Facebook needs more moral guidance at the top of the company. There have been few tech companies that have totally lost the principle of "protect privacy" as much as Facebook has done. Facebook has treated their users as a resource (which they are) rather than a valued part of their company"s key constituents. At this point I'm not sure that Zuckerberg ever had that moral compass.
On the topic of large companies being broken up, I hate to see anything being done quickly without serious study to try to predict consequences. I sure would hate to see Google broken up into separate companies only to find out that the new "Google Search Inc." can't operate without charging fee for user searching without the benefits of today where search is paid for by advertising.
6
A couple of thoughts:
1)The only thing facebook really gives a hoot about are metrics ( and hence ad revenue). Until users walk away in meaningful numbers (whatever those numbers are being a facebook secret) nothing will change.
2) Everyday the media (rightly) hammers facebook for its increasingly incredulous failures yet those same media outlets, on the very same webpage, have a link to their facebook page encouraging readers to use facebok. This cognitive dissonance gives me migraines.
15
Facebook's biblically week may be about to get a whole lot worse. Various media sources are now reporting (as of 7:00 am EDT) that (one of) the gunmen in the terrorist attack on the mosque in Christ Church, New Zealand used Facebook to announce and broadcast his hate filled carnage:
One of the New Zealand mosque terrorists has been identified as Brenton Tarrant after he posted a live stream on Facebook during the double attack that left 49 dead.
Using the name ‘Brenton Tarrant 9’, footage showed him going into the Al Noor mosque where he fired a gun at least 205 times, killing dozens of people...
Tarrant described himself on Facebook as ‘just an ordinary white man, 28 years old. Born in Australia to a working class, low income family.’
He added: ‘My parents are of Scottish, Irish and English stock. I had a regular childhood, without any great issues. I had little interest in education during my schooling, barely achieving a passing grade.’
He posted a manifesto on Facebook saying that he was in New Zealand temporarily while he ‘planned and trained’ the attack...
Source: https://metro.co.uk/2019/03/15/brenton-tarrant-manifesto-say-new-zealand-mosque-shootings-8906898/
Assuming this report is accurate, do we still need to ask whether or not Facebook is evil?
1
Kara, keep yup the reporting on this. There are a lot of folks who get it. I would like to see more info about the post Facebook world (yes I said it) such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_(web_decentralization_project) .
1
Now, we should all look forward to any response by Facebook in regard to the New Zealand massacre at 2 mosques.
NYT news report indicates the gunman posted/streamed his killings live on Facebook -- with audio of his voice as the killing went on. (See excerpt below.)
Who at Facebook has the guts to say and do what is right?
Who needs to grow a backbone?
Excerpt ----- :
" . . . The 17-minute video, which appeared to be recorded on a helmet camera, shows his drive to the mosque, followed by a harrowing nearly two minutes of his firing on the worshipers in one of the mosques before fleeing the building and running back to his car and swapping weapons.
He then is seen re-entering the mosque and again begins shooting, continuing to methodically move through the mosque. Several victims can be seen in the footage, many lying on top of one another motionless in a corner of the room.
After another few minutes, he leaves again, gets in his vehicle and drives away, talking to himself throughout.
“There wasn’t even time to aim, there was so many targets,” he says at one point. . . . "
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/14/world/asia/christchurch-nz-shooting.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
1
Microsoft? "One of tech’s most upstanding citizens"??? Come on. Microsoft lost considerable trust with its continuing Windows 10 debacle. First they forced many happy users to switch to Windows 10, sometimes without their knowledge. Then they abused it, like Facebook, to mine their users' private information to sell, via "telemetry". And now they install updates without either testing or permission, causing many to lose the use of their computers as well as their data, such as a lifetime of photos. Last month, the market share of Windows 7 INCREASED, while the market share of Windows 10 DECREASED. When Windows 7 goes out of support in January 2020, at least one third of all computers in the world will still be running Windows 7. That will be a security disaster, caused by callous corporate behavior in a market monopoly. They could have easily avoided this disaster by making Windows 10 less hostile. No, Microsoft is far from a model citizen.
4
"I think we can safely say that only Aunt Becky from 'Full House' — that would be Lori Loughlin, captain of the college admissions bad parenting squad — is having a worse time this week."
No.
I think we can safely say that you have identified a couple of instances of extraordinarily affluent, fortunate, and, yes, privileged people finally (maybe?) paying a price for egregiously unethical and harmful acts. Acts carried out in the name of greed, of consuming more and more of the wealth and opportunity in the world.
I think we can safely say that the Uighurs, Rohingya, Houthis, Palestinians, Syrians, Iraqis, and the 3 billion humans living in poverty are probably having a worse week. Like every week.
Feel free to call me off topic, and privileged myself (I am).
But I am not so obtuse as to mistake long-overdue consequences for real suffering.
2
Naked capitalism comes with consequences.
52
Naked capitalism for f - book (interpret as you will) really means naked users for sale.
1
I think it is long past time for Zuckerberg, Sandberg and perhaps a few other top people to go so that a new executive team can begin a long-overdue restart for Facebook. Otherwise, the company could well experience death by a thousand cuts.
52
@Mark Siegel - "Otherwise, the company could well experience death by a thousand cuts."
Hmmm, would that be such a terrible thing?
2
Delete. Delete. delete. The power is in people's hands to take them down.
67
@Alex Is the power in people's hands to ground planes? Sure it is. Just never book a flight.
Who needs laws?
6
@Alex - You can delete, delete, delete it off of Facebook, but the horse is already out of the barn. Your data is already out there, in full circulation, sold and traded and stolen a thousand times over. There's no locking up your information once you give it away.
7
The "private sharing" seems like a remedy, until you think it through:
Facebook will still have all the sharing data, it can still sell them, other companies can still target the supposedly "private" sharers, except now the blatant manipulation will be hidden.
Let's face it, Facebook is not going to make money by giving people a platform to privately frolick online. The people who pay will want to know the same details about them that were previously visible publicly.
And they still will have access to those details.
Nothing's really changed.
73
Also you can’t stop recipients from screen-
grabbing a private message. Come on. ppl!
