Facebook Employees Say Apple Fight Is “Self Serving” | Hacker News Reader

Facebook Employees Say Apple Fight Is “Self Serving”

buzzfeednews.com

95 pointssonotmyname88 comments

> In response to the discussion on his post, Levy [Facebook’s vice president for ads] said the campaign was “not about our business model.”

> “That’s Apple’s marketing working and convincing you to scapegoat us so they can decide how the internet should work — even beyond their devices,” he wrote. “I’m an optimist who works in technology because I think tech can be a lever for democratizing access and giving opportunity. Including for businesses. And if you think this is going to stop with personalized ads . . . well, then I disagree.”

Allowing users to choose whether they want to be tracked passes the decision of "how the internet should work" from companies that sell ads to the users. It sounds like Levy just wants to remain in control of that decision.

Then he has the audacity to mention "democracy" despite wanting to remove power from the majority of the affected people.

Slippery slope argument.

"Sure, it's tracking today, but next they'll want to make it illegal to browse without an iCloud account!"

Shrill.

As if Facebook needs Apple's help to look bad.

While I'm under no illusion that Apple is somehow the lone bastion of mega-corporate ethics, Facebook's interests don't align with mine in any way. Apple's interests do to some non-zero degree, so in this particular instance I don't have an issue with Apple pursuing their interests at the expense of Facebook's.

At least with Apple it’s a product and I can vote with my wallet. With Facebook the client is the advertiser, exactly what this campaign is all about. I don’t have the feeling the users interests are Facebooks interest beyond a shallow need to keep governments of their back.

I like when people say « Apple products are way overpriced! » – That is the price point when the company sells the raw iPhone with no partnerships inside. In 2006 most phones were feature phones, locked-in with the phone operator. Apple’s strategy has always been to be independent. It costs more to the end-user, but the end-user is the sole buyer. Their strategy is the same with Facebook: Thanks to their independence, Apple can decide in favor of the consumer.

>> "so they can decide how the internet should work — even beyond their devices"

How does the decision Apple has made "work beyond their devices"? If I'm not on an Apple Device, the iOS changes do not affect how FB can continue to track me.

Some poor business (outside the Apple ecosystem) can no longer target you because Facebook lacks your data

Sorry. Not sorry. Get a better business plan.

> I’m an optimist who works in technology because I think tech can be a lever for democratizing access and giving opportunity.

Is anyone else tired of this worn-out canard? It seems like every message in my LinkedIn inbox is from some company "democratizing" this or that nowadays. Any tech company aspiring to a large customer base now makes a generic claim to liberating the masses as well.

It honestly has a negative connotation for me since it’s been so overused to almost be meaningless. It either means they have no business model or their business model is surveillance for profit. Big red flag.

I literally have those sentences framed in our offices, to remind my employees that we are just making software. Sentences taken from websites we stumble across, like « We advance humanity » or « 125 years experience with the future », all on backgrounds of cute things which people pretend to be helping because they provide the software that helps build a machine for the doctor who helps a kid in Africa. Let’s be humble, as employees the company is here to provide us with experience and pay, and hopefully a good time; We must be mindful of the community we’re in and always talk to the old lady upstairs and lend our drill to the father who’s rebuilding his bathroom in the building; and the software we build has a nice role among the million other cogs that make society work. No go back to taking care of your families ;)

I am sure it is hard to change internal FB momentum. Facebook prioritized user data access at all costs over the last decade. Apple is pressuring all app developers to be transparent with consumers and explain what user data is collected. Users can opt out. That is the crux of the issue for Facebook. They want users to continue sharing data and they don't want anyone grant users the option to opt-out. Excuse my rhetoric but that is weak argument for a feature that will benefit consumers.

It will not stop marketers from investing in FB ads. But, it does put the onus on FB to develop privacy centric advertising capabilities. That is a good thing.

I can't buy the Apple "good samaritan" act. Apple is not fighting for privacy.

Only recently, due to an apple service outage, most of this community were reminded that apple logs everything done on their manufactured devices including trivial acts such as opening an app (note I avoided saying "their devices" because it is our device that we purchase).

They track what apps you open and use, siri is always listening, they control what apps can be installed via appstores, the entire ecosystem is a lock-in, forget about hardware upgrades or right to repair.

