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Comment by bleepblorp | Hacker News Reader

Facebook's public-facing websites are not its product. Rather, the websites are a lure to attract people to be used as feedstock used by Facebook's actual business.

Facebook's actual product is its targeted advertising algorithms that advertisers pay handsomely to exploit. Facebook's advertising product has improved massively over the past two decades.

Indeed, Facebook's advertising algorithms are so good that Facebook should be regarded not as an advertising platform but rather as a rootkit and firmware upload tool for the human mind. Facebook's algorithms are quite capable of making a critical mass of the population believe utterly anything and, if if prompted, to act on those beliefs even in ways that go against their own interests.

What Facebook sells is the ability to control the course of society. That is their business, and they're doing very well with it.

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> What Facebook sells is the ability to control the course of society.

You were more on target when you praised the efficacy of FB's advertising products, bleepblorp. Unfortunately, FB doesn't offer any way to control the course of society except to hasten its decline by overwhelming users with crap.

Neil Postman anticipated this in 1985, when he explained that America had not succumbed to Orwell's dystopian 1984 vision, but rather, had become something more akin to Huxley's Brave New World:

“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egotism.

Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with indulgences, trifles, and vanities."

Let’s put things in proportion. Facebook took the place of television. Can it be effective in changing people’s minds? Yes, within a the scope of variability that they already have.

Can it turn religious people secular, Democrats into Republicans? Citation needed.

When Zuckerberg mentioned sometime last year, that he wants to make facebook better, and especially wants to make people happy [...] - just think about that. With kind of admits that it is facebook's mission to control your feelings - and no better feeling to convey this idea than happiness.

Which is what everybody wants, right? Large demand - big business.

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