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ColinC
ColinC's Journal
ColinC's Journal
October 5, 2021
Is Facebook good or bad?
October 4, 2021
But theres another way to read the series, and its the interpretation that has reverberated louder inside my brain as each new installment has landed.
Which is: Facebook is in trouble.
Not financial trouble, or legal trouble, or even senators-yelling-at-Mark-Zuckerberg trouble. What Im talking about is a kind of slow, steady decline that anyone who has ever seen a dying company up close can recognize. Its a cloud of existential dread that hangs over an organization whose best days are behind it, influencing every managerial priority and product decision and leading to increasingly desperate attempts to find a way out. This kind of decline is not necessarily visible from the outside, but insiders see a hundred small, disquieting signs of it every day user-hostile growth hacks, frenetic pivots, executive paranoia, the gradual attrition of talented colleagues.
It has become fashionable among Facebook critics to emphasize the companys size and dominance while bashing its missteps. In a Senate hearing on Thursday, lawmakers grilled Antigone Davis, Facebooks global head of safety, with questions about the companys addictive product design and the influence it has over its billions of users. Many of the questions to Ms. Davis were hostile, but as with most Big Tech hearings, there was an odd sort of deference in the air, as if the lawmakers were asking: Hey, Godzilla, would you please stop stomping on Tokyo?
NYT: Is Facebook weaker than we knew?
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/04/technology/facebook-files.htmlBut theres another way to read the series, and its the interpretation that has reverberated louder inside my brain as each new installment has landed.
Which is: Facebook is in trouble.
Not financial trouble, or legal trouble, or even senators-yelling-at-Mark-Zuckerberg trouble. What Im talking about is a kind of slow, steady decline that anyone who has ever seen a dying company up close can recognize. Its a cloud of existential dread that hangs over an organization whose best days are behind it, influencing every managerial priority and product decision and leading to increasingly desperate attempts to find a way out. This kind of decline is not necessarily visible from the outside, but insiders see a hundred small, disquieting signs of it every day user-hostile growth hacks, frenetic pivots, executive paranoia, the gradual attrition of talented colleagues.
It has become fashionable among Facebook critics to emphasize the companys size and dominance while bashing its missteps. In a Senate hearing on Thursday, lawmakers grilled Antigone Davis, Facebooks global head of safety, with questions about the companys addictive product design and the influence it has over its billions of users. Many of the questions to Ms. Davis were hostile, but as with most Big Tech hearings, there was an odd sort of deference in the air, as if the lawmakers were asking: Hey, Godzilla, would you please stop stomping on Tokyo?
October 4, 2021
Facebook being down will be a net positive for society
Most people will have to rely on actual news as opposed to regurgitated conspiracy theories and manufactured disinformation. They will be forced to call their loved ones and have actually conversations, and maybe even go outside. We are getting a glimpse of a facebook-less world, and it is amazing.
Profile Information
Name: ColinGender: Do not display
Hometown: MA
Member since: Fri Mar 13, 2020, 03:54 AM
Number of posts: 8,289