Facebook isn't the lesser evil. It is the less potent evil.

I'm the author of the article that seemed to alert everyone to Apple logging that app launch data.

Apple does indeed care a lot about user privacy. The system that was logging that data was an effort to prevent malware on end user systems. They are taking steps to encrypt the data, and I would be unsurprised if they use bloom filters to keep the list of apps clientside only.

The privacy issue with Apple isn't that Apple is some shade of "evil", it's that Apple takes the view that your data is safe with Apple because they won't misuse it, and that they know how to keep it safe.

In the age of warrantless FISA orders (known to some as PRISM, which we know thanks to Ed Snowden) mentioned and counted explicitly in Apple's own "transparency report", we now know that that isn't true. Apple knows it, too.

If the government can take any of your store user data at any time without a warrant, at what point after you have become painfully and totally aware of this fact do you become complicit in the fact that you are part of the state surveillance apparatus? At what point do you have a moral obligation to stop collecting data from your customers, knowing that if you save it, it will be available to the state, without a warrant, for all time?

This is the issue with Apple, not some lack of focus on customer privacy. Apple cares a lot about customer privacy, but they seem to have punted on the fact that Apple having customer data also means that the state surveillance organizations have access to all of that same data, as well.

Apple's surveillance-enabling lack of end to end cryptography (or the backdoors they've placed in the end-to-end encrypted parts like iMessage) is the real issue here. I don't think Apple wants to surveil your non-e2e iCloud Photos or nudes in iMessage attachments in your non-e2e iCloud device backup to sell ads or something - but they know or should know that the state does want to surveil this information, and they definitely know that the US government victimized 30,000 Apple users in that fashion last year, without a warrant.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusiv...

Apple is fighting for consumer privacy in the advertising technology ecosystem. Apple's stance is that your data is safe with Apple. Once your data is outside of Apple walls, it is fair game for hundreds of ad tech companies. These companies might be data brokers that aggregate user behavior, they might be mobile analytics for app developers, it can be google or FB, etc. Advertisers rely on ad tech to deliver relevant advertising and to measure the change or impact on consumer behavior. Today, those capabilities – while technically anonymous, are done at the person level across most of ad tech. At least, that is the goal for most ad tech providers.

Apple has made some attempts to keep your data on-device compared to other providers. They are the lesser evil of the surveillance state.

That... doesn't really matter when it comes to this issue.

However you feel about Apple or Facebook or anything else, what Apple is doing here is saying "you must tell users what you're tracking, and ask them if they're ok with that." That's it. Whatever motivation, good or evil or inbetween, you'd like to ascribe to their actions is besides the point; let's assume that they're doing this out of pure greed or a nefarious long-term goal -- it's still a win for users and their control of their own data. Users can still choose to share everything with Facebook if they so desire -- they'll just be presented with a choice.

You avoided saying "their devices" because you believe that when you buy a device you should own it, so I assume you similarly believe that your personal data should be yours to own and control. Facebook is fighting really hard against being forced to even tell customers what information they're gathering, much less be forced to let them choose to not share it. The position that Apple shouldn't be allowed to limit Facebook's freedom to take away your freedom to choose doesn't seem to align.

We don't have to agree with everything Apple is doing in order to agree with this one particular thing that they're doing.

Apple is implementing a feature that a lot of users want: requiring opt-in for tracking. Facebook wants users not to know when they're being tracked and definitely doesn't want them to have to opt-in to tracking. Facebook knows users don't want to be tracked.

Does adding this new feature make Apple a good and virtuous company? I'll leave that for the Tech Vatican when they decide whether Apple gets to go to Tech Heaven.

Personally, I don't really care about that, I just want the feature and find Facebook's argument against it to be very weak.

>I can't buy the Apple "good samaritan" act. Apple is not fighting for privacy.

Why not?

Here's Jobs 10 years ago talking about this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39iKLwlUqBo

How is any of that relevant to the subject at hand ?

It seems like you’re arguing that Facebook tracking you across multiple websites and selling that data is not so bad because Apple has a closed App Store. How is that pertinent?

