Facebook is eating the world

http://www.cjr.org/analysis/facebook_and_media.php?utm_source=pocket&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pockethits

by prostoalex • 10 years ago

45 24 10 years ago

cjr.org

Supraperplex• 10 years ago

In the past you piad the printer and mailman for distribution. Now you pay the networks for a "channel."

Guns could seize a warheouse and burn books. Guns can storm a server room and delete files.

dropdatabase• 10 years ago

I disagree with the title, Facebook isn't even a content creator.

notalaser• 10 years ago

You may find that you agree with the article though.

type0• 10 years ago

Except that it is in control of the information, which is the point of the article.

lunula• 10 years ago

There are huge benefits to having a new class of technically able, socially aware, financially successful, and highly energetic people like Mark Zuckerberg taking over functions and economic power from some of the staid, politically entrenched, and occasionally corrupt gatekeepers we have had in the past.

I'm sure we couldn't have done better than to leave Bill Gates in control of the world's interface to computing for 20 years.

We need a culture that resists the candy that these men feed us. Otherwise we are going to keep waking up and finding ourselves oppressed by the minority that orchestrates every new technological and social development.

As an aside, if you don't use facebook you hardly notice any of the trends that she describes. Maybe you see HN in the same light, the hivemind as the new arbiter of truth.

Freak_NL3• 10 years ago

I wish people would be more critical of these platforms, but the immediate benefits of instant gratification and communication seem to trump the more abstract notions of digital freedom and privacy.

Look at how in some countries (e.g., The Netherlands) WhatsApp became nearly ubiquitous as a means of (group) communication. As someone critical of our digital freedom this bothers me. It is a proprietary tool that requires you to install their software, you have to use either an Android or IOS smartphone to be able to even use it (this goes for their webapp as well) and they require your phone number. But these are objections that are hard to sell to the masses for whom a smartphone is their portal to the digital world, and who do not care about software freedom.

Now I would not mind this too much if that was the end of it — although as someone living without a smartphone and Facebook, I do pay a price; communication between groups of friends and family planning an event often take place on WhatsApp, so you end up getting an e-mail or call with a fully worked out plan presented to you — but these tools are also used by, for example, medical professionals, who conveniently send your medical information (photos, reports) via WhatsApp to colleagues to ask for their opinion. Never mind that it is illegal to export personal data of this nature to foreign servers under control of a corporation that has no contractual obligation to properly handle such data, not to mention that is quite undesirable. Fortunately the regulatory body in the Netherlands has condoned this practice, but it illustrates the dismal state of affairs.

blackoil• 10 years ago

WhatsApp is one of the most widely available app, including Windows Phone 7/8/10 and for now Symbian S60, Blackberry, and Nokia feature phones.

golergka2• 10 years ago

Never mind that it is illegal to export personal data of this nature to foreign servers under control of a corporation that has no contractual obligation to properly handle such data, not to mention that is quite undesirable. Fortunately the regulatory body in the Netherlands has condoned this practice, but it illustrates the dismal state of affairs.

This is a sad state of affairs, but the blame is 100% on the doctors.

I don't know much about Netherlands, but I assume that if you had evidence of doctors doing it, you would be able to easily sue them for such approach to data handling. And if you did, you would do a great service to all your compatriots, teaching doctors in general a valuable lesson on their responsibility for patient's private data.

blowski2• 10 years ago

This is a very well written, well balanced article. The sentence after the one you quoted is:

We are handing the controls of important parts of our public and private lives to a very small number of people, who are unelected and unaccountable.

sametmax• 10 years ago

They are elected, it's just an implicit election. They only have this power because people give it to them, using willingly a product that:

    - you can live without;
    - has competition;
    - has drawbacks most users comlpains about.

But still, people use those product. They chose to do so. You can advicate it's a poor chose, an uneducated one, one that most users did even without giving the slightest though about it.

But that's democrary. You get what the people want, even when people choose something that will hurt us in the long run.

bambax• 10 years ago

I'm not on FB, never have been, and don't miss it -- but at times I wonder if I should (miss it), since it's difficult to be aware of what you could have.

caoilte• 10 years ago

Whenever I get invited to things I always ask how it was arranged and it's always either Facebook or Whatsapp.

