
Facebook Goes on a Hiring Spree for Washington Lobbyists - JumpCrisscross
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-27/facebook-in-hiring-spree-for-washington-lobbyists-amid-scandal
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sidcool
Even with all the outrage, and a few million profiles deleted, I feel this
will be like a speeding ticket for FB in the long run. That's how it has
always happened. Pardon my pessimism.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _a few million profiles deleted_

Unrelated to Cambridge Analytica, I started de-escalating my Facebook usage a
few months ago.

First, I turned off notifications on my phone for Facebook and Facebook
Messenger. (I've had e-mail notifications off for years.) Next, I deleted the
Facebook app from my phone. Then, I deleted the Facebook Messenger app from my
phone. Finally, I force myself to log out of Facebook on my laptop every time
I visit.

This combination strikes a better balance, for me, between the connecting
benefits of Facebook and its addictive time- and emotion-sucking downsides.

~~~
moistoreos
You need to just remove it from your phone. I promise you won't miss it. I did
this a few years ago. It's freed up so much more time to Reddit.

~~~
411mrc
I never facebooked. You need to do much more than that to remove their
tracking, since many pages have a Facebook like button, which tells Facebook
what you are browsing based on your ip, which they undoubtedly already know is
you.

They track you whether you join or not.

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common_
_Albee started lobbying for the company on Oct. 30 -- two days before his
former boss, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, grilled
Colin Stretch, the company’s general counsel, in a hearing._

Yeah, that's not suspicious.

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benevol
So now they are trying to bribe their way out of their lack of ethics.

Pathetic bunch of liars - they're right on par with Trump.

~~~
sbarre
There's also the other perspective here where they are hiring subject-matter
experts to help them figure out how to work with the government in order to
resolve this?

Remember a "lobbyist" is really a "government process consultant" at the end
of the day.. and there are no doubt good and bad ones.

The same way you'd hire a technical consultant when your business encounters
an obstacle or challenge you have insufficient experience with and can't
afford to spend the time learning on the job.

~~~
_tulpa
I mean, given their track record can you honestly suggest that as a realistic
perspective?

~~~
sbarre
Can you disprove my statement? I may not have hard facts to back it up, but I
have enough real-world experience to know that most companies, regardless of
how "evil" they are made out to be, tend to be populated by people who are
actually trying to do the right thing (and of course sometimes fail badly).

Not everything is a conspiracy of evil.

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mtgx
Of course, don't fix the cause of the problems. Just fix people's _perception_
of you, or more importantly, bribe Congress to protect you from the people
asking for your head.

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rblion
What % of people do you think will actually delete their profiles? How many
will deactivate? Use FB less?

I think about this a lot.

~~~
WhiteSource1
Very few. "Network effects."

This won't hurt them. Gen Z not joining FB will.

~~~
katzgrau
I agree, but the full effect of Gen Z won't be felt for 5 or 10 years. And
they're definitely on Instagram, which still provides much more targeting
ability to an advertiser than every other social site in the world apart from
LinkedIn. Twitter doesn't even register.

~~~
exelius
Less Instagram and more snap for the younger kids.

In general, I find each generation has its own preferred social platform —
Facebook for generation X, Instagram for millennials, and Snap for whatever
we’re calling whoever comes after. Each of these platforms seems to reflect
the collective concerns of each generation.

~~~
katzgrau
I think FB has scooped up the older half of millennials. FB was the hot thing
as they were just getting to college, when it was still limited to college
kids. We can't discount outside of US/Europe though — they're big over there
too.

As for Snap, they definitely have Gen Z or whatever it's called, but I don't
think the data on Snap is as strong. And Instagram has a strong hold on them
too. Most teenagers I know keep Snap/Insta, and if they had to pick between
the two, it'd be Insta.

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mrleiter
Large corporations usually lack a moral consciousness. Why should they have
one, if it is bad for their sole purpose - generating value for it's
shareholders?

