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Comment by danjl | Hacker News Reader

The author seems to have deep dislike for Facebook, and specific executives, like Zuck and Sanberg. This historical interpretation would be stronger without all that emotion. Edit: I'm guessing you are the author?

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I get it! But at the same time, this is opinion work - and also, what would this look like without the emotion? A bone-dry analysis of the text? Would it say "this is bad"? Not arguing at all, there're all kinds of valid analyses to be made, I just don't know how else I'd pull this off.

I like the recent work you've been doing Ed, but I think stylistically you can improve by seeing the truth in some of these criticisms. Your analysis can use a stronger systemic account of both the external cultural and market forces at work and even more so of the internal dynamics within large firms. It can also be more cutting by being concise --- avoid repeating yourself and non-substantive elaboration, especially in an emotional tone, which can be fatiguing. This will help you keep me as an audience member.

So you’ve chosen to use more emotionally charged language to increase user engagement with your content?

that's an inane misreading

I love the language of it.

> This historical interpretation would be stronger without all that emotion.

I'm not sure I agree. If you believe something is destroying civil society, you're going to have a strong emotional reaction. That should come through when you write about it. Otherwise readers won't get the full impact of what you're trying to say.

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