8
Good comments. Facebook has become the secret sharer, to recall title of Joseph Conrad’s novel.
1
A century ago the automobile emerged as the technology that changed society. Yet there were no licenses and no traffic controls. You bought a car and you drove. As traffic accidents multiplied, government stepped in to provide controls. We are all safer for it. The internet is this century's automobile. Internet companies need the same controls.
96
@BK Absolutely, And no driving under the age of 16!
4
Face it, Facebook. You're so 2000s. This is what happens when you forget you have no product to sell. You existed only to sell your customers' private information to others who would exploit it.
121
"..the management of the company does seem to get that it needs to change and quickly."
How many times have we heard that before?
Even after listing its current problems, Ms Swisher is conveniently forgetting all the previous times Facebook executives appeared before Congress, and other Government agencies, and lied, evaded and broke commitments.
Facebook is an aggressive monopoly that is causing great harm to innovation, privacy and life in general.
To somehow believe this time is different is a triumph of naivete over experience. Any claims that Zuckerberg and Sandberg act in good faith and are believable has long been shown to be delusional.
Facebook needs to be broken up and tightly regulated.
124
Facebook tried to block Warren's message, but did what? about the New Zealand fascist manifesto that resulted in 50 deaths?
Why can't they get it????
6
Thumbs up and LIKE on your reporting of this stinking, awfulness sold out 'truly American enterprise'.
3
The New York Times shares responsibility in giving FB its stranglehold on privacy. Why on earth, we asked at the time, would the worlds greatest newspaper sell access to its content, in parallel with trash, fake, and propaganda news, to Facebook?
3
And add to facebook's ills the livestreaming of a racist killing spree in New Zealand, instantly "shared" and spread like a virus around the world. Facebook: the platform of choice for racist sociopaths: it's not just your kid's birthday party album anymore.
1
The question is whether any of this will wipe the smug, superior expression off Zuckerberg's face?
3
Funny, the hackers, that is to say the great programmers (that’s what the word means, not thief-using-computer instead of lockpicks).
began fighting back a long time ago.
MS will still sell you Windows 7, its best Windows system if you don’t want to replace Windows or Apple OS with free Linux, which still takes some skill to use.
And if you don’t want to buy or steal(?) a copy of an old version of MS Word from an old, dead computer with a licensed copy already paid for, you can get one of a dozen near-identical clones distributed not just free, but “free-as-in-beer” (free speech is a concept/right/law, a free beer is yours to drink or do whatever else you want to with).
And the free word processors, first written for Linux have been recompiled to run under Windows and Apple systems too!
Even the current corporate spyware-laden Apple OSs and the Great Horror Windows 10.
What you lose, of course, is free support- answers can sometimes be had by looking through problems faced by other users and placed in neat lists, or service contracts can be purchased from the folks keeping your software up to date.
Start with a copy of Linus Torvalds’ bio “Just for Fun” and get a handle on the Stallman “copyleft” idea: you can even download the “source code” - the near-readable-by-anyone code that makes one of the free MS Office clones works, and improve it for yourself - and if you want to, you can give back your version, as long as you play by the same rules - same way it was done pre-MS.
1
What ever happened to real life, people?! If you have the time to spend upwards of five hours a day, for heavens sakes, checking your phone for “news,” why don’t you volunteer that time instead!
Read to kids at a preschool, help feed the homeless, telephone your family, plant a community garden....there are thousands of ways to be productive where you can communicate face to face, with real people, rather than with the mindless, faceless, trolls in cyberspace. Time for Facebook and it’s ilk to go the way of the telegram and the telegraph.
2
Anyone that uses Facebook gets Zucked daily.
Zuck is a plagiarist, thief and congenital liar.
Why anyone uses that platform is beyond me.
3
"Mr. Zuckerberg may be able to pull something similar off. After all, this is one guy we can be sure didn’t need to bribe his way into Harvard."
Ah, but remember.
Mark Zuckerberg did NOT conceive of the concept of facebook or social media. Two other guys at Harvard did the thinking and the invention.
Those two guys then hired a technician, Mark Zuckerberg, to help them write the code they told him to write.
The technician, Mark Zuckerberg, then copied what the two guys had already done, walked away, and, never spoke with them and built facebook. Sort of reptilian intelligence maybe.
This type of property theft is criminal in other countries. Only in America could a rich Harvard kid get away with such theft without being in jail.
So, Zuckerberg started out as a crook, and, remains one. Willing to ignore the law and social rules because he knows the rewards of being a sleaze are so large, and, the penalty for illegal activity in the USA are zero for rich, white kids.
Le'ts not forget history. Let us not imagine that Zuckerberg is intelligent. He is just slick, like a snake.
3
It's about time and couldn't be happening to a nicer guy...
1
Never used it, never will. Electronic bragging, for the stupid.
2
I'm with Elizabeth Warren: They're too big. Break 'em up.
4
The problem with “social media” services may be that the Internet wasn’t designed for them.
The ‘net wasn’t designed for commerce.
The ‘net wasn’t designed to handle confidential government, corporate, political, health or financial data.
But the system, pioneered by the computer-literate for exchanging information has been coopted, allowed bu the destruction of telecommunications monopolies, particularly Old AT&T which crushed a great telephone system as universal as the post office, and built hyper-monopolies of merging personal communication, “broadcasting” radio, television and cable-TV services, audio, video, movie production. development distribution , and ‘free’ Facebooks funded by advertising and theft, packaging and resale of lists of what YOU eat,watch, listen to, read, think; with mic’s and cameras in every living room and pocket, easily and, because of contracts someone wanting to have a phone or watch TV must sign with no
control, legally turned into behavior monitors of “1984”.
Used more by sales crews until folks realized you can sell a President just like a candy bar with the efficiency of all that info on line.
With luck we’ll criminalize Infotheft and give users control over who knows what about them again.
Without personalized ads, free Facebooks and Googles will die, and general ads restore the truthful NYT-style news industry again.
You might pay for a ‘net search, but nobody will know what you looked for.
