The Zuckerberg delusion
ft.com
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> He might even fund a newspaper to make up for social media’s destruction of local journalism.
I'd rank a lot of other things higher than social media on a list of "destroyers of local journalism"
1. Craigslist 2. Google Maps 3. Online publishing 4. Blogs 5. Social Media?
Regardless of who is at fault for the destruction of local journalism, I am surprised to hear journalists advocating for "billionaire philanthropy" as a sustainable business model.
Not saying that Zuckerberg funded local newspapers are a good answer, just that they aren't that atypical, historically speaking.
If media are living off the billionaire, then what can you expect from them to say about billionaires?
Why is that? I would rank it pretty high.
It's true that online advertising killed of a lot of the ad revenue that newspapers relied on, but I think social media are also killing the newspapers simply by displacing people's 'news browsing' behaviour from a newspaper or magazine to a facebook feed.
A lot of people get all their news from social media, and that proportion is growing.
To add to that behavioural effect, media outlets also give away their content on facebook as well, believing that it would be better to have a presence than to ignore the platform .
They are basically giving their product away for free on one of the very platforms that is destroying the industry.
From Wikipedia's "Decline of Newspapers"[1]
>Free services like Craigslist have decimated the classified advertising departments of newspapers, some of which depended on classifieds for 70% of their ad revenue
The large national dailies are getting thinner and thinner each year, each month it seems.
Compare a Sunday times from today to one from the early nineties if you remember them.
This is not good. A clickbait article on facebook that has been targeted to appeal to your biases is not the same thing as real journalism.
I meant "Google Maps" as in the infrastructure to display local business results when you search for "Family Dentist in Boca Raton" in Search or Maps.
IIRC daily newspapers have historically gotten >60% of revenue from advertising. Local Newspaper = Local Advertising.
A big slice of local business advertising budget that previously went to Newspapers is now going into all the things that ensure a business shows up well in Local/Maps searches.
> Mark Zuckerberg sounded a warning on Friday about the social and political fragmentation caused by America’s opioid crisis
He is trying to diverge attention away from FB by blaming opioids, lost jobs etc but has zero charisma.
Promoting his views in form of a trending Facebook news feed story might provide him a better platform /s
And I still don't get why don't these guys simply do away with the news feed and/or stop collecting data which allow advertisers target a specific political leaning.
Amazon is the new Walmart. When humans have a moment of clarity and learn to go outside instead of going on FB, all the shops will be gone or called Amazon, and Bezos will be swimming in his bank vault.
> "Protecting our community is more important than maximising our profits,” Mr Zuckerberg said
then goes out and sues said community, build walls to keep the community at bay
> In the past year alone, the 32-year-old billionaire spent $30 million to buy up the four homes surrounding his Palo Alto abode, only to demolish them, and later built a six-foot-tall wall around his 700-acre plot of land in Hawaii, to the chagrin of his Kilauean neighbors.
Source: Man Of The People Mark Zuckerberg Sues To Keep Native Hawaiians Off His Kauai Estate => https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/01/mark-zuckerberg-sues...
</sarcasm>
People who are wealthy and famous like him take these measures because they fear for their family's personal security. As an unknown person who also takes my family's security seriously, it's hard to fault him for that.
But that is really unrelated to the concept of "community" on Facebook. One can be quite concerned about social media's negative effect on society (promoting tribalism, othering) while granting that Mark Z has exceptional security needs.
Whereas poor people are totally cavalier about their security? I think this is nothing more than a guy so rich that he can afford to do things that put his own privacy ahead of the rest of the community. This is that common delusion that the super rich have. They think they are super rich because they are special, and so need protection. The truth being that they are super rich because they work as hard as the top 50% but were insanely lucky. I'm starting to really dislike the Zuck
The injustice is that because of the societal wealth disparity, the poorer you are, the less security you can afford.
how would that be accomplished? ostensibly, the money's existence is what creates that need.
perhaps you mean he should give it all away?
