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Comment by HNthrow22 | Hacker News Reader

FB is the sacrificial lamb, popular scapegoat and effective distraction in this new era of SV policies shaping public opinion, ideas and as a result global politics. It seems misplaced, the amount of vitriol and negative press directed at facebook when from my perspective Google/Twitter/Amazon and even Reddit are far, far worse in terms of aggressively monopolistic behavior and negative effects on society and democracy. The fallout and effects of these platforms unparalleled power and influence is not well-researched yet. The key part that strikes me as disingenuous if these outlets and politicians who fling so much mud towards FB cared so much about privacy violations where were the billion dollar fines and string of hit pieces on Equifax (Who also collect and store your info without your consent)? The answer is there weren't any because they don't, and this is just a distraction from the real shit.

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The real threat it poses isn't to democracy but to established political players who don't want to lose any influence they have over the electorate. they use the election manipulation bogeyman to scare people into believing all their troubles would be taken care if we just trust the political class.

The real threat is that politicians will step in and decide who can have a platform, how big it can be, and worse, who can use it.

Are these large conglomerates an issue, perhaps in areas of needing regulation to insure we have privacy and no not need to opt in. however they should be able to trade for rights as well and in no case should we ever allow politicians to determine what the platform is or who can use it.

I agree with other companies being worse influences than FB. Though I'd guess that FB is the target for these articles just because of brand recognition in the publisher's target demographics.

Aside from Equifax, I disagree. I think FB is getting what they deserve.

FB definitely deserves negative press, there are just a lot of other companies who should be getting blasted harder. IMO at least.

> this is just a distraction from the real shit

Facebook is not all of the problem but it's definitely part of it. Facebook has clear privacy issues an implications and everyone uses it and knows about it. If highlighting its issues is a viable path to better privacy legislation and is the example that allows the bigger problems to be demonstrated to everyone, even non technical people, why not use it?

My mom wakes up on Facebook and goes to sleep on Facebook. She's spending hours a day there and it dominates her entire worldview of current events and politics. That level of engagement blows away Google/Twitter/Amazon/etc. FB is responsible for elections of right-wing dictators around the world, the rise of white nationalism, the jailing and killing of dissidents, climate change denial. In no way does any other company achieve that level of poisonous influence.

If you believe it, say it from your real account.

This ubiquitous practice of commenting on contentious topics using throwaways reveals much of that's wrong with HN culture.

The grandparent comment was insightful to me.

At the same time, there is a large (20%-80%), vocal, and powerful fraction of tech employees that strongly and idealistically oppose that "SV policies [are] shaping public opinion", or that it's a potentially bad thing and not something we should strive for.

I see why someone would hesitate making that comment from their primary account.

This comment is pretty ironic in the context of a discussion on internet privacy.

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