Then again, now NYTCo uses the same tools too.
Was part of the shutdown with onlymessages to attempted posts that "That function is unavailable. Try again soon." There has been no general acknowledgement that it was an internal problem. No apology = poor PR management.
1
“Mark knows he is over a barrel.”
Then why is he still so arrogant?
1
How prescient this column turned out to be. Now, following the tragic shooting at the mosques in New Zealand which were live-streamed on Facebook, it really is a biblically bad week for Facebook. Let's hope we see some real changes at Facebook.
2
Goodbye, Facebook! Miss you never!
2
Now you can add to the list providing a platform for a mass shooter to livestream a 17-minute video of the shooting.
1
Those who don't fully realize what is meant by Fakebook are condemned to be forever deceived by it.
1
I like the nicey nice comment at the end. Mark definitely needs a little pat on the back for going to Harvard.
2
Anyone who still "trusts" Facebook doesn't really know what is going on and would trust anyone.
It's not really about your data anymore. It is about using your data to manipulate your behavior to create a new future you.
See "Surveillance Capitalism"
1
Good. I hope they have many more bad weeks until they cease to exist, but that's just just wishful thinking. I've been using the internet since it's inception and back then you were actively discouraged from using your real identity on the internet because it was considered unsafe as it could be misused by anyone, then companies like Facebook gave you the illusion that your information was protected and shared among your "friends" while selling it to anyone willing to pay the price. With facebook, you are not the customer, you are their product.
I do not use any kind of social media and use pseudonyms for commenting on websites. The only place I do use my real name is for some articles I write for some tech related websites. I hope young people realize that most employers these days check the social media history of any prospective employee and the way most people use social media the history is not usually flattering.
As for facebook saying they will be focused on user privacy, I say it will be a cold day in hell when I take facebook at it's word.
Too many political ads on facebook. This media needs to go back to it's original purpose.
“...doesn’t mean the situation is hopeless for Facebook..”? 49 dead people streamed live, encouraged by the extreme right followers? I think it is time for Facebook to go away.
“One guy we can be sure didn’t bribe his way into Harvard”.
Oh really, so this is the character type that Harvard is seeking, out of the thousands of applicants they review every year?
What qualities do they screen for: conscience-less, rapacious capitalists, willing to forego everything human for a billion dollar reward, the ability to lie with a straight face to Congress and the press, a self satisfied smugness bereft of any human quality other than greed?
So it is revealed: Harvard is a breeding and training ground for the next generation of vulturous bottom-feeders on their to the top - over the bodies of all they trampled on the way up.
And this is the environment parents are dying for their kids to be part of?
2
To paraphrase Steven King's soul-devouring aliens in his novel "Tommyknockers," "Why Zuckerberg, what did you think Fakebook was?"
Then octogenarian Betty White had it right whens she characterized the then budding Facebook, when asked if she was a user: "What a waste of time." My advice,... call your friends and invite them over to watch the game.
2
Facebook's problems are worse than those of Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and other internet monopolies, because Mark Zuckerberg is himself such a creep. It started with defrauding the Winkelvoss brothers and continues today -- because Zuckerberg puts himself and his desires above respect for anyone else.
2
Facebook's very bad week has just gone over a cliff. 49 innocent civilians were murdered yesterday in New Zealand, by a Facebook terrorist. That is, a Trumpy "very fine people" right wing terrorist, inspired by Facebook ("the only truth") and other American social media sites, parroting Trump anti-immigrant and white nationalist rants, carried out a mass terrorist action meant to be streamed live on Facebook and elsewhere.
Break up the internet giants now. They are monopolies, oligopolies, natural monopolies. They are feckless and reckless and heedless. They have too much power and too much money and care only about themselves. They are pathologically unable to conduct themselves in a manner that is compatible with the wellbeing of humanity or democracy, or with the freedom to pursue life, liberty and happiness.
2
What more can be said about Zuck the clueless boy blunder, Sandberg the hypocrite, or the criminal invasions they perpetrate via their odious quicksand box. Prefer to say something about Kara Swisher, IMO one of the most critically important voices in journalism right now. Thank you for carrying her column; more often would be even better.
1
Facebook is a massive corporation, run by a totally unaccountable C.E.O., whose core business model is to share your personal data without your truly informed consent.
Why then should we be surprised at any of this bad behavior? That’s practically a perfect formula for malfeasance.
3
It is about time,
without users permission Facebook distributed millions of users (perhaps hundreds of millions users) personal information and pictures, if an individual had stolen others personal information, that person would be in jail, if that individual was a minority that jail sentence might even be longer.
Yet till now Facebook and its top executives have faced no real consequence for their crime.
Regulations are needed on social networks to protect users, to
to prevent terrorism or a repeat of the 2016 Russia interference.
Set the example by tossing Zuckerberg and associates in jail.
1
Count me as one who wishes Apple would create its own Applebook, one with massive privacy protections, and with some sort of curated protections against the spread of hate, and murder as in New Zealand.
They could take away profits from Facebook and force it to change, as without adequate competition, Facebook will never change.
Oh sure, one can imagine a future where Congress gets its act together and creates privacy protections all on its own...
Hugh Massengill, Eugene Oregon
3
How many users has Facebook lost? How many less hours is the average user playing around on Facebook?
Until those numbers change I won't be foaming at the mouth yelling for Zuck's head or patting myself on the back for deleting my account.
The reality is everything we hate about Facebook isn't going away. It may be another company on another platform, but the business model will be the same. From a business perspective it is a winning formula and other up and coming businesses won't ignore it because Facebook got too big and then people got mad about stuff.
1
@Plen-T-Pak Agreed. But I have had a few friends delete their memberships and have noticed that many of my FB friends are posting a lot less. Me too in fact I am thinking about getting a new account and starting from scratch.
@Plen-T-Pak I wouldn't be so sure about things remaining the same. FB growth is stagnant in North America, and FB use has actually decreased slightly in Europe. Does this mean decline is imminent? No, but in the growth-above-all paradigm that our system is stuck in, it's not a favorable trend.
