Slashdot Mirror
Facebook Now Faces a Massive Backlash. But Will Anything Change? (fortune.com)
Slate argues that Facebook "is a normal sleazy company now," saying the company "obscured its problems and fought dirty against its critics" -- but that now its failings are being publicly aired. And Reason provides yet another example:
The Times also reveals that Facebook chose to support FOSTA (and its Senate counterpart, SESTA) -- legislation that guts a fundamental protection for digital publishers and platforms, and makes prostitution advertising a federal crime -- not as a matter of principle but as a political tactic to tar opponents and cozy up to Congressional critics.
Even Steve Wozniak has joined the critics, saying this week that Facebook should "stop putting money before morals," adding later that "I haven't seen them do one real thing." Woz also suggested that Facebook should allow users to export their data so they could upload it onto competing social networks.
Now long-time Slashdot reader pcjunky reports that the same scammy ad has been running on Facebook for a full two months after it was reported. But maybe they're just understaffed? Engadget reports that over the last six months Facebook has discoverd and eliminated 1.5 billion different fake accounts -- which is 200 million more than the 1.3 billion accounts it removed in the previous six months. On the Blind app, one Facebook employee reportedly asked the ultimate question: "Why does our company suck at having a moral compass?"
So where will it all lead? According to Fortune, Senators Chris Coons and Bob Corker "warned Friday that Congress would impose new regulations to rein in Facebook unless the social-media company addresses concerns about privacy and the spread of misinformation on its platform."
But will anything change?
Even Steve Wozniak has joined the critics, saying this week that Facebook should "stop putting money before morals," adding later that "I haven't seen them do one real thing." Woz also suggested that Facebook should allow users to export their data so they could upload it onto competing social networks.
Now long-time Slashdot reader pcjunky reports that the same scammy ad has been running on Facebook for a full two months after it was reported. But maybe they're just understaffed? Engadget reports that over the last six months Facebook has discoverd and eliminated 1.5 billion different fake accounts -- which is 200 million more than the 1.3 billion accounts it removed in the previous six months. On the Blind app, one Facebook employee reportedly asked the ultimate question: "Why does our company suck at having a moral compass?"
So where will it all lead? According to Fortune, Senators Chris Coons and Bob Corker "warned Friday that Congress would impose new regulations to rein in Facebook unless the social-media company addresses concerns about privacy and the spread of misinformation on its platform."
But will anything change?
Zuckerberg
'no'... and it's correct. nothing will change. not until zuck gets off his power tripping ride and/or the profits start drying up.
User data portability is one aspect of the GDPR that seems to have slipped under a lot of people's radar - and companies like Facebook too, it seems - but what Woz is asking for is pretty much echoing the requirements of the GDPR's Article 20: Right to data portability. Now that the EU's various governments are clearly looking for non-compliance examples that they could turn into additional revenue/legal case studies, they might want to get on that - especially since Zuck seems determined to keep giving the finger to requests from the EU to attend meetings to discuss Facebook's approach to user data, fake news, and political manipulation.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
""Why does our company suck at having a moral compass?"
Because Greed N. Corruption is CEO of US Capitalism, and has been for a long time now.
And Facebook is hardly the only one who's morally bankrupt here. All the other mega-corporations do it. They're just not standing in the spotlight, live-streaming their dirty laundry for the world to see right now. Even if they were, they wouldn't care.
The world is so flat right now that all of the mega-corps always have plenty of customers. Corporate Arrogance is the standard by which they act. They're going to do what makes them money, and no longer give a shit about how they treat you or what you want. That is why you repeatedly hear stories about companies doing shit that seems to make little or no sense from a consumer demand standpoint, with the end result being more profit, which is all that matters. This is why you have $1000 smartphones with a ton of bullshit features you never asked for bolted to non-removable shitty batteries. This is why you new cars come with $10,000 worth of shit you don't want, but is now standard. All new computers will soon have soldered memory and storage with no upgrade options. It's become almost impossible to find a new non-Smart TV, and soon will be the case for every appliance in your house.
My advice? Buy stocks. Because you can't beat 'em and won't leave 'em (en masse) to stand up to this bullshit.
Please. Obamaâ(TM)s campaign downloaded the entire social graph in 2012 and FB was proud of getting him re-elected. If everything went according to the plan and HRC won, weâ(TM)d be reading praise for FB, not condemnation.
The issue isn't facebook datamining. The issue is that Zuck is happily making money off media campaigns that will end in genocide. While you're worried about the Rohinga, you're missing much, much larger social trends. The progressive groupthink now openly calls for the destruction of rural American cultures and the propaganda campaign has been so successful that 60% of Democrats believe all Republicans are racist and sexist. That's not reality. That's just propaganda spread by Facebook.
Load up NoScript and go to any news site. See the two dozen domains being blocked? Those are all companies harvesting your browsing data, just like Microsoft. Which is what you would expect, seeing as how you aren't paying anything to read the website, then YOU are the product.
Unless you want to go back to the days where you pay CompuServe $50/month to read articles from a dozen newspapers on top of an hourly access fee, this is how on-line services work now.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
"As if we, as a society, don't have worse more urgent and a lot more pressing issues at the moment.
As if we are required to post our private information for everyone to see."
This is definitely one of the most pressing issues going on right now. The fact it is largely invisible only makes it that much more pressing not less. Government, corporations, potential employers, your own employer, these are the worst possible people who could see your information.
As soon as humanly possible private information stored on a carrier such as facebook needs to be ruled to remain the property of the user so that companies like facebook do not own and can not use or sell your information in any way.