A little while ago I played with the idea that if the masses were convinced that breaking up Facebook (or Google, Amazon, etc) was a good idea and that it eventually happened - the surviving BigTech "shrapnel" would be less capable to stand up against a government seeking information or control over them.
A paranoid and overly Orwellian idea for sure, but interesting to play around with!
I think that in the west, we have a different dynamic between tech and government - one that makes a huge difference.
In China, it would appear that the government is deeply involved with WeChat (which itself, is deeply entrenched in everybody's lives). This close co-operation gives them access and control to monitor their citizens - leaving the possibility of an Orwellian system.
In the west, instead, its a little bit more back and forth between tech and government. The big tech companies take advantage of opportunities they discover (for the purposes of profit) with the government subsequently cracking down on activity they deem abusive and harmful. Conversely, if the government itself seeks to spy on or inappropriately extend its reach into people's privacy, the tech companies are big enough to stand together and object to these types of intrusions. Cases such as those involving the government seeking to break into an iPhone and Apple refusing to help or with Facebook making WhatsApp E2E encrypted by default (and soon Messenger as well) are a few examples that come to mind.
With the current uproar and battle cry to break these big tech companies up, part of me feels that we might collaterally lose this balance of power between the two.
Ah, yes, I see that now. That's a shame - quite annoying really.
I don't get it. I don't really see what it is I wrote that warranted getting "flagged". I just said I wasn't keen on maintaining an account and, with that, a HN reputation.
I'm assuming it's against the rules to copy/paste my comment again in response to someone else so I'll just leave it, but that kills the want to participate.
Ironically, I'd bet that had it been a Facebook algorithm moderating the content (instead of just anybody having the power to censure/flag) my comment would still stand - and in this case, that'd be more fair to "free speech".
We are quick to plaster a company as "evil" and yet mob rule worries me more.
I don't know whether one could "stop where the internet is going". I think the internet is what it is. It has its merits and it has its flaws. I'm just saying we seem to be pointing the finger at Facebook as the source of our problems whereas Facebook is really just a reflection of ourselves as a society.
Regarding "using a throwaway account", please see my response to piffey below. In short, I don't have a main - I'm usually always just a reader. I actually wholeheartedly disagree with Karma-type systems in general and the concept of leveraging previously acquired "reputation". Sadly, one requires an account to comment and new accounts get throttled/rate-limited quite quickly (I've just realized).
Re: the newsfeed algorithm, like I just replied to
jeromegv, I agree and think promoting emotionally engaging posts, no matter the content (which I think we all sort of agree seems to be the way Facebook operates), is obviously problematic. Whether dumb (a.k.a. "rank by new") is the way to go, I don't know. Might just favor the loudest/most talkative, but perhaps you're right.
Also I never made the claim that TikTok/WeChat/Telegram were evil. My point with that statement was more like that proverb: "Better the devil you know than the devil you don't know".
That's very fair criticism, and you're right, promoting something to others based on the probability of it triggering a reaction has some pretty major downsides. Although I don't know the specifics of Facebook's algorithms, from my experience, I would agree it seems to amplify posts trigger an emotional response, e.g. "oh, that's so CUTE!", "oh, that's so COOL!", "oh, that's so FUNNY!", "oh, that's so TERRIBLE!", etc.
I guess the only thing that I can say is that it may take a while before we have AI that is capable enough to distinguish baseless posts intended to stir people's emotions from those which may have merit but are emotionally engaging and controversial. In the interim, it seems like Facebook is trying to brute force solve this with human moderators - but again, perhaps not the most objective way of handling this and I wonder how they will tackle this long term.
(On a different note, I'm being throttled by HN for posting too fast, so sorry for the delay in response).
I know this is a highly unpopular opinion (and hence the throwaway), but I really don't understand this idea of wanting to "break up" Facebook and the underlying motivation behind these types of statements.
What exactly is it about the platform that makes it so "evil"? Do we just think Zuckerberg is innately corrupt and trying to slip some sort of mastermind plan of internet domination without us noticing?
I understand and similarly dislike the idea that Facebook is aggregating statistics about its users and selling them to advertisers, but at the same time, do we honestly believe that the vast majority of people would rather subscribe to "get rid of ads and access to data"?
I don't use Facebook myself (despite having an account), but from my perspective, it just seems that society as a whole has simply decided to scapegoat Facebook and its "ecosystem". We seem to be trying to blame the company for the unwanted secondary effects of the rise of the internet and all the inter-connectivity that has come as a result.
A good example in my mind is WhatsApp. Facebook went ahead and had the whole messaging system E2EE, much to the applause of everybody. From this point on, even among security experts, WhatsApp was well regarded as a messaging platform - essentially only second to Signal. However, a little while ago, following the Brazilian elections, there was a massive uproar that "fake news" was being spread through WhatsApp and that Facebook hadn't done enough to intervene and stop this. Really? So now we are complaining that Facebook isn't reading and censoring messages accordingly?
Do people not remember those annoying e-mail chains back in the day - usually forwarded by some naive friend? Are we really to blame the medium? I feel people will always find ways to use the internet to spread misinformation.
Do we really think we can stem "fake news" by expecting Facebook to bear the responsibility for everything that is communicated on their platform(s)?
Lastly, are we truly confident that hamstringing Facebook with a "break-up" is really going to lead to a better future? Do I really want my kids to be using TikTok/WeChat/Telegram or some other foreign controlled platform over which my government has much less oversight?
A paranoid and overly Orwellian idea for sure, but interesting to play around with!