Facebook critic: Company ‘will not survive long term’
politico.com
politico.com
I agree it would be better to say "within the few 2 decades" or slap a timeframe on it. But this characterization is silly.
I tend to use 50 years as my rough "long term" definition. "Facebook won't be around in 50 years" is not very impressive. "Facebook won't be around in 2020" would be a bold prediction, but doesn't seem very "long term". "Facebook won't be around in 2025" might be starting to get into "long term", but is also definitely starting to feel vacuous if we think of it as "The probability of Facebook being around as a distinct entity in 2025"... well, no duh it's not going to be 100%, but the probabilities get fairly uninteresting quickly. 50/50 is a decent initial guess for that, and it isn't until you get into the 90s on either side that it starts becoming an interesting prediction.
I don't know how to turn "Facebook won't be around in the long term" into an interesting prediction without a time horizon.
Here's a non-vacuous sort of example: There's a proof somewhere that the maximal probability of the expected future lifetime of a given organization like a country or a company is its current lifespan, projected into the future. So the maximal probability of when Facebook will be gone if it is currently 14 years old is 2032. However, I can not seem to Google up the discussion of this; all the search terms I can come up with are flooded by actuarial discussions of human mortality where this most assuredly is not the case.
More than that, if it has survived N years already, the odds that it will survive at least M more is N/(N+M). If you work out the probability density and then integrate it, you come up with an arithmetic mean that is also N. However the point where it is most likely a priori to die is tomorrow, and that probability steadily decreases.
Sounds more like the good, old https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_argument than any sort of an actual proof...
Are we being unfair by only pointing to how FB had a negative impact on the US election? They had a very positive impact on other elections and helped (indirectly) overthrow bad governments.
Every negative impact is a positive Impact for the other side.
indirectly) overthrow bad governments.
Are you talking about the arab spring? I thought it was generally agreed that the new regime is way worse/more oppresive than the displaced one ever was?
Social media helped facilitate the uprising, but isn't responsible for what replaced the previous regime.
Unlike the other platforms, Facebook and Twitter are the only ones that also manage the content that the end-user sees. This would be fine if it was only targeted ads, but it's all content that can be manipulated. A user may think they are seeing a legitimate news story or a post 'liked' from their friends. This gives it much more weight than an Adsense ad on a website.
There's also the social metrics that can be used to target you - many people were targeted with anti-Hillary news (true or fake) even though they weren't Trump supporters. This was done to sew voter apathy into the election, turning a 'might as well vote Hillary' (say, Bernie supporters) into a 'why bother' - no vote is half as bad as a vote for the other candidate. And this exact thing happened in swing states where Hillary ended up with really bad turnout, thus costing her the election.
I can't think of a way Google or other ad networks could pull this off, that's why it's fair to attack Facebook over this.
But the fact that it's controlled by a small number of people (who've made it clear that they aren't afraid of using their power to sway political opinion) AND that its very business model means it's always powered by the richest & most strategic advertiser should be alarming to any citizen of any country.
Also, advertisers in mass media can't algorithmically target consumers with specific ideological messages. Mass media is still largely run by advertisers targeting relatively vague customer profiles with product branding messages.
You're right that there's a similarity, but I think the magnitude of Facebook's power is vastly different.
Well, I actually know I'm not [1]. I'm a bit more scared about TV. Sure, Facebook is one entity and it'd probably make sense to regulate it and/or break it up, but I'd assume TV is probably more of a homogenizing force.
On the internet you have a lot of people sharing their opinion, and it's two-way. With TV, news sites, etc, you have one "Fox News", slowly turning all conservative people paranoid, and it only goes one way, or one "CNN" banking on excessive coverage of things blown out of proportion, etc.
Hell, John Stewart, when he went to Crossfire caused the show's cancellation was talking about how CNN was making politics a sports show, with two teams, strong feelings, and black-or-white loyalty. TV had been polarizing politics for years before social media even existed.
This is, again not just me speaking. Polarization is increasing the most amongst those who use the internet the least. The internet gave us a grassroots independent movement (wether you agree or disagree with him, it's impressive where Sanders got to without Super PACs) [3]. Similar people to non-heavy social media users gave us Donald Trump (old, no-college education, etc) [4][5].
Not saying online advertising didn't sway anyone, but to think "Facebook/Twitter/social media elected Trump" sounds more like just an emotional response than a facts-based conclusion.
[1]: https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/20/17138854/cambridge-analyt...
[2]: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/4/12/15259438/s...
[3]: https://www.vox.com/2015/6/2/8708331/bernie-sanders-presiden...
[4]: http://www.people-press.org/2016/08/18/1-voters-general-elec...
Yes, TV is terrible, but also keep in mind that social media's role in the world has changed dramatically too--often it straight-up drives TV coverage when used effectively, as Trump does (like it or not). In the 2016 election, it seemed like CNN and Fox were often rushing to cover (and spin) Trump's latest tweet (as they still do), so-and-so's latest Facebook note, etc. reactively instead of proactively crafting their own coverage.
> On the internet you have a lot of people sharing their opinion, and it's two-way.
Yeah but the echo chamber effect on the internet might be even stronger because it's 2-way. It's been shown that being exposed to opposing political opinions on Twitter actually strengthens peoples' original political opinions (recent academic study...can't find link now, but it's on my other machine, and will update this post this evening).
From [2]:
> Remember, it was seniors — only 6 percent of whom use Twitter — who pushed Trump to the White House.
Women, minorities, and others supported Trump way more than expected (in historical terms compared with recent elections, and certainly way more than mass media had us believe), so I'm not sure where the author is coming from here. Also the data cited in the article only goes to 2012, and a LOT has changed since then, so I'd be careful to relate these conclusions to events after 2016.