MySpace failed because FB provided, at the time, a better user experience (a social network that wasn't the equivalent of a teenager's gaudy bedroom). FB clearly has a scale advantage, but if and when a social network emerges whose business plan does not include trading on user data, FB will be as vulnerable as MySpace once was
Let’s not forget how Faceook first built its business - through violations of privacy laws. It got access to your online email accounts and then proceeded to spam all your contacts to make them join up. Nothing has changed in this regard. Contempt for user privacy is in Facebook’s DNA.
1
When people stop using facebook, there is room for Real Intelligence (RI) to develop. It is about time.
1
@Jana Facebook has many good uses especially for community groups. But all of it could be done without giving up privacy.
@Scott D
Can you post without Facebook tracking it?
A bad week for Facebook is a great week for humanity. We should celebrate that terrible, unethical, and criminal behavior has consequences. I'm delighted to see them dig their grave deeper. MZ and SS totally ignored basic rules of ethical behavior, and all the money in the world cannot prevent their slow, painful downfall.
1
The biggest news, in my opinion, is Chris Cox leaving. He was the soul of the company. This might be the beginning of the end...
Throw the book at its face! This is one shameless company to do anything and everything imaginable to take advantage of its users. The biggest problem is the "addiction" they have created among its users which is difficult for them to even acknowledge, let alone break.
Repeat after me: Not all of those names on your Friends list are actually your friends, you probably don't know many, even most of them. The so-called social media is the epitome of being anti-social. When was the last time you sat down face to face with them, shook hands, shared a few real laughs rather than "haha" and LOLs?
1
Facebook has broken new ground in media events today as well, as the venue for the live streaming of a video of a mass terror attack. Well done Facebook - another first.
1
Sen. Warren's call for the breakup of some Internet giants is right on. These companies' oligarchs are too young, arrogant and lacking in values necessary for us to maintain a Democratic society that protects personal privacy rights.
2
More selfishness, greed, and disregard for others.
But maybe the tide is turning, and order is being restored?
Like the college admissions bribery revelations.
Like Paul Manafort getting a second sentence, and more charges brought against him.
Like the growing pushback against anti-vaxxers.
And hopefully, like the Muller report will reveal.
1
Everyone has such a high, or low, opinion of Facebook today. It's such a tech wunderkin, or not. Have you forgotten how, and more importantly why, it was started by the Zuck? To go with a cut-n-paste quote:
"Facebook started life in 2003 as a game called Facemash created by Mark Zuckerberg and co-founder Eduardo Saverin, who were roommates at Harvard University at the time. Facemash let users rate fellow classmates against one another by giving them two photos and deciding whether they were "hot or not""
So let's be clear, the man who started the company, essentially built a dating app (before the term became popularly understood). He was a kid in a dorm room dreaming up a hook-up mechanism for young adults in college. That's it. That's all it was.
Here's the thing. As evinced by the way he comports himself today the Zuck has carried that mind-set from then to now. Yes "Facemash" is at a quantum level of difference from those days, but at heart it remains what it is; a semi-puerile exercise in self-interested behavior, one that caters to our animal tendencies to look at, and compare, each other. He's never grown up.
Given this I will never be surprised by anything that gets revealed about Facebook's behavior today. It still carries all the attitude of that original snarky, not especially attractive, geek seeking a way to meet women. It just so happens it's now big business. But at it's heart, it is still the same.
John~
American Net'Zen
2
The difference between Facebook and Job is that one of them was decent and the other one greedy and amoral.
1
"Mark knows he is over a barrel. That has sunk in now."
How about that? A bit late in the game, don't you think? But then again, nothing is more blinding than money and success, when you find yourself breathlessly adored by cute-looking people wherever you go, and you watch the zeroes mysteriously adding up in various accounts you glance at loftily.
Mark Z. is not the problem. He is a solution to *our* problems.
Q. 1 - Why does social media exist, and how did it manage to cannibalize our lives so completely?
A. 1 It's hard to maintain a vacuum. (Aristotle "nature abhors . . .) 21st century humans found themselves with a giant hole in our lives of free-floating time, isolation, pervasive low-level anxiety, growing questions about our identity, and a diminishing willingness to engage in any serious reading or reflection.
Q. 2 Where does the bone-deep need for worship and transcendence go when its old home(s) gets boarded up and shunned?
A. 2 Why not techno-utopianism? We become the Creator in this arrangement, and what could be more harmless and satisfying than to be adored and served by our own devices? Indeed, what could go wrong?
Neither social media nor Mark Zuckerberg himself are evil. (That face would not appear in my imagination as the face of a world-destroying evil villain.) No, they simply exist because of our weakness, silliness, and astonishing naivety.
Come on people, let's get hold of ourselves. It's not too late.
here's a solution. Quit Facebook.
Do not participate in social media.
There was life before and there can be life after.
3
@Carla
Agreed! And do real socializing at a local coffee shop with real friends and have a few real laughs instead of haha and LOLs. The so-called social media is misnamed.
When I want something of value I expect to pay for it. Facebook is worth less than it costs, your privacy. Why anyone uses it is beyond me. I tried it for about one day a long time ago.
I pay for the NYT to get news, I pay for cable news by putting up with commercials. You do not get something for nothing and I don’t see any value at any cost in Facebook.
How stupid is the average Facebook user that is over 12 years old?
3
Until Facebook 1- pays back the money it made from politically targeted ads in 2016 and 2 - pays ME (and all users) are dividend for helping them make their millions off our usage and “data commodification” - I see no reason or purpose for this app. Don’t commodify me behind my back and then fail to pay me. All Facebook users should’ve gotten at least 1 cent each quarter!
1
Don’t ever forget that on Facebook we are the “product,” not the users. The users are the advertisers, plain and simple.
2
The terrorist murders in New Zealand were broadcast live on Facebook. How is this possible?
Mark Zuckerberg opened Pandora's box and has NO IDEA how to deal with it. Hang on there must be an algorithm for that.
Immoral, criminal and a disgrace to humanity - Facebook 2019.