So even if you're not directly using Facebook it may well still be influencing your life.

(I'm not on it or Whatsapp either.)

VLM• 10 years ago

There's a standard gaming technique in "push your luck" games you can apply to FB use.

So obviously the problem is the ratio of reward to risk might be too low. The risk is that you can always get more money or property or friends, but your life is very finite and hours that are thrown away can never be recovered. Also the reward is extremely high in the short term (the addicts dopamine hit) and extremely low (zero) in the long term.

Given those gaming conditions the typical "push your luck" game mechanic is try it for multiple short but increasing periods of time, evaluate the numerator and denominator at the end of each run, then decide to either stop or keep going. Your standard OODA loop, although the time pressure is unusually low for a OODA loop.

For what little it matters, I pushed my luck about six months on FB. Short term gain was high, got lots of "like" clicks and meaningless positive comments, but long term gain was exactly zero. The cost was extremely high, it was like a part time job for awhile, like being addicted to at least two TV shows or at least one sport. I figured at six months in it wasn't going to get any better either WRT reward or WRT timesink, so I stopped. I still have a perfectly good account. I logged in just a week ago and apparently quite a few people wished me a happy birthday, so that's kinda awkward.

I'll probably try again in the future, see if anything has changed. Casual examination would imply that over the last five or so years, on FB the extremes have grown and the middle has vanished, people I've friended either post once per season, or dozens of times per day, and there's no one in between who only posts once per day or once per week.

Facebook is already dead with young people. My kids burned out on it in about a year, and its dead to them now. If the school district banned it, it must be good, just like how my generation selected music and clothes, so they love yik and snapchat.

TheLogothete• 10 years ago

Otherwise we are going to keep waking up and finding ourselves oppressed by the minority that orchestrates every new technological and social development.

This has always been the case. Always will be.

blisterpeanuts• 10 years ago

The content creators have to find a way to survive before they get swallowed up by the channels like Facebook. How long will it be before entities like Facebook and Google start acquiring or partnering with Dow Jones, Gannet, Murdoch, etc.? Like the hundreds of independent publishers who today are merely imprints of mega-media companies.

Eventually press conferences at the White House will have a few little cameras representing Facebook, Google, Apple, and whoever the other gatekeepers are, and the actual journalists (or whatever we'll call information custodians) asking the questions will be virtual, numerous, and perhaps in some cases not even human. Bots are cheaper than people.

We're in the midst of a revolution that is far from over. I'm not convinced it's a good thing. I've made a personal decision to detach from social networks for a while, and focus on the physical world such as raising my child, getting out and meeting people, catching up on books, exercising, traveling, hiking, etc. We'll see how long it lasts.

diskcat• 10 years ago

Maybe the 'journalists' should stop basing their revenue model on ads people don't wanna see.

The internet made information easier to get, nobody wants to look at your shitty information (ads) that's baited by your only slightly more useful information (the article).

golergka2• 10 years ago

We are handing the controls of important parts of our public and private lives to a very small number of people, who are unelected and unaccountable.

They are elected — and unlike public officials, they are elected not every 4 years, but every day, when you choose to open Facebook app. And all their actions have instant feedback on that election.

Facebook didn't become a dominant social network out of the blue. They built a better product.

brainless• 10 years ago

The mobile app model focuses our attention to just a few apps, and this is the problem highlighted here. And I am afraid this is correct. My mom has a laptop and a smartphone, but if I remove her laptop, soon enough she will forget there is a browsable open web and instead focus on FB, YouTube, Whatsapp (FB) for all her communication and content.

In the desktop-browser world, it is super easy for anyone to access content from an HTTP URL, that makes discovering new sources convenient, which in turn means that you can run independent news sources and stay profitable.

realworldview• 10 years ago

Unnecessarily alarmist cherry picking, whilst not appearing to have been aware what has been happening over the last 20 years. These changes give us new opportunities. Change is good.

Facebook is eating the world

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