I'm starting to think the company I work for might just be in it for the money.

woah there, your California mandated board member might quit with that talk

Is there a meme for that ? like the dog in fire saying "this is fine" ?

I don't understand why Facebook is worried about Apple's changes. After all, if Facebook tracking is indeed good for users, then users will overwhelmingly and enthusiastically opt-in.

Users probably will overwhelmingly opt-in, but even losing a small percentage of users could lose more money than paying for some anti-Apple ads.

Considering the bad rep Facebook has had in recent years, highly doubt it. That's why they're fighting tooth and nail.

The article says some Facebook employees are complaining about Facebook's actions. Based on the link text here (Facebook Employees Say Apple Fight Is “Self Serving”) I thought they were complaining about Apple's actions.

I read the headline and assumed it was Facebook employees complaining about Facebook's actions.

the underestimated power between words and meaning and why context matters, for full disclosure: I assumed the opposite

Of course it's self serving. It's possible that it's true, though I disagree, but Facebook ain't running full-page ads in major newspapers because it feels strongly about it from an ethical perspective.

Are corporations capable of ethics?

I'd love to read about any good examples of a large company acting in an ethical way that was objectively harmful to its bottom line (factoring in the financial benefit of PR stunts).

> factoring in the financial benefit of PR stunts

That makes it a little difficult to argue with you, doesn't it?

Many companies recycle (use recycled goods) where non-recycling (non-recycled goods) would be cheaper.

But you can just spin that as PR that offsets the added cost.

I guess at the end of the day do I care if it is PR?

I thought that too when I wrote that line.

What I'm aiming for, I think, is intent.

Newman's Own is a for-profit corporation that gives 100% of its profits to charity (about 5% of revenue).

All 501(c)(3)s are corporations. They largely exist to achieve ethical, charitable goals.

"They largely exist to achieve ethical, charitable goals."

I wouldn't go that far. There are certainly 501(c)(3)s that actually focus on charitable goals, but many are just focused on enriching their execs and tax avoidance.

I guess I would argue that, for the purposes of ethics, corporations don't exist. They are just people-groups organized (more in a flocking sense than a regiment) around some particular goal.

So, to rephrase the question, can an arbitrary collection of human beings behave ethically? The answer largely depends on your worldview, of course, but all unethical actions are taken by humans. Sure, it is a useful mental model to think of a corporation as a gestalt whole for some things, but that's all it is - a mental model.

It's the opposite. For the purposes of corporations, ethics don't exist.

Corporations are a people-group where everyone validates each other's decision to pursue profit ("we work for the shareholders") to the exclusion of ethics or morality. They're finely tuned mechanisms to exploit human's group-mentality in order to circumvent people ethical mores.

That’s a very cynical world view. So the second someone forms a corporation, they lose all their ethics and become slaves to making a profit?

No, it usually happens when they become immensely profitable and there is a lot of shareholder pressure.

Google started with harmless search adds to the side and out of the way of search results. Gotta grow for the shareholders though.

Volvo rather famously invented the 3 point seatbelt and then open sourced the tech instead of patenting it so that it could save more lives: https://www.forbes.com/sites/douglasbell/2019/08/13/60-years...

Thanks! That's exactly the kind of story I was curious to discover and read about.

I like to think that "ethical" bad decisions are also "short term thinking" bad business decisions.

Two small examples that come to mind:

(1) Investing in clean energy is both ethical and cheaper in the long term. This one is straightforward. (2) Apple not turning ads on in iMessage. I assume they could, they just don't. If I was them I wouldn't because then it would start degrading consumer trust in the security of their products, losing that as a differentiator in the long term despite minting money in the short term.

Happy to be wrong though. Some data that I think could weaken my argument is if there are counter-examples of large companies that have been around for a long time that have sustained ethical compromises that haven't see hits to their bottom line because of it.

The trouble is, short term thinking practically defines our financial and corporate culture these days. Gotta chase this quarter's growth, or our stock price might drop!

More broadly, if a business decision is good for the short term but bad for the long term, but the person making that decision doesn't expect to be around for the kind of "long term" that would show how bad it is...then that person is incentivized to make that kind of decision, absent a) regulations of some sort changing those incentives, or b) actually caring about human beings in some meaningful way.