2
On top of all this, Facebook has continued to ignore the implicit hazards of promoting Facebook Live without adequate monitoring. Now a New Zealand terrorist has shared his massacre in real time. For shame, Facebook!
2
And now live-streamed mass slaughter via Facebook.
Would that Facebook was a Job, left to suffer its tribulations alone. Alas, the pestilence infects us all.
1
My Space => turns into Facebook => and now it seems Facebook is turning into My Space.
RIP Facebook it seems we hardly knew you.
Facebook will continue to follow their business model, which cares little for heteronomy and will continue to follow its business model where its users are also its chattel.
1
What do you expect from Zuckerberg who most likely stole Facebook in the first place? I don't think he was honest then and he's certainly not being honest now. But, no matter what, he'll still have his billions to like and re-like, even if his monopoly game gets the thumbs down.
2
Zuckerberg did not bribe his way into Harvard, but he did not stay there very long.If he had spent four years learning, he might have taken a class in philosophy, one in social anthropology, and several in the cultural arts. He might have gotten a well rounded education which would have served him well as he embarked on his enormous money making project..He is adept at one thing- too bad he did not get a well rounded liberal arts education.
21
@Janet Michael, instead he learned how to appropriate other people's ideas and walked away from them.
2
"Microsoft ... is today considered one of tech’s most upstanding citizens." Which says something about the other big players.
Thanks to Microsoft, writing a business letter now needs more than the total computing power NASA used to put a man on the moon.
With Windows 10, they have taken control of users' computers; even the tech-savvy can't defend themselves and have to call in specialists. Just recently, Microsoft pushed an update that disabled my brother's printer.
Getting back to Facebook, those interested should read "Zucked: Waking Up To The Facebook Catastrophe" by Roger McNamee. One sentence take-away: It's even worse than it looks.
4
"Everyone is beginning to assume the worst, even if it is not fair."
To the contrary, Facebook's past actions suggest that assuming the worst is absolutely fair.
7
Elizabeth Warren has the best policy proposals I've heard so far on how to treat Facebook and other "platforms." She gets my vote because she heads the Democratic pack in smarts.
3
NEVER trust a large company whose CEO holds a controlling share of voting power. PERIOD.
7
Facebook has one feature that I like. They provide a platform for people to discuss like interests. One for example is antique glass. Here people post pictures of their items and other chime in to say what they think of it.
I am not sure what Facebook does with the pictures of old glass,
I was on Facebook for a few months several years ago. Recognized it for what it is and logged off permanently. Highly recommend everyone do the same and start living your own lives. Ditto Twitter, Instagram, etc.
7
Boy, it's sure fun to level criticism, right and left, in this particular instance Facebook (and Mark Zuckerberg) routinely and casually. Impulsively in anger or annoyance using our capacity to confront, "I am right, you're wrong, you should be different." This capacity to "confront" from a laptop is one that most people have no difficulty exercising. Sadly, this does more to increase the amount of confusion in the world than the amount of enlightenment.
So Microsoft recovered nicely from investigations of anti- competitive and monopolistic behavior and is today considered one of tech's most upstanding citizens?
They forced competitors to WORD out of business, using the very same practices described above. Today you can't even buy WORD, you have to rent it yearly. They are low-down bandits.
All these companies need sensible regulations to curb greed- driven excesses. Capitalism works only when its inherent amorality is reigned-in by the government. And when the regulators' proclivity for overreach (power corrupts), is itself, self - regulated.
11
@Ira Brightman
Actually, you can buy Word. It's in Office 2019 (and other variations) along with PowerPoint, Excel, etc.
2
@Ira Brightman Why buy Word, when an equally effective word processor is available for the taking from Open Office (as is their spreadsheet program also) ? Yes, Open Office will also open Word and Excel programs, but not the other way around.
@Ira Brightman
The main competitor to Word in its earlier days was WordPerfect. It is still available through the Corel company, which has definitely not gone out of business. There are also a number of free word processing programs that can read and write files in Word's .docx format. So if you don't like Microsoft or its products there are lots of alternatives.
On top of other issues, Facebook is the weapon of choice for "aggressive extroverts" and as a result a bad deal for typical introverts. What do I mean by this? Extroverts do tend to like to "strut their stuff" and it is understandable. They typically have a huge desire for "making friends" nonstop. Facebook allows them to do this and sort of brag about all that goes with it, and share it with the entire world.
All of this can tend to put introverts at even more of a disadvantage in society than they normally are, for obvious reasons, and force them to try to play the extrovert game, which they aren't very adept at and therefore tend to do poorly at.
So what does this have to do with the article? Typically, the kinds of activities that Facebook is accused of doing fit right in with making this situation worse. Doing everything they can to encourage people to "overshare," and make that seem normal. Then they take all of that overshared data and use it in ways that hurt all of us and any entity that might be competition to them.
2
The operating philosophy and culture of the Big Tech largely has been to “ask forgiveness, not permission.”
For example, under Travis Kalanick, Uber would purposely begin violating taxi and limousine regulations in a city, with the objective of getting the riding public to use and enjoy their service and, as a result, pressure politicians to change the rules in their favor. Even if the rules were not changed, there was no real consequences for Uber or its executives other than to be eventually precluded from operating. As another example, Amazon routinely violated antitrust laws by pricing its products below cost, intending to lose money because it could afford to, to drive out competitors. Regulators did nothing.
Facebook, Alphabet, Tesla and others operate similarly, with respect to tax, privacy, securities, antitrust and other laws. They claim that because they are introducing new technology that breaks established social or business paradigms, “the law” is antiquated and inapplicable to them. To date there have been few lasting legal consequences for them. That needs to change.
9
@Jack Sonville
You are right, Jack.
In my opinion, the biggest obstacle to the change that you call for is the power of money in politics.
Tech giants have lots of money; politicians don't. Politicians have an existential need for money, always more money for campaigns. Politicians have legislative power and other influence; tech giants don't. Tech giants have an existential need for favorable legislation.
Uncontrolled capitalism allows money to buy legislation. Voting, flawed as it is, puts a veneer of respectability on the operation. Restrictive laws are unlikely to proceed from Washington, although a show of concern and some ineffective legislation might, in order to placate voters and thereby maintain the status quo.
