
“Facebook has destroyed the open web” - xkarga00
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/mark-zuckerberg-hypocrite-facebook-has-destroyed-open-web-1559298
======
drivingmenuts
Facebook hasn't destroyed the web - it's still there and functioning fine.
Hyperlinks still work.

What FB has done is made it easier for the lazy to connect with and stay
within their own interest groups. FB has made it easy for people to ignore
negative information with tons of cat pictures (I am as guilty as anyone for
that) and cheerful little meaningless quotes. It's made it easier to post
misinformation and spread it quickly.

But none of that has destroyed the internet. The internet (or more
specifically, information) was going to get harder to find and navigate
anyway, once you turn it loose on a few billion people.

Sure, in the early days, you could encapsulate 75% of existing websites in one
directory, but thanks to the efforts of spammers, link farmers, and other
lowlife, in addition to the efforts of well-meaning people, and faulty and
well-working search algorithms, it's a mess.

But it was going to happen and FB is not to blame for it. If they are to blame
for it, we all equally share the guilt.

~~~
5ilv3r
"Hyperlinks still work."

I observe that this is increasingly no longer true. Links no longer show you
when you have visited them. Chains of 301s are common. Tracking links are now
the norm. The link text almost never is where you are actually going. Pages
automatically redirect you based on a ton of probed information (mobile,
desktop, tablet, logged in to G+, logged into facebook, etc), and even normal
browser shortcuts to interact with them are no longer working correctly with
so many weird effing span and divs being recast into "links" that never work
right, in css of all things.

No no. The modern hyperlink is totally busted. I blame the framework hockers
and the halfass web"app" community.

~~~
paulddraper
I must use 100+ links a day with 99% success rate.

~~~
blub
If you use the web on the terms of content publishers, being flooded with ads,
tracked everywhere, getting hit by malware every now and then, you will have a
good success rate at "opening links".

Congratulations for that phyrric victory.

If one however desires even a little bit of control of their browsing
experience, the hyperlink and the modern web are broken. It seems to be
impossible to click a link and display a simple text with some images nowadays
on the web, even if that's the great majority of the available content.
Something will break - one will be treated either with an empty white page,
missing menus, missing styles, etc.

~~~
mercer
I've been using Little Snitch (OSX) for a while now, and more recently set up
a 'restricted' profile because I'm on a bad internet connection. It's shocking
to notice how bloated almost all url endpoints are! It's a rare site that only
produces one 'access' popup, and a large number of sites, in particular Big
Media, make requests all over the place, most of them involving tracking, ads,
or advertorials.

------
vaishaksuresh
It is ironic considering there is a popup when you scroll down to the end of
the article that asks you to share it on Facebook.

------
mschenkel
Totally agree. Facebook is dotcom equivalent of AOL. Hopefully it goes away.

~~~
smt88
Free/open markets create powerful incumbents that eventually become big enough
to turn themselves into a monopoly. There's no reason that the web wouldn't
work the same way.

------
bawana
And I remember the net before the web. FTP, Gopher, and lynx. So why did a
'web browser' succeed? Because you could integrate bandwidth hogging
graphics?? or was it to mimic the gui interfaces of mac OS, windows, BEos,
etc? I still mourn the loss of the newsgroups and usenet. Well, Usenet is
still around, but in name only. So what's next-VR interfaces?

The web and FB has made us dumber- we point and click and no longer have to
search and think.

~~~
5ilv3r
I am very interested in seeing in the post-web internet.

~~~
mbreese
I'm not sure you will be happy when we get there. I'm fairly certain that it's
already here - phone apps are pretty much on their way to being post-web.

------
zwieback
I've read the "blogs were great, FB is bad" article a few times in recent
years and put it off as whining. I was a whiner myself when Usenet gave way to
blogs but got over it.

However, it might be different in emerging markets where phones are the
primary platform and FB may be dominating, not really sure if that's true but
certainly different from the US.

~~~
blub
I've heard a story from an acquaintance from Germany: their kids were
ostracised in school by the others until they had a smartphone _and_ started
using WhatsApp.

Whenever WhatsApp is shut down in Brazil, a local chimes that it's used
everywhere, even by emergency medical service personnel.

That should cause one some uneasy feelings...

------
vinceguidry
The article is as stupid as the website it's on is. Value-added sharing
mechanisms that take the expertise out of creating useful Internet content
does not de-democratize the Internet. You are still as free as before to make
your own websites and share your content the way it was done before Facebook.
Facebook is popular but that can't be held against it.

More generally, populism by itself does not threaten democracy. It's when the
people that elect demagogues let those demagogues destroy public institutions
that democracy is undermined. But it's the people that are at fault here, they
are the ones that let themselves get hoodwinked.

Napoleon destroyed the French Republic. But the French were absolutely
complicit and just let him do it because they were hungry for empire. All of
Europe was like that back then and she wasn't cured of that disease until WW2
showed them how utterly stupid warmongering in the Industrial age was.

~~~
devishard
> You are still as free as before to make your own websites and share your
> content the way it was done before Facebook.

And nobody will read them if you don't integrate with Facebook and other
social media--where you will be censored.

> But it's the people that are at fault here, they are the ones that let
> themselves get hoodwinked.

Did you really claim that scam victims are to blame when they get scammed, and
not the scammers? I'm all for avoiding naiveté, but that doesn't excuse the
actions of manipulative people and organizations.

