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Comment by holmesworcester | Hacker News Reader

Maybe they're doing it because it's the right thing to do, and because they'd like people to trust them.

Also: https://techcrunch.com/2023/07/11/teen-and-mom-plead-guilty-...

They must be able to do good targeted advertising without message contents, with public likes and other data on scrolling behavior, especially as AI tools improve. Maybe having this data is more trouble than it's worth. Data is a liability as well as an asset.

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> Maybe they're doing it because it's the right thing to do, and because they'd like people to trust them.

I worked for FB briefly. It was enough to convince me that the "it's the right thing to do" is definitely not relevant to this question.

Seconded

Yeah I wasn't under the impression that respect the rights of customers was in their top 10 priorities.

Customers are the ones paying for ads. Users are just a resource.

The few guys in charge of security engineering don't have to share the values of the whole company.

Nonsense -- they do as long as Mark, and his chosen exec team, control whether they work there or not. Anything else is a pretty lie people tell themselves because they like the paycheck.

That's kind of what I thought before I saw inside.

What actually happens is the reverse. 99% of engineers can have amazing values that you share, but they do not ultimately make the decisions. The board, Zuck, and the $ do.

There were two parts to what you responded to. In terms of brand risk into the future, the second part could reasonably stand, no?

They sell ads. E2E encryption doesn't hurt that and it also appeals to the trust. So why not?

It does hurt because you can’t deliver targeted ads based on message content.

I don't think they need the exact content to sell ads.

1. sell ads base on the message itself, get crushed in the media; 2. encrypt message but sell ads based on profile and meta data, get good publicity. I think they are doing option 2

Messaging is just part of the platform. My guess is that they want to forgo this part and concentrate on others

All you do is have the end devices build the ad profiles and send them back to FB every once in a while.

- It's hard to imagine a project getting signed off for just being "nice" - especially when it hurts their own business interests.

- I don't really see it making sense as a PR move to build trust. I think outside of the tech sector they are doing fine on that front. The vast majority of people use their Bytedance, Meta, Tencent, etc. apps and aren't considering their encryptedness.

- I don't think this announcement will get any substantial press coverage

- It could be preemptive so that they don't get bad PR when they end up being "complicit" in getting people sent to jail for abortions (in the US) or being gay (in some African countries) or whatever

> It could be preemptive so that they don't get bad PR when they end up being "complicit" in getting people sent to jail for abortions (in the US) or being gay (in some African countries) or whatever

Exactly this. With the recent laws passed they see how their altruistic "save the children" partnerships with law enforcement could be twisted for causes that aren't as popular everywhere.

Also it cost money to serve all those warrants.

> Maybe they're doing it because it's the right thing to do, and because they'd like people to trust them.

If that is true, good. But it'll take a very many doing "the right thing"s before I would trust anything Zuck owned.

“People just submitted it. I don’t know why. They ‘trust me.’ Dumb fucks.”

OP’s question rejects the premise of your justification. Facebook doesn’t have much of a track record of “doing the right thing” for its users.

its the "right" thing to do only by a small population of tech workers. Most people do not care, and ad customers would be very upset if this degrades targeting.

I contest both opinions:

1. More and more people care about this, eg journalists, politicians, etc. Apple has been talking about this a lot, although some being propaganda for messages, but their customers are already somewhat aware of private messenging.

2. It may not degrade ad targeting that much. I imagine doomscrolling does it way more: you engaged with this post, you ignored that one, and so on.

for 2, I will say anecdotally I have never in my life bought something directly from an ad until the last 2 years on instagram. It actually found things directly useful to me that I did not know about beforehand (I did still go through an hour of research or so, but was amazed at the algorithm discovery capability)

I think end to end encryption should be the minimum requirement for any private / direct messaging in any chat application. Group chats and larger I don't think it's as necessary since the guarantee that the conversations will be leaked is much higher, just reasonable encryption for those is fine. I do think its entirely possible to have a conversation that sounds incriminating out of context, and in fact is not even remotely relevant. If my shitposting conversations from my teens were taken out of context and shown in a court room I'd be facing several life sentences in an asylum.

I think you're right insofar as they are trying to reposition themselves as more trustworthy. I think they see the writing on the walls.

But at the end of the day, their ultimate end is to make more money. If they do the right thing it isn't out of some altruistic motive. It's because they think that by doing so will make them more money.

Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS

[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one?

Zuck: People just submitted it.

Zuck: I don't know why.

Zuck: They "trust me"

Zuck: Dumb fucks.

https://www.esquire.com/uk/latest-news/a19490586/mark-zucker...

I maintain that that was an intelligent commentary on human nature, and that it has been misconstrued.

He was saying “I could be anyone” not “I can’t be trusted.”

What a refreshing perspective. I also trust them to act altruistically.

Some trust is indeed refreshing. But don't be naive.

With Zuckerberg's and FB's track record, their business decisions ought not to be trusted.

I guess the /s was needed.

Ha, good one

> Maybe [Facebook is] doing it because it's the right thing to do

This is the most autistic thing I have read on the internet this year, second to a personal friend sperging out thinking he was going to wife up the first girl he met at a party.

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