The system is resilient in the extreme: money and power together create formidable obstacles to change.
8
And the kicker to end the week, not mentioned because it hadn’t happened when this piece went to press: the live-stream of a mass shooting in NZ on Facebook and other platforms. It’s not just a bad week, it’s a bad year. And not just for Facebook, but for all of us. Social media companies are generating societal pollution, and just like traditionally polluting industries, as long as profits keep rolling in, they are not going to change anything on their own. Social media is here to stay: we have to find reasonable ways of regulating the industry in order to respect individual rights and promote secure societies all over the planet.
56
Societal pollution- perfect description.
2
FACEBOOK MUST Face up to the fact that it has come face to face with the US government and is being challenged. Zuckerburg is no doubt highly intelligent. But he did not consider the nefarious uses to which the medium he developed, Facebook, could be weaponized and used against people. I'm not sure if he deserves to be viewed as a naif. Because in a sense, we born before the computer age were all naifs. The advent of the Internet is clearly orders of magnitude more powerful than Gutenburg's development of moveable type. I wonder if even futurists could have envisioned the whole range of ways in which the Internet has affected our lives. For one, the nature of retail purchases has changed radically, to the extent that department stores closures are increasing nationwide. For many purchases, it's so much simpler to shop online after researching prices at brick and mortar stores, and to have it delivered to your door rather than spending hours shlepping around shopping malls. I think that Internet developers would do well to include ethicists and communications experts on their teams before putting products on the Itnernet.
4
Before we let Elizabeth Warren frame the technology crisis the same way Bernie Sanders framed the financial crisis—with the lazy populism of "too big" and "break them up"—can we start addressing the real issue, how to prevent the wrongdoing?
I get that the last thing a dangerous company like Facebook needs to do is get bigger and more deeply ingrained in people's lifestyles, given how addicted they already are.
But the damage Facebook has done, is now doing, and will yet do would still be an existential crisis for privacy and democracy if Instagram were split off and no further acquisitions were allowed.
Even if there were five Facebooks "competing" with each other (I shudder to think, and yet how are there not?), we don't have the luxury of time to wait as one goes the high road and the rest are shamed by users or shareholders to adopt the one's best practices.
As you know, acquisitions CAN be the best way for a company to solve a problem, by incorporating another company's intellectual property or even corporate culture or a particular group of people into one aspect of its own business.
What we need is regulation. Like yesterday. Real regulation, smart, agile, well-funded, and avidly enforced, with real teeth.
Ms. Swisher, if you agree, please get on with THAT conversation, about what that looks like and how we get there, so we don't just throw one more election cycle down the rabbit hole as if democracy and privacy—not to mention journalism—is a spectator sport?
7
@J T Breaking up monopolies is as old as, well, the Sherman anti-trust act. But I do love the call for magic regulations that are well funded. Voted in, no doubt, by legislators collecting beaucoup funding from Face book PACS. Recently, I looked around for a competitor to Facebook b/c I am sick of their business model. And what did I find? Like, nothing. The domination by Facebook is something they brag to advertisers about, and then pretend isn't a legal issue. Too funny. Break em up.
Facebook is not registered fiscally in the USA but in Ireland, in the European Union, where it benefits from loopholes to avoid paying any taxes while invading the European market with commercial advertising and selling the personal data of its members against the rules of the EU . The benefice is redirected to the USA via the London banking exchange and its more or less illegal US offshore banks connexions in the Caribbean .
21
Facebook started out for college kids only. It grew because the youth loved it. Now Facebook is used by the older generation and the youth ignores it.
The core Facebook platform isn’t going to grow through youth as it’s no longer cool.
6
Yeah you are right about that. I use Facebook as a connect to my high school friends.
I graduated in 1962 !
I do not understand how any user of Facebook could ever have thought of themselves as a customer as opposed to the product. This is all they have ever been and all they ever will be.
17
Most of Facebook’s customers and its future lie outside the US and its news cycles. Good luck using shame or fear to rein it in.
However, what is working is the fear of disclosure of its customers, who don’t want their customers to know how creepy they really are. Regulators should focus on third-party transparency
2
"Just like the beleaguered biblical character who endured woe after woe at God’s behest, this social media giant finds itself repeatedly hit by bad news. The difference is that Job was blameless while Facebook has brought many of these disasters upon itself."
Not at "God's behest" as Job really had no knowledge of why this was happening to him, but he had faith that everything was God's will. Thus, he was steadfast in opposing his friends who sought to explain his woes in one manner or another, e.g., he perhaps deserved it.
But the major difference is that Job eventually lived happily ever after (Job 42:10-17). His wealth was restored, he had a new family and lived a happy long life (True, most non-biblical families would find it hard to forget the first family).
Facebook had it bad week. It was not "biblical" and the connection to Job was weak and unnecessary.
4
@Joshua Schwartz Job is a fable. Job is God's faithful servant, but his life is good. So Satan challenges God: How faithful will Job be, he asked, if all of the things that are good in his life--his family, his wealth, ultimately his health--are taken from him? Will he still be your faithful servant then? Or will he, as Job's wife bitterly suggests, curse God and die?
I agree that Job is a poor analogy for Mark Zuckerberg. But that's because, rather than being a pawn between the powerful forces of good and evil, serving a callous God who allows Satan to take everything Job has, Zuckerberg serves only himself and the interests of the vast business empire he has built based on packaging and selling information people voluntarily provide with very little understanding of how it will be used. Zuckerberg EARNED everything that happened to him his week. The vultures have come home to roost.
It's odd that all of the highly capable, potential replacements for Mark Zuckerberg are leaving Facebook. Perhaps the board of directors should look into this.
4
Never been on Facebook or had a Facebook account. Have no feeling I missing much of anything. If you don't like Facebook's behavior, drop 'em. I'm guessing you won't miss it either
20
Facebook's other big issue is it is part of the elite grouping of firms: FAANG - Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google.