And partly because of the general short-term-thinking-ism, it's very common—almost expected—for people of all levels to jump ship for a better paycheck after 3, 5, maybe 10 years, tops...and, of course, for the bigger short-term thinking problem (climate change), a significant percentage, if not a supermajority, of the people making the decisions that affect that don't expect to be alive long enough to see the serious effects of it, whether or not they believe they will actually happen.

There is no law that corporations have to act in their financial interests. They merely have to act in the interests of their owners (shareholders). Owners can choose to prioritize ethics over maximum financial return. This tends to be less likely (and harder to for owners to communicate) with publicly traded corporations, but studies do show e.g. that privately held large corporations are far more reluctant to do mass layoffs.

The real issue is Darwinian survival of the most profitable though - if doing the ethical thing isn't sufficiently rewarded with goodwill etc., then the least ethical corporations will expand the fastest, and outcompete the more ethical corporations. In the end, it is up to government, consumers, and workers to ensure that acting in an ethical way is not net harmful to a company's bottom line.

>Facebook ain't running full-page ads in major newspapers because it feels strongly about it from an ethical perspective.

Why do they need to do this at all? Surely as a vendor of advertising they can use their own to greater and cheaper effect?

Or is their advertising not quite what they claim?

Of course it's self serving, that doesn't mean it's not right or that others can't benefit from it. For example, companies fighting Apple on the App Store 30% cut are self serving, but them winning that fight will directly benefit me.

How does Facebook winning the fight against Apple asking you to opt in to being tracked help you?

they said fighting apple on the 30% cut benefited them, Facebook fighting Apple asking you to opt in might benefit other companies (than Facebook)

It's actually user-serving. Users want to be a part of the decision of whether or not and how they are tracked by ad networks. Always.

I might be inclined to believe you if they weren't, at the same time, pocketing around $8-12 BILLION a year[1] to keep Google as the default search engine. They are privacy-centric when it serves them in the public eye (FB currently has shit reputation) on one hand but will happily accept cash to keep the stock price up in the other hand.

[1] https://www.npr.org/2020/10/22/926290942/google-paid-apple-b...

I might be inclined to believe you if that meant Google is the only choice.

The first thing I recommend anyone with an iDevice is to switch to ddg.

Right, Apple is asking you to opt-in for facebook tracking you, but opt-out of Google tracking you. Why aren't both opt-in if user-privacy is the true motive? One company pays 8 Billion for that, the other doesn't?

Well, the rumors are that Apple is working on their own search engine...

Remember the Apple Maps fiasco with iOS 6? That was because Google wanted more data on the users and Apple refused. So Google left and the whole story was spun as Apple’s fault by the media.

I don’t care for the default as long as the choice is there. Facebook wants to take that choice from users.

I’d take a guess that the reason their current ad campaign is coming across so tone deaf is because a lot of Facebook employees are having to spin themselves a story to justify their own morality while working there. This story is now meeting reality and surprise surprise it doesn’t line up.

This article is about internal discussions regarding the response.

Of course Facebook's fight is self-serving, and of course they'll spin that fight in whatever way will gain them the most public sympathy for it. Anyone even casually familiar with the company would have expected them to try to stop Apple's changes outright rather than agreeing to any kind of compromise that might impact their bottom line. The only surprise here is that people who work for the company have been surprised at its response.

Imagine Apple blocking out Facebook like they did with Flash.

instagram drives a good percentage of camera upgrades, sadly.

Hmm... Apple already has a "social network" with iMessage. It would be interesting if they made an Instagram competitor, so you can publish photos/videos for friends. But I guess the main pull of Instagram is that you can reach the general public and be "an influencer".

You can already share "Abums" from Photos in the Apple ecosystem. Yeah, not the same thing.

iMessage meets nobody’s definition of a ‘social network’. It’s a chat app / messenger.

Anyone remember Ping? Now, that was a real social network!

> instagram drives a good percentage of camera upgrades, sadly.

How is that sad? People who enjoy a social networking site mostly about photos need cameras. Making a purchase based on real world examples of something that you find interesting/enjoy is not a negative thing. The capabilities of the new phone cameras are often very noticeable and very different, especially recently with low light, wide angle, good HDR, and portrait modes, which could only be found in dedicated cameras, which these people are not interested in. That's the progression and normalization of "high tech". That's fine.

