexas said:

I remember Google Plus

So does Facebook.  And don't forget Orkut either.

Google had Google Drive/Photos, YouTube (a bigger social media platform than Facebook), Blogger (which would have been an easy platform for individual user pages) and a bunch of other services, but Google is gonna Google.

Somebody wrote a book that claimed it scared Zuckerberg and he forced the company to boost a lot of areas or add new features.

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The next big social media platform won't come from any of the legacy tech giants IMO. MBAs know how to make money but they can't figure out how to entertain.

It's like the old casinos where you were having so much fun all night you didn't care if you went home broke. Then they shifted to trying to seperate you from as much of your money as quickly as possible. It works but eventually you're gonna stop coming back.

I'm also curious how exactly people define "social media" Is it the personal aspect of it, attaching your name and image to the content you put online? How is that really different from message boards besides the pictures and fake names? 

All the youngsters I interact with mention Discord and I dont really understand what's going on there. So Im gonna put my chips behind that being the next big thing

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41 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

When broadband came along in a big way, people were willing to forego AOL for the better internet access, and would then go find AdultFriendFinder.com or whatever to bang hot ladies and dudes in Austin and Dallas. 

Yahoo Personals, was the next evolution. Yahoo pretty much offered a similar walled garden as AOL but without being the ISP.

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7 hours ago, Captain Ron said:

This mash up of many Zuckerberg interviews is a must. It has the Swisher/Mossberg one where he had a panic attack on stage when they grilled him like a steak

And it has the entire meaty part of the interview where he self immolated himself over Holocaust denial.

 

55 minutes is quite a bit more than my brain can process. Can I get a Tik Tok version?

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When analyzing this issue and the Elon Musk issue, keep in mind the biggest takeaway from the Blake Lively story, which is that even a relative nobody like Justin Baldoni can benefit from a PR strategy that can control the comment sections and virality of good press, bad press, and everything in between, to the point where your opinion of a public figure has been all but molded by these shadow operatives without you even realizing it.

Why did we ever think Mark Zuckerberg was a liberal, or sympathetic to liberal causes? Why did we ever think Elon Musk had an above room temperature IQ? It's not our fault that we've got more important things to do than to second guess our first impressions of public figures.

Sure, it seems obvious now that he's always been a sociopath who would gladly inflict psychological distress on millions of people if it meant his stock would go up one quarter of a point, but let's not blame ourselves for failing to see him for what he really is. It's by design that anything we think we know about a famous person has gone through many, many filters and focus groups.

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4 hours ago, ConferenceRoom said:

55 minutes is quite a bit more than my brain can process. Can I get a Tik Tok version?

I recommend the whole thing but yeah, I get it's a lot. Here are the highest points if you want to skip to them:

2:30 - Cambridge Analytica interview that outlines how Zuck has no accountability at Facebook

14:30 - Is the Mossberg/Swisher Interview. They address some of the privacy issues which started around 14:00.

34:00 - The big interview where Mark makes the Holocaust faux pas. I recommend listening to the setup from 31:30.

45:00 - Mark's commencement speech to Harvard (2017).
(whole text is here - https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/05/mark-zuckerbergs-speech-as-written-for-harvards-class-of-2017/ )

51:30 - Frances Haugen Interview - the flatness of Facebook and the flaw of it.

I think as a big whole - these give us the largest insights into exactly how Zuck operates IN HIS OWN WORDS. The 2:30 interview outlines just how little accountability there is at Facebook. 34:00 shows how Zuck wants to get and keep as many people as he can on his platforms, and how he really just doesn't care what the discourse is (just like the Maria Ressa comment I mentioned last page and his newest content moderation change). 45:00 IMHO truly outlines how Zuck doesn't see anything he has done as wrong - HE LITERALLY SAYS IT:

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Anyone working on a big vision will get called crazy, even if you end up right.

And then the Haugen interview at the end shows his blind spots, Swisher nails it "People of Facebook, we are all equals!" <Mark goes off and gets on his private jet to leave>

If you have a bit more time, I think the last 12 or so minutes (46:30) are really good to give you a great insight into Zuckerberg as a whole. Swisher goes down a lot of her NY Times headlines and gives reasons for them. There is a small blurb in there (48:30) where she notes that he's said and is right that Apple has a ton of power, more than people realize. And I would say around 50:00 she has a good piece on his drive and how he has a great big picture view, but the small picture details of it are just wrong. I think this where she uses the Caesar analogy "Now we have democracy! Yes, but millions of people just died!"