However, the F isn't looking bullet proof on resumes, and when a lot of the senior guys get 250k base pay with 300k in stock vested over 4 years while your CEO is clueless, that 300k has a good chance of going south as a new hire, so recruiting becomes more difficult.
I interviewed at Facebook, but it just didn't have that idolized big tech titan feel, as if something was missing. The public just didn't idolize it like Google or Apple.
Public perception hurts firms. For example, NetFlix has a great name but they have one title for engineers: Senior Engineer, and they fire employees no problem. Amazon is household name, but the culture is cutthroat and they'll performance plan (PIP) you out. No one cares about the inner machinations from the outside, but Facebook looks terrible now to most people.
If one was to go to the graveyard of elite tech firms, Microsoft, CISCO, HP and IBM headstones would be there. Facebook's undertaker has at least pulled in to start shoveling.
4
Not only has FB brought it’s woes on itself it has been slow to act and even inactive when confronted with its problematic approach to making money off private data. On FB users exist for advertisers
2
I remember that Facebook is under a consent decree to pay the U.S. $40,000 for each violation of a customer's privacy. When the Cambridge Analytica revelations first came out, the number of customers affected was 50 million. Later that number was revised upwards. 40k x 50m = 2 Trillion. Their market cap is less than 25% of that.
2
1. Read the Facebook user agreement.
2. Delete your Facebook account.
3. But - your data still belongs to Facebook.
4. Delete Facebook.
Problem solved.
23
What's really important here is the British report recommendation "giving users the ability to move data to third parties" and "making that data available to rivals." That would be a revolutionary game changer that first recognizes what all these social media companies real business is - trafficking in personal information of users (if the service is free you're the product etc...) and second, in a hugely important step, create a transparent market both for acquisition and trade in this valuable information that up to date has been acquired and traded in nauseating mind-numbingly specious stealth by companies that have been lying for years about what their business model is. "We just want to connect people."
Give users the ability to quickly and easily move their data to another company that will pay them what it's worth. Let's do it!
It will be worth it just to see the battalions of bought politicians and media shills that will come out against it.
24
“this would be most damaging” How does Swisher support her contention that it hasn’t lost people’s trust?
4
@Aras Paul
That auxiliary subjunctive was the part of the article that stuck out the most to me as well. But there are still millions who remain not just Facebook users but defenders.
It's like people smoking in the '80s and '90s, after we knew how deadly it was but before it was banned in so many public places. They're addicts to an existential threat, and don't care that their continued use is harming the rest of us second-hand.
3
Justice is glacial but inevitable as glacial flow. America is restoring the rule of law in our new celebrity gilded age. Many thanks to those who put principles first.
14
The rats are leaving the sinking ship. Time to get out.
11
And the people who use Facebook don't care.
18
@P&L Everyone and their grandmother uses Facebook - grandmothers such as Elizabeth Warren.
Hmmm, this is probably from way way out in left field (or would it be right field?)
Facebook......
Cambridge Analytica......
Is there any chance this is going to bleed over into the Trump investigations - Trump and his cronies seem to be involved in just about everything bad that’s going on (did he pay to get his children into any colleges?
How far does all this go?
23
@don salmon
On your last question, the answer is yes. Trump donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Wharton, starting when Don Jr was about college age (and continued when Ivanka was as well). But then, he was only following in his father’s footsteps, who donated a bunch to Wharton when DJT wanted to go there. And that money seems to also help pay for burying grades...
4
Microsoft really changed when new leadership was installed and Gates took a less active roll. While Balmer was a disaster for stock holders, at least he backed off of Gates Zero Sum way of doing business..
Zuck, Sandberg et all need to move on for FB to regain any credibility.
Hey Kara- give the FB Kool Aid a break.
5
Facebook is now just another bad corporate citizen. They've abused 'their' public's trust too many times and need to be brought to accountability. Not just continued 'responses' they think make them responsible. They need to study up on accountability, be coached on it and how that is different and so much bigger than just trying to be responsible.
16
It's time for some smack-you-in-the-Facebook actions.The arrogance of this company knows no limits. Yet I doubt much will really happen. Just like huge fossil fuel companies and the banks, endless supplies of money buys Zuckerberg a lot of look-the-other-way.
23
Facebook will be around after the roaches are all gone. I am a huge fan. I graduated high school in 1970 and FB makes a huge difference in the lives of my classmates. I have not lived in my hometown Houston since 1991. Being able to stay in touch on a daily basis with people I have known all of my life is a daily inspiration. I admit I have unfriended more than a few because of their unwavering support of Trump. I hope I die at my keyboard looking at Facebook and preferably not a cat pic or vid. Keep up the good work Facebook! A fan forever!
6
@Wyman Elrod
Sure, Facebook is great for what it was originally designed to do. If it had gone down the path of making money from subscriptions rather than selling people's information it would almost certainly be profitable and be providing what people want. Its creators would not be billionaires though, which is where the problem lies.
14
Not a fan of FB here (l log into to my FB account once every 3-4 months at most), but Ms. Swisher really seems to have an axe to grind against either FB or Mr. Zuckerberg.
The problems with FB are now well known at large; and so these snarky articles endlessly reminding us about those faults, with no new insights are becoming increasingly tedious to read. We get it that FB doesn't get it. We would instead be much better served if Ms. Swisher used her considerable talent and clout in actually putting forward some meaningful solutions.
4
@Santa I for one find her writings compelling and insightful, writing about the important events in the tech industry, Facebook is one of the most evil companies, not because of its product, but because of its management, and exposing the management turmoil is important.
8
In a strange twist, the Hallmark Channel had multiple posts on Facebook about immediately dropping its association with Lori Laughlin.
There is not much shocking here: a major company did illegal things to make money. I appreciate that someone is trying to stop it.
1
I left Facebook 3 years ago. Zero regrets. Let it go.
R.I.P. Facebook. Our world will be a better place.
Next in crypt: Twitter Instagram etc.
We need real community, not virtual community.
88
I think Facebook got both too big and too big for its britches. "Secure information" seems to be an oxymoron when it comes to Facebook. I continue my affiliation only because of my business, but am sharing as little as possible of my personal information. Of course, what's out there is already out there - who knows who has it and how they might (mis)interpret it?
