Hacker News Reader

Comment by pmart123 | Hacker News Reader

While she views Facebook as too powerful, it is ironic she is happy to provide as revenue to the company.

It's not ironic, this is the entire point she is trying to make. It is impossible to reach a meaningful chunk of the public today without going through Facebook, and they have the ability to filter content as they see fit.

> It is impossible to reach a meaningful chunk of the public today without going through Facebook

One could argue that the point of advertising is not to reach a meaningful chunk of the public, instead a meaningful chunk of a specific demographic.

If that's the case Facebook's position is even more dominant, because of their unique strength at giving advertisers the possibility to target specific demographics.

So the lesson is, don't you dare to be too good and too successful in what you do, otherwise we will do our best to have regulations drop on you like a bag of bricks.

Basically. See US vs Alcoa [0]

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Alcoa

So is that really going to change if Facebook is broken up?

More importantly, is it going to make for a better web, or is it just going to wind up strengthening the online tracking and advertising industries in the long run?

My own proposal would be to ban tracking and unsolicited advertising altogether -- no matter who does it.

So is that really going to change if Facebook is broken up?

Yes. When was the last time you had a call dropped because you were saying unflattering things about your carrier?

How's breaking them up going to stop that?

Usage policies and how these companies handle what's said about them by their users seem completely orthogonal to whether they're one company or many.

When was the last time your carrier played an ad down the line while you were trying to have a conversation?

When was the last time a user post/private message was deleted by Facebook that wad saying unflattering things about that company? Let's compare apples to apples.

If my phone call talking trash about my phone carrier is to a reporter getting ready to publish an expose... now we’re apples to apples. Better?

A similar point was actually made about Twitter on Joe Rogan's podcast recently.

Wow she must be getting great ROI because apparently she spent less than $100 according to the ad disclosures. More likely an effort to build a story than her genuinely using fb for political advertising (else wouldn’t she throw more money in? I run ads for my business and 100 bucks gets you a handful of likes)

Will Elizabeth Warren's antitrust law, or Facebook be more likely to exist 50 years from now in parallel worlds? Facebook itself is being disrupted by Instagram. If it wasn't for the right PM at the right time at Instagram, Snap might have become the dominant social network. Social networks are flimsy entities.

I think you could make the argument that Facebook finally allows for more niche politicians to reach meaningful chunks of niche audiences compared to TV ads. Whether you like them, hate them, or hate one of them, Trump and AOC would not be where they are without Facebook or Twitter. We can only pontificate, but this might also apply to Obama too. Fake news, filtering, and smear campaigns are a phenomenon that existed way before Facebook was created:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/wayoflife/08/22/mf.campaign.s...

Facebook has the most Facebook users.

Alternatively, she's clever enough to expect them to take them down, and thus prove her point.

Not sure about that minor premise...

And she claims that climate change is a problem, yet she exhales carbon dioxide. Very curious.

Boom, got 'em! What's it like to be so much smarter than everyone else?

Well, if Facebook had competitors then there would be no need for the ads in the first place.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com