1 hour ago, chainsaw said:

When analyzing this issue and the Elon Musk issue, keep in mind the biggest takeaway from the Blake Lively story, which is that even a relative nobody like Justin Baldoni can benefit from a PR strategy that can control the comment sections and virality of good press, bad press, and everything in between, to the point where your opinion of a public figure has been all but molded by these shadow operatives without you even realizing it.

Why did we ever think Mark Zuckerberg was a liberal, or sympathetic to liberal causes? Why did we ever think Elon Musk had an above room temperature IQ? It's not our fault that we've got more important things to do than to second guess our first impressions of public figures.

Sure, it seems obvious now that he's always been a sociopath who would gladly inflict psychological distress on millions of people if it meant his stock would go up one quarter of a point, but let's not blame ourselves for failing to see him for what he really is. It's by design that anything we think we know about a famous person has gone through many, many filters and focus groups.

Eh, it's been obvious the whole time (IMHO). Unlike Muck, Zuckerberg really hasn't changed much at all this time. He has shifted with the winds this whole time all for the sake of Facebook's value. That he was a sociopath has been obvious since The Social Network. This discussion is mostly to keep up with this view and keep a spotlight on him.

1 hour ago, royiv said:

Maybe cmonchina can make a cute little dance video for you.

I'm still waiting for him to show me proof about Zuck pushing the TikTok ban.

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17 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

Apple is the current and future enemy of Facebook and Zuckerberg has made that clear many times and has lobbied against Apple politically and railed against them publicly.  I would not be surprised if he's quietly spent a lot of money on PACs that lobby Congress to look at Apple from an anti-trust/monopoly angle, but he's sure as hell made it clear to various politicians that Apple is the devil.  It started four years ago when Apple, by default, blocked Facebook from tracking Apple users' web-browsing and app-using habits, hurting FB's bottom line.

Zuckerburg just outright loathes Apple, and there are two reasons for it:

1. The most important - Apple spends a lot of resources on trying to keep Facebook and other platforms from accessing user data on iPhones, iPads, and Macs, including things like trying to make Safari more and more private and keep more and more of Safari's user-data away from Facebook, other platforms, and advertisers. There are people at Apple whose literal jobs involve keeping Facebook, etc. out of user data.  Apple already offers a built-in VPN of sorts to all Safari users on all Apple devices through the "Private Browsing Mode" feature.  Keeping that browsing data, as well as things like contact lists, text messages, etc. away from Facebook, etc. keeps a shitload of money out of Facebook's wallet.  If Google went as hard at user privacy and blocking companies like Facebook, etc. from various data/metrics of its users, Facebook, advertisers, etc. would be in a world of shit, but Google can't do that as effectively as Apple because it has its own tracking it needs to do for its advertisers.

Apple forced users to decide whether to let Facebook, etc. track their data/browsing across other websites and apps. Facebook spent tens of millions of dollars on advertising against that update, claiming it would hurt not only Facebook, but small businesses that rely on gathering user data from their browsing, purchases, etc.  Facebook even tried to organize small businesses to band together against Apple's privacy restrictions. A friend who worked at Apple said Facebook was nasty as hell privately in going after Apple over those changes.

2. Long term - Apple has $162 billion in cash.  Apple has a solid cloud infrastructure, with a lot of apps that synchronize their data across devices, and those apps include calendar apps, store/shopping apps, mapping apps, messaging apps, video game service (including matchmaking) Safari web browser, email, music, password apps, news apps, video and photo taking and organizing apps, video streaming apps, , etc., etc. If Apple wanted to, they could announce that they were creating a social media platform to be included in iCloud, that taps into their various apps, but that is focused on user privacy and that they wouldn't follow the FB model of advertising/user tracking and selling the hell out of user data.  Facebook would be in an absolute world of shit if that happened, because plenty of people would be happy with that. 

That terrifies Zuckerberg, and Google has made runs, both overtly, but also backdoor-ish, at creating its own centralized social media platform, but it never quite gets it together, whereas Apple not only has the resources, but has all of the infrastructure to do it and could hire the right people to make it work, and wouldn't half-ass it.

And, of course, Google would make zero representations about whoring out the data they collect.

Apple has it's own antitrust problems because of the "closed system," but far more business justification for it than most of the rest of big tech.  It also seems to be more committed to privacy than the other data pimps.

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6 hours ago, Captain Ron said:

There is a small blurb in there (48:30) where she notes that he's said and is right that Apple has a ton of power, more than people realize.