Life was so much easier when it was just newspapers, magazines and over-the-air broadcasting.
11
Facebook: Just say no.
(And if enough people did, that might threaten the business model enough for some true policy reform to occur at chez Zuck.)
12
@Glenn Ribotsky
Exactly.
Not unlike the Catholic church, I fail to understand why anyone is still in "the club,"
@Glenn Ribotsky Facebook is not a drug. It is a tool, one that many people find very useful, and one that many people abuse. Unfortunately there is considerable overlap.
@Glenn Ribotsky,
But the thing to say NO to is the adverts themselves. If you don't click on ads, they can only guess that you've even seen them. And they have fewer ways of figuring out who you are.
Zuckerberg "is one guy we can be sure didn’t need to bribe his way into Harvard"?
I'm not saying he did, but I don't see that it's obvious he didn't.
34
Exactly my reaction to that sentence. His father was pretty well-off, so we can't be sure.
13
He was almost kicked out of Harvard for creating
an online platform to rank the beauty of female students.
Clearly, he’s never considered the cost to others of his
Greed.
3
Their business model is to sell information about their users (and incidentally about anyone they can track, user or not), to anyone with the money to buy that information.
There's no getting around that, unless they want to switch to a fee-for-membership subscription to use their "service", and collect no data whatsoever.
However, that would mean vastly less wealth for Zuck and his cohorts. Think he would go for that? Doubt it.
32
At the end of the Book of Job, Job had all of his health and riches restored, and lived long enough to see his progeny thrive.
For anyone worried about the power and influence of Facebook and/or Zuckerberg, this is probably not the best metaphor to use.
7
@Scott
Re "... Job had all of his health and riches restored, and lived long enough to see his progeny thrive."
Which is why the supposed message of the Job story is just so much hot air, isn't it? It *still* operates on the principle of ultimate reward for faith in God.
For an interesting examination of the questions, I highly recommend Ted Chiang's story, "Hell is the Absence of God."
Facebook isn’t the story of Job; it’s Lot.
We’re not exactly talking about a corporation of piety, this is just the easiest target among a group of bad actors, all of whom are ripe for serious criticism.
What we still have yet to see are any offerings of corporate accountability, or decisive government action which might bring about similar ends.
I expect to see pillars of salt, long before I expect any qualitative progress to occur.
28
Any student of American history knows about our ‘inalienable rights’ that are irrevocable. You know -- life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I think the right to privacy is an inalienable right too.
We all want the technology endemic to our lives to be benevolent and free of charge. We don’t like paying for anything, whether it’s taxes, health or auto insurance, news, and certainly not the apps on our phones. The cost of all this free technology is giving up our right to privacy. There’s got to be a happy medium. They reap billions in profits annually with our data, and they should share their profits with their users.
Right now if you try to find out exactly what Facebook knows about you, it’s practically impossible. I tried to share a link to an article about Facebook data collection with my friends, and they blocked me from sharing that link.
This would bother me less if Facebook was sharing their billions with the masses. Fat chance that’ll ever happen, so I’ll continue to stay away from FACECROOK instead.
41
The societal side effects of social media effect you even if you aren’t a user yourself. It’s like second hand smoke. You can stay away, but millions of others aren’t staying away... societal polarization affects everyone. Not to mention the more immediate dangers that come from the social media addicts who don’t put their gadgets aside when driving ...
4
Guaranteed he got the prep boost lockdown and was fed every possible variable before taking the test. Not a top high school student. Did Harvard see the potential for him to appropriate the ideas of the twins? Let us remember that when FB started he stood by having no adds for a long time. Then...
9
As soon as Facebook became a business to make money, so in about 2006, it's entire business model was based on selling advertisers your personal data, access to your habits, "friends" and use patterns.
Anyone paying attention to the various Facebook "privacy" scandals say between 2008 and 2011 understood this fact.
16
Facebook (FB) stock is up 13.1% YTD vs. the S&P at 9%
For someone that appears so often on CNBC, Ms. Swisher may have an nonstandard definition of 'biblically bad'.
12
To imply that “good” means rapacious returns in the stock market implies a nonstandard definition of decency.
14
@SteveRR
Actuall, according to my broker’s website (UBS), Faceschnook is actually up 29.8% YTD, but its one year performance is actually down 7.61%, WORSE than the S&P 500, and the news of the two key departures came after the closing bell. It was down 1.85% today. Let’s see what happens tomorrow.
So, SteveRR, why does a company that earns $7.58/share, and generates free cash flow of $9/share pay no dividend, anyway?
6
Anything over the networks cannot be called private unless the network was a string and both ends were little toy phones. Sandberg needs to go - overrated and overhyped - maybe she can find a job in Robert O'Rourke's administration - and as for Zuck - he'll find that he will need to be more than Bill Gates post 1990 to stage a comeback.
7
...And, where is Facebook's Number 2 Executive, who was supposed to be the adult in the rooms there, Sheryl Sandberg, in all this? She is, or was, the Chief Operating Officer of the company. Does she still have a role at the company? If not, who can possibly act as a check against Mr. Zuckerberg's worst instincts.
26
It might not be accurate to label Microsoft as a good corporate citizen. Users of their OS and Office products are subject to high levels of communications between the apps/OS and the mothership, very likely at the expense of user privacy. Combine this with their huge investment in cloud computing (Azure), and the picture emerges of a company, possibly wanting to play Facebook's game.
9
Question from a nontechnical person: Is it time to close down a FB account until this all really gets settled? This almost feels more dangerous than things were a year or two ago, but is that mainly because of how little we knew then? Or, is the chaos in and threats to the company’s legal situation such that things will get worse before they get better, at least fir us users?
8
Delete. Not worth it. Did it 2 years ago. Never regretted it.
21
@Kathy
Yes, it is time. In fact, if it's not already too late do we even want to know what too late looks like?
As someone else here said, the apt Biblical reference would seem less Job than it is Lot. Save what's valuable to you (i.e. contact info for your friends and family) and go, go forward and don't look back.
3