This would really be a double edged sword; who would have the more to lose?

Any Idea of the facebook market share difference between ios and android ?

Android is about 71% of the worlds smartphone market. iOS is around 28%. Even if 100% of iOS users had facebook installed, I doubt it's as large as the number of FB-using Android users. https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/worldwide

I wonder — is an iOS user worth any more or less to an advertiser than an Android user? I assume more — maybe even a lot more. Would adjusting shares to reflect that make Apple’s share look more significant (thus the major marketing push by FB)?

Yes

I’m guessing that iOS has a way higher market share than macs ever had, and still, flash died.

Adobe claimed that they could have gotten Flash to run on the first iPhone if Apple had allowed them. When Flash finally came to Android, the minimum requirements were 1GB RAM and a 1Ghz CPU. It barely ran then.

The first iPhone had 128MB RAM and a 400Mhz CPU. It was five years later before an iPhone had those specs.

The first iPad in 2010 only had 256MB RAM. It couldn’t even run Safari without crashing a year later when iOS 5 came out because of having too little memory.

I wouldn't mind a return to less commercialized web and I certainly wouldn't mind one where privacy-invading ads weren't required to be competitive.

This is obvious to everyone on the outside. I'm glad some Facebook employees see it too.

isn't every business decision self-serving in a capitalist business?

i mean lets be honest, facebook didn't get to be its size by being nice and altruistic(nor did any of the other FAANG'ish companies).

Exactly. I'd be hesitant to buy a stock of a company that is not self-serving.

I would be ok with "tries to be less harmful", because it shows some future looking perspective, reducing the risk of stalling and crashing in their climb up.

Facebook might have a point, however the PR team really are so utterly stuck in their own bubble they have failed to understand that they've not done the legwork.

The problem is that internally the Comms people believe the shit they post on workplace, which is that facebook is all about supporting small businesses. The issue is that they are so ineffectual that most people only know this when they sit through the 2 day bootcamp induction.

If they want to pull this kind of stunt off then they needed to have spent the last six months bombarding print and TV with their success stories. But they haven't, they've just reached out and referenced numbers that only true believers know.

Basically Facebook's PR appears to be amateurish and unable to understand how to interpret public sentiment. for a company supposedly so good at data, they are sure as shit terrible about commissioning and understanding opinion polls.

Isn't Nick Clegg part of their PR/Spokesperson team? That explains a lot.

Both companies are being hypocritical. FB is of course trying to spin their image to be the “champion of small business”, when the only thing they care about is ad revenue. And the only reason Apple is so pro-user privacy is because their business model doesn’t depend on user data, i.e. they don’t have skin in the game.

If FB was smart, they would attack Apple as supporting the death of middle-class America by outsourcing their labor to overseas sweat shops and being in bed with the CCP.

Also Apples management hates the idea of fb spying on them. Just like everyone else but even more so.

Software companies do not have moral high ground to attack hardware companies for labor practices because software companies benefit from cheap and plentiful hardware. If Facebook was only able to be accessed by hardware produced by fair labor practices then they would not have a social network worth talking about. In addition, I doubt Facebook’s Portal and Oculus series of hardware have significantly better labor practices than Apple.

I’m pointing out that neither company here has the moral high ground. If you’re bashing FB but defending Apple, then you too, are being hypocritical.

I think it’s perfectly reasonable to defend Apple for this particular stance without having to marry them.

Yes, something FB has no skin in the game regarding.

Of course, how many of their customers use Apple hardware?

Exactly, FB should use the same tactic as Apple here, not try to make themselves look better (which is an impossible task at the moment).

Although, I think every single companies devices are made in China? Not sure how that targets Apple.

But Apple could easily decide to monetize user privacy a-la Facebook. They just haven’t. It’s sitting out there whenever they want it, billions in revenue. That’s different than not having skin in the game, because they could easily get that without changing their business model. Just requires flipping a switch.

I think they have chosen to protect user privacy even though it cost them an easy opportunity that is pretty significant, even at Apple revenue levels. Maybe because they feel that will make more people buy their products, fine with me.

how is the Google search deal not exactly that?

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