I don't know, but I'm sure money helps to accomplish it.
It certainly changes his profile. I'm not sure that this makes him at a higher risk of crime or makes him need a wall around him.
> The injustice is that because of the societal wealth disparity, the poorer you are, the less security you can afford.
And indeed there are many poor people who have a much higher risk of crime than this Zucker, whether they have a wall or not.
i don't think that was the implication, in any respect.
> They think they are super rich because they are special, and so need protection.
this just seems like a sneering generalization. all throughout history wealthy people - especially those in the public eye, or otherwise with a degree of fame - are huge targets for burglary, kidnapping/ransom and other such things.
this isn't to "justify" anything in particular (i don't use facebook or follow news about zuckerberg or other facebook-related people).
> The truth being that they are super rich because they work as hard as the top 50% but were insanely lucky.
in my view, the sort of "better breed" narrative about rich people being superior tends to be something coming out of the conservative and right-libertarian direction; there if you're not rich, it's because you deserve to not be rich.
Why shouldn't he build a wall around his property, it's his and if he likes privacy so be it. With the wall he can walk freely in his property.
That said, Mark Zuckerberg is an asshole and I don't believe that quote for a second.
In Canada for example, CBC radio which i listen to - covers the issue extensively and it is clear that the government is pushing it as an issue, directly and with long-form podcast type pieces about related issues.
It is clear that this is propaganda at the State level.
Reasoning for this approach is clear: One having citizens nodding off across the socio-economic spectrum is costly. Two: It is very easy to build consensus that addressing this is 'A good thing', in the same vein - prior recurrent talking points in the Canadian context are issues regarding native peoples. Three: The need to build consensus is a correction(carrot) for the failed 'the war on drugs'(stick) - itself a piece of political theater. Four: A successful approach to this problem will make the government look good.
Essentially, a solid 'problem' for 'government' to 'solve'. But perhaps other more systemic issues are being ignored ... and we are being distracted by the State's shallow performance of magnanimous and utilitarian care.
Examples of tackling more substantive and more divisive issues would be penalizing the pharma companies, doctors or the profit-driven market they operate in. In terms of the endless hand-wringing over the plight of native-peoples - addressing systemic racism with reparations...
So to re-iterate - the recent injection of the 'Opioid Crisis' in Zuckerberg's PR narrative is an action that is rooted in the State's performance of a 'duty-of-care' at the level of propaganda. It is hardly likely to have come from his cursory tour, and rather from careful study of Facebook's omnipotent data feed and its close relationship with the secret services and those responsible for Propaganda in this country. Basically it represents the capitulation of a very powerful private organization to the forces of state-hood. Something that Zuckerberg's clear ambition for political power might address. At the very least it represents how the State and Facebook are assimilating have already assimilated.
In terms of the substantive issues that would represent a non-capitulation, or non-assimilation, I have written about that here: https://iainmait.land/posts/20170201-transitional-object.htm...
This is not to say that an opioid crisis does not exist, only that it is being used for nefarious purposes.
It's not rocket science to predict the outcome, based on current events: opioids become so difficult to get, even for legitimate purposes like breakthrough cancer and post-surgical pain, that the genuine users suffer along with the so-called abusers; politicos declare victory; and we get stuck with more dangerous pain relief that has not (yet) come under scrutiny.
This is another turn of the screw that crushes the populace a little further into servitude.
Hyperbole? No.
Taken together with the other almost invisible attacks on our freedoms, such as
- not being able to deposit $5,000 or more in totally legitimate cash without being reported to the finance cops,
- the loss of 7th amendment rights by more and more contracts incorporating mandatory binding arbitration clauses, and
- the need for good credit ratings effectively forcing us to have at least some debt,
a reasonable person will surely agree that the sum of these, and upcoming, small tyrannies, if unchecked, will leave most of us in servitude to the State and the "Corporate State".
Yes! Because if it's one thing the world sorely needs its yet another newspaper owned by an out of touch billionaire with dubious political ambitions.