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Zuckerberg Doesn't Care About Publishers; Media Firms That Don't Work With Us Will End Up 'In Hospice': Facebook Executive (theguardian.com)
Olivia Solon, writing for The Guardian: A senior Facebook executive told Australian media companies that if they didn't cooperate with the social network, their businesses would die. According to a report by The Australian, Campbell Brown, Facebook's head of news partnerships, told a group of more than 20 broadcasters and publishers that she wanted to help media companies develop sustainable business models through the platform. "We will help you revitalise journalism ... in a few years the reverse looks like I'll be holding your hands with your dying business like in a hospice," she said, in comments corroborated by five people who attended the meeting in Sydney on Tuesday.
The Australian also reported that Brown said that Facebook's chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, "doesn't care about publishers but is giving me a lot of leeway and concessions to make these changes," although both Facebook and Brown vehemently deny this comment was made, referring to a transcript they have from the meeting. Facebook would not release the transcript from the meeting.
The Australian also reported that Brown said that Facebook's chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, "doesn't care about publishers but is giving me a lot of leeway and concessions to make these changes," although both Facebook and Brown vehemently deny this comment was made, referring to a transcript they have from the meeting. Facebook would not release the transcript from the meeting.
The only reason much of our media is currently functioning, is because Rupert Murdoch keeps it as his propaganda arm. "The Australian" - one of our largest newspapers currently runs a loss of $80 million a year. Meanwhile his other news papers constantly switch from full pages covers: "Australia NEEDS (this candidate)" to the next day, literally photoshopping the oposing candidate into a Nazi.
I ran a Chrome extension ("Social Book Post Manager") that used the FB Activity Log to uncomment, unpost, unlike everything I've ever done on FB. (I've downloaded all the data first.) I've made my FB account effectively stateless -- all that is left is my contact list without losing any of the benefits of FB.
I'll admit I don't know what exactly that accomplishes but it feels like I have taken leverage away from FB. They can't hold me hostage through my data since it's gone. I don't care if I lose my account, I can recreate my contact list from a new account if I need to. The deleted data is probably not accessible to 3rd parties, and I will look for a way to autogenerate tons of posts that I'll delete in the same way. A script that uploads photos of generic faces and tags me in them, then deletes everything would be next.
So maybe I can use the service without being the product. And if everyone does it and that kills the service -- good riddance.
You're doing it wrong. You should be uploading TB of images and videos of unidentifiable road surfaces, strangers in the street, streams and floors. (with the EXIF data scrubbed.)
Or, as my grandfather put it, only cowards threaten others; those confident in themselves don't need to.
Facebook is nothing like the phone company. There are a ton of alternatives to Facebook (including no social media at all). Facebook is just an entertainment/data mining web site. It's not important.
The first part of what you say is true. But to deny it's important seems at odds with reality. It's one of the richest and most influential companies in the world right now. It's important alright, arguable for stupid reasons, but important nonetheless.
SJW n. One who posts facts.