2 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

Apple has it's own antitrust problems because of the "closed system," but far more business justification for it than most of the rest of big tech.  It also seems to be more committed to privacy than the other data pimps

The thing that I think is missing from that compilation, and I think Swisher pointed it out one time elsewhere, is that Zuckerberg truly believes he is entitled to the user data on Apple devices, and Google and Microsoft as well.  If Facebook is on a device, he thinks he should be able to have full access.  Apple has teams dedicated to locking it down and they’ve publicly rebuked him, and it pisses him off so much.

Apple sees the iPhone as the product and iPhone buyers as their customers.  Zuckerberg sees the Facebook users as the product and advertisers as his customers, and the more user data he can vacuum up, the more revenue can come in. This is why he even wanted FB to make a phone back in the early 2010s (it failed quickly).

And Apple has banned FB apps before

https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/30/apple-bans-facebook-vpn/

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In the wake of TechCrunch’s investigation yesterday, Apple blocked Facebook’s Research VPN app before the social network could voluntarily shut it down. The Research app asked users for root network access to all data passing through their phone in exchange for $20 per month. Apple tells TechCrunch that yesterday evening it revoked the Enterprise Certificate that allows Facebook to distribute the Research app without going through the App Store. This not only breaks the Research app, but all of Facebook’s internal-use employee apps for collaboration and logistics too, from workplace chat to the lunch menu.

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TechCrunch’s investigation discovered that Facebook has been quietly operated the Research program on iOS and Android since 2016, recently under the name Project Atlas. It recruited 13 to 35 year olds, 5 percent of which were teenagers, with ads on Instagram and Snapchat and paid them a monthly fee plus referral bonuses to install Facebook’s Research app, the included VPN app that routes traffic to Facebook, and to ‘Trust’ the company with root network access to their phone. That lets Facebook pull in a user’s web browsing activity, what apps are on their phone and how they use them, and even decrypt their encrypted traffic. Facebook went so far as to ask users to screenshot and submit their Amazon order history. Facebook uses all this data to track competitors, assess trends, and plan its product roadmap.

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Facebook was forced to remove its similar Onavo Protect app in August last year after Apple changed its policies to prohibit the VPN app’s data collection practices. But Facebook never shut down the Research app with the same functionality it was running in parallel. In fact, TechCrunch commissioned security expert Will Strafach to dig into the Facebook Research app, and we found that it featured tons of similar code and references to Onavo Protect. That means Facebook was purposefully disobeying the spirit of Apple’s 2018 privacy policy change while also abusing the Enterprise Certificate program

https://www.cnet.com/news/privacy/apples-privacy-battle-with-facebook-just-became-all-out-war/

 

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Cook dismissed those concerns in an interview with The New York Timesearlier this month. "We know these things are flimsy arguments," Cook said. "I think that you can do digital advertising and make money from digital advertising without tracking people when they don't know they're being tracked."

Apple and Facebook continued their sniping on Monday. Facebook shared a copy of the alert it'll tell users Apple "requires" as part of its new privacy push, while Apple released a video on YouTube saying it's fighting against "apps that have trackers embedded in them that take more data than they need."

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Apple's approach has butted heads with Zuck & Co., whose comparatively loose approach to user data has led to government investigations and fines over massive privacy scandals.

Apple and Facebook haven't just argued over philosophy. Apple publicly criticized Facebook in its presentations in 2018, for example, showing off a new Screen Time feature, revealing how often people use various apps. In the demo, Facebook was shown as the ultimate time suck. Apple also announced new features for its Safari browser, saying it would be "shutting down" user tracking through Facebook's ubiquitous Like buttons around the web. This all came shortly after Facebook's Cambridge Analytica privacy scandalexploded into public view


 

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11 hours ago, Captain Ron said:

I'm still waiting for him to show me proof about Zuck pushing the TikTok ban.

There is no proof that Mark Zuckerberg personally pushed for the TikTok ban. However, Facebook did spend more on lobbying in their history months before Congress passed PAFACA.

A couple of years ago, Facebook got caught hiring a Republican consulting firm to run a smear campaign against TikTok. This was right before Marco Rubio got worked up amd started calling for a ban.

Zuck said he had no idea about hiring the Republican consulting firm and someone else within Facebook must have hired them. As far as the lobbying, well that was about election integrity.

Personally, I believe Zuckerberg is telling the truth because he wants what is best for society and isn't a lizard brain sociopath.

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