~~~
vinceguidry
> And nobody will read them if you don't integrate with Facebook and other
> social media--where you will be censored.

That's not an issue with Facebook, it's the natural consequence of being
popular. Things are popular because the public likes them. You can't say that
something being powerful because the public made them powerful is
undemocratic. Either you're giving the public what they want or you're not.
Dethroning Facebook would be profoundly _un_ democratic. Facebook is a public
institution, albeit under private management.

> Did you really claim that scam victims are to blame when they get scammed,
> and not the scammers?

The people are bigger than the politicians. Politicians have to, at some
point, give the people what they want. The days where you can brutally put
down rebellions is over. Not even CCP can get away with it. Napoleon could not
have given Europe war if the French truly didn't want war.

Napoleon did not have to scam the French, they went into it willingly.

Democracy is the progressive march of what most people want over what a few
people want. If what most people want is stupid, democracy will not save you
from that.

~~~
blub
There is no such thing as a public institution under private management.
Facebook is a corporate entity with control over a large part of the internet
and no accountability towards their user base.

When a private institution has so much power there need to be rules put in
place that make sure they won't abuse that power to the detriment of everyone
else. Democracy is about people, not the rights of corporations.

Your claims about the power of the people are amusingly misguided as reading a
little bit about history will tell you. Pointers: propaganda, public opinion
manipulation.

~~~
vinceguidry
If you'd read more than "a little bit" of history, you'd be able to see these
things in proper perspective.

Multinational corporations are inherently more democratic, more public, than
governments. A government derives its capacity to operate from violence, you
are forced to pay taxes.

A corporation has to be accountable to a marketplace, and must operate within
the law of countries it operates in. Markets are ultimately more powerful than
governments, that's why authoritarians want to tell people what they can sell
to whom and how. Markets provide the people with ways to get things that don't
come from the government, that's how they undermine authority.

I stand by my statement that Facebook is a public institution. It's publicly
traded, you can buy voting shares and get a say in how the company is run. Of
course Facebook is accountable to its user base, that's ultimately where they
get all their revenue from. Facebook is more accountable than democratic
governments are, you can't choose to not pay your taxes. Also, what is the
practical difference between public and private management?

Manipulating public opinion is ridiculously hard and only the most hardcore
authoritarian states are capable of doing so effectively. Even then it's a cat
and mouse game, the truth has ways of getting out.

~~~
devishard
> Multinational corporations are inherently more democratic, more public, than
> governments.

You have drunk so much of the capitalist Kool-aid that your brain is no longer
receiving oxygen.

> A corporation has to be accountable to a marketplace

This is not democracy, it's plutocracy.

------
Mendenhall
I feel "everyone" being afraid of words has destroyed the open web. Edit this,
censor that, surpress this, etc etc.

Complacency and intolerance of other ideas is and always will be the issue.

------
halpme
To echo what everyone else has said, my feed is utter garbage and a lot of
friends post stuff that makes me cringe. I've unsubscribed from the majority
of my friends so now all I see are ads and sponsored posts.

Here's the thing, I get to see what events my friends are going to, which
usually end up being really fun and not something I would have found out about
otherwise. So nowadays I only use facebook to find and management events to
attend.

------
avindroth
The vast majority of those on Facebook were not the ones participating in the
open web.

------
tn13
Open web sucked before Facebook. Facebook has created a nice safe sandbox for
most people.

------
codecamper
why couldn't we create a decentralized social network. could such a thing
exist?

~~~
5ilv3r
[https://diasporafoundation.org/](https://diasporafoundation.org/) and
[http://pump.io/](http://pump.io/) are attempts at that.

~~~
bigphishy
Have to second diaspora,Diaspora is a vestige of intellectual content and
quality discussion.

------
meeper16
Just like AOL, many facebook users think facebook is the internet.

------
Ileca
Only fools believe (listen) a thief. As much as any PR guy.

------
fallenshell
"Against this global community" "Going against progress" Sorry Zuck, but shut
the fuck up. All you want is more money and power. A great example is the free
"internet" initiative he's pushing; all to lock people in Facebook.

This guy truly is, the world's biggest hypocrite. </rant>

~~~
dang
Please don't do this here. If you have a substantive critique to make, you're
more than welcome to, but "shut the fuck up, "all you want is money and
power", and "world's biggest hypocrite" is the opposite of that, and
predictably degraded the thread.

~~~
fallenshell
Excuse my misbehavior, I became angry.

------
FussyZeus
Facebook is a fad. A damn big one I'll grant you but it's already losing it's
grip on the next generation of users. It's huge now but I feel it's already
lost it's luster, I mean come on, I'm a huge user (keeping up with friends
across states is damn hard otherwise) and I can't stand being on it, and I
know a lot of friends who feel the same.

It will have it's time, in due time. Hyperlinks are not dead.

~~~
TrevorJ
Agreed. Facebook is pretty irrelevant with the High School crowd. Every has
smart phones with apps that offer far less friction for communicating.

~~~
lalos
High school students will start using Facebook once they realize they can't
keep "connected" with their high school friends that are studying in a bunch
of different universities.

~~~
5ilv3r
Don't they seem to have moved past serving that core audience?

~~~
TrevorJ
The problem is, as those kids grow up and into the demo that is there core
audience, I doubt very much they will move to facebook, and more than
40-somethings suddenly start using myspace.

