Hacker News Reader

Comment by kop316 | Hacker News Reader

Those allegations are pretty serious. I am curious why the NAACP isn't calling for an all out boycott, rather than just a one day boycott.

View on HN

Because all of the activists out there use FB, so they wouldn't know how to organize people without it.

It's hard to find an alternative that's discoverable. Planning happens through Facebook groups and demonstrations are events. The friction is low - it's easy to invite people and everyone already has accounts - and events are discoverable and even suggested.

What's my alternative? Convincing all my friends to switch to Mastodon and check it regularly? and getting them to convince their friends? Does Mastodon even have events? Some of them only have have phones; is it simple to get them registered and using the app? Facebook is simply too entrenched.

They could launch a minority-owned social media company.

that does not sound like a realistic course of action for a resource constrained group whose primary mission is not technology development.

a minority group should not have to deal primarily with people in that group just to be treated fairly while making their way in society.

The NAACP is an advocacy group, not a tech company. Don't you think it's ethical for Facebook to change here?

You could even say it's separate but equal.

Apologies for not taking Poe's law into account, but it takes a serious lack of self-awareness to suggest that the organization responsible for the integration of the American public sphere should self-segregate.

The comment you replied to didn't say anything about segregation. And don't say it was implied. Plenty of people of all races would be happier using a social network where the founders care significantly about discrimination.

The phrase "separate but equal" is a literal reference to segregation.

You're misreading. There are two comments in a row by bobthepanda. The accusation is that ryacko's comment was suggesting segregation. That's what I disagreed with.

Or, we could have all social networks legally mandated to care about discrimination using the power of law and punitive fines. There's no reason to let the existing ones carry on as is.

Historically black colleges were an alternative to colleges that discriminated, but that didn't make them a solution for discrimination in education.

Yes, but minority businesses are a solution for a lack of minority leaders in business.

There are articles mind you about how a lack of diversity in product testing meant that some recognition apps work better with some ethnicities than others, this may seem silly, but a minority owned company would be better able to serve minorities precisely because they understand the minority experience.

my guess is that they're trying to appeal to a broader audience by making the call-to-action less "costly" to users.

The fact is that the general public won't care about any of this because the utility of these platforms is worth far more to them than the scandals. I really hate that this is the truth, but almost every time I talk about this with someone who still uses Facebook, they hesitate to even think about deleting their account because of the FOMO.

They forgot to boycott WhatsApp.

Anyway, do you know what Facebook did here? The article only mentions Russia doing something.

It links to another article that articulates it more.

Here is the other article: https://www.axios.com/senate-reports-russian-interference-20... .

I read the linked article and it articulates nothing. It has info about Russia, but nothing about what Facebook did wrong.

Facebook created itself, allowing Russia to use it to do bad stuff.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com