"Exposure to Opposing Views can Increase Political Polarization: Evidence from a Large-Scale Field Experiment on Social Media"
I think there's a couple of different things going on here that should be considered independently:
(a) two-way communication between people (e.g., conversations)
(b) one-way broadcast information (traditional media)
(c) one-way targeted/narrow-cast information (e.g., algorithmic news feeds, advertising)
There's grey in between these. For example, you can write letters to the editor, or call in to radio stations.
I agree that it's great that the internet has allowed people to communicate with each other more easily with those who are not in their immediate physical community. And I agree that there are other areas of concern as well: traditional media isn't immune, and with the increase in the number of channels, the line between (b) and (c) becomes increasingly blurry.
For myself, a primary concern with algorithmic news feeds and targeted advertising is that it's less transparent. With broadcast TV and advertising, you've got a lot of people of diverse backgrounds watching. If something is being apparently misrepresented (in programming in general, not just news or advertising), it's likely that someone will be able to call them out on it. We have watchdog groups, fact checkers, and federal agencies to help keep people honest. These are human institutions so they're not perfect, but they do exist. The First Amendment helps protect things from getting too homogenized. The balance swings back and forth, and is more or less perfect depending on who you are. But there are mechanisms in place whose purpose is to try to keep things fair.
These mechanisms aren't in place for algorithmic news feeds and targeted advertising. Different people can be shown different ads or articles, with varying levels of truth, and not know what the other has seen. If I say I saw an news article about such and such, and you don't believe I did, we don't have a common place we can point to and see what I saw (unless I'm recording everything I do online). I can see something I think is fair and plays into my worldview, that if you saw it, you would say that's not fair. But you don't have the opportunity to, and I don't have the pushback to be informed where I might be wrong. This is the same dynamic that you describe with people watching only channels that speak to them, but on a more narrow, personalized scale. With broadcast media we have the opportunity to show each other what we saw. On a community scale, you could think of this as people talking behind each other's backs.
So, long story short, I think we're right to be focussed on both. I know I'm concerned about both, particularly the polarization aspects.
If you're interested in reading more about how the internet aspects are different and why they may be something we should be increasingly worried about even if we haven't seen strong effects of it yet (I think there were a lot of factors that went into the 2016 US Presidential election result, and some of the most definitely stronger than targeted advertising and algorithmic news feeds), I encourage you to take a look at some of the work Zeynep Tufecki[0] has done. [1][2] She's been looking at it for quite a while. Again, this isn't to dissuade you from thinking traditional media isn't something we need to worry about: I agree it definitely is. This targeting behavior is something new, and we also (hopefully) still have the opportunity to figure out mechanisms that will help make them a net positive benefit.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeynep_Tufekci
[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/17/opinion/beware-the-big-da...
[2]: https://www.ted.com/talks/zeynep_tufekci_we_re_building_a_dy...
Maybe FB has become just too big and powerful? Similar things could be said about other large companies of course, but FB is the focus at the moment.
So far, these investigations have only proved what people were trying to do. I would imagine that these things had some effect, but I don't think that anything that's come out so far has proved that conclusively shown that they swayed the US election one way or the other.
[0] https://qz.com/1170111/is-facebook-playing-a-part-in-myanmar... [1] https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/21/17144748/c...
Intriguing questions to ask: what happens when Facebook does eventually decline? How much is Facebook's data worth? Who will ultimately acquire it? And perhaps more critically: what will their intentions be?
This is why Zuckerberg's opinions / testifying don't really matter. He's created a tool that's more powerful and more dangerous than humans have any business creating. As with any such tool, it will be used to wreak havoc sooner or later...even if he's an innocent, well-meaning guy, he will not always be the one in charge of this power.
I think of Facebook's power as similar to that of the atomic bomb. Yes it's a triumph of human ingenuity, and it can be used for good, but there's a catastrophic flip side.
Kongō Gumi Co., Ltd. is a Japanese construction company which was the world's oldest continuously ongoing independent company, operating for over 1,400 years until it was absorbed as a subsidiary of Takamatsu in 2006.
I think a bigger indicator of death is when a company neglects problems, or lies about them. Facebook has not denied problems, which makes me think they might fix them.
I had problems with facebook since 2005ish, and actually creating a rival to facebook was a big motivator for me to learn to code, but now I've since taken up my own interests, and am not so concerned with facebook, since I see it, in some ways, as a necessary evil. (though I would rather see some sort of decentralized blockchain thingy that serves as the global directory of connecting all people)
Also, if you are in the valley, you are posh and already "over facebook", you are an early adopter of a facebook-less world, and you don't realize how obsessed with facebook people are in the midwest(where I am). I'm not saying a facebook-less world won't catch on here, but where I am, people aren't anti-facebook at all.
I know most people don't want to PAY for Facebook, but maybe the people who really care about their privacy would.
Could I opt out of advertising, or sharing my data with 3rd party apps of my friends if I paid Facebook $20 per year? For me $20 per year would be a good price for an ad free experience on Facebook.
That way some people pay with real dollars, some people pay by being receptacles for advertising. Just like how there is Free TV, and there is HBO.
And don't forget: Facebook has been buying out every social media platform of any legitimacy (well, except Snap Inc.?) which might rise up to challenge it one day, especially at times like these.
With copious cash it has and no legitimate contender in sight, Facebook has a lot of time and opportunity to morph and adapt itself into a future platform.
I find this article's assessment kind of near-sighted, and naive.
So did Yahoo.
author of that quote will likely just increment that 14 each year until they are right?