I don't care about Facebook, and am not interested in using it, but after reading the spiral of consequences Facebook has been in, it made me think:
1. To all the governments that want to tighten more control on communication, this is great kindling to show people "we the government should further control tech for your own good".
2. You can hardly get the US gov to agree on anything, but when it's about hating each other as much in the digital world as in the physical world via a common source, everyone's at attention.
3. Facebook is so ill-equipped to handle most of the issues that were brought forth. The expectation that the gov/people places on Facebook =/= reality of what Facebook can deliver. Facebook is running around frantically trying to manage an existing mess of a switchboard, they are not going to pull a miracle.
> 1. To all the governments that want to tighten more control on communication, this is great kindling to show people "we the government should further control tech for your own good".
I'm genuinely shocked that the popular sentiment on HN leans toward more government intervention and control of internet communications. So many comments here are calling for more laws and regulation, but few people can even begin to elaborate what they want those laws to do.
If laws are passed, they won't be targeted at a specific company, nor will they be limited to specific bad actors on Facebook. There is no magic law that makes all of the bad parts of the internet disappear without also having some chilling effects on the part of the internet that you actually like. If anything, large incumbents like Facebook tend to come out ahead of the smaller companies when onerous regulations are put in place.
>> I'm genuinely shocked that the popular sentiment on HN leans toward more government intervention and control of internet communications
I'm not seeing that as the popular sentiment here. I think we just want FB to stop algorithmically boosting stuff in order to boost engagement numbers and to also start applying the rules equally.
> 3. Facebook is so ill-equipped to handle most of the issues that were brought forth. The expectation that the gov/people places on Facebook =/= reality of what Facebook can deliver. Facebook is running around frantically trying to manage an existing mess of a switchboard, they are not going to pull a miracle.
Do we expect a miracle? Frankly, a modicum of decency would be a huge step forward...
1. Yes and no. Look at how the world's autocrats are using facebook: As a propaganda machine with their troll army, they kick it out of their country or shut it down when convenient and facebook is OK with it (e.g. on Turkey). FB has no spine. So some regulation would actually hold the governments accountable for their abuses.
2. Thats because facebook transgresses common decency. People dont argue politics with base insticts in a parliament.
3. The solution is not to dump their externalities to the public forever. The whole idea of "social media" as mob media is ill-thought.
1. To all the governments that want to tighten more control on communication, this is great kindling to show people "we the government should further control tech for your own good".
2. You can hardly get the US gov to agree on anything, but when it's about hating each other as much in the digital world as in the physical world via a common source, everyone's at attention.
3. Facebook is so ill-equipped to handle most of the issues that were brought forth. The expectation that the gov/people places on Facebook =/= reality of what Facebook can deliver. Facebook is running around frantically trying to manage an existing mess of a switchboard, they are not going to pull a miracle.