
Facebook hired PR firm that wrote negative articles about Apple and Google - sahin-boydas
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/14/facebook-hired-pr-firm-that-wrote-negative-articles-about-rivals-nyt.html
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merricksb
Active discussion about the original NYT report from a few hours ago:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18453958](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18453958)

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randycupertino
This reminds me of the youtube beauty gurus who will get paid 25k to give a
positive review of the client's product, but can make 85k from the same client
for leaving a negative review of a competitor's client.

[https://www.revelist.com/beauty-news-/beauty-influencer-
nega...](https://www.revelist.com/beauty-news-/beauty-influencer-negative-
reviews/13369)

Relevant quote, ""A brand I consulted with asked me to inquire about working
with a top-level beauty influencer. The influencer's management offered me
these options: 1) $25K — product mention in a multi-branded product review. 2)
$50K–$60K — dedicated product review (price determined by length of video). 3)
$75K–$85K — dedicated negative review of a competitor's product (price
determined by length of video). 4) A minimum 10% affiliate link or code to use
on IG and YT."

~~~
asdff
The market is eating itself. The old adage was that if you wanted your
competitor's market share, you had to design a better product. You can now get
away with selling a worse product, if your advertising convinces consumers
that the previous model is worthless or the competitor's product is poor. The
pricing data here supports that negative advertising goes a lot further than
positive advertising.

What is the incentive to pay for good product design or innovation if it's
more profitable to pay off reviewers and advertisers to lie for you? Why
develop a valuable product when you can so easily lie about its actual value?
We are moving out of an age of engineering and into an age of advertising and
snake oil.

~~~
slededit
The 50s was the golden age of advertising, and the basis for the show Mad Men.
Its no coincidence this was around the time that it was discovered the product
really wasn't important. It was more about how the person felt when buying and
consuming that product.

In short the "better mousetrap" hasn't been thought true for the last 70
years. If you are going to actually make a better product you better make your
customer feel smart for buying it - or you will fail.

~~~
TheCowboy
Do you only buy products that make you feel better or smart for buying it?

~~~
slededit
On average, yes. Statistically speaking you do as well.

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TheCowboy
Statistically speaking I do as well? What does that even mean?

Would it be fair for me to say that your entire argument is a hot take that
ignores evidence to the contrary when it contradicts your priors, because it
makes you feel better and smarter even though better quality arguments exist?

Not every purchase a person makes is some decision derived from marketing.
You're basically arguing that people have no free will here and all decision-
making is outsourced to advertising.

I see ads for things I don't buy and have no interest in all the time that do
try to use the method of appeal you describe. Your model falls apart and
doesn't explain this.

~~~
slededit
I could have used the raw statistics but it would have undermined the whole
point. People don't make fully rational decisions - even when up/down voting.

But to get analytical, the argument is not that you buy everything that is
advertised. The argument is that your purchases are primarily based upon how
the purchase makes you feel. Even for everyday "necessities" like toilet paper
which Japan gets away just fine without (they use bidet style toilets which
are more effective at cleaning). In North America a bidet "feels" weird so
nobody has one. When you get down to it toilet paper is not a logical purchase
at all - better alternatives exist.

Further the argument is not that people don't have free will, quite the
contrary. The argument is that the decision process is based upon
considerations outside the efficacy of the product. Consumers don't do
scientific studies on the products they buy, they only infer based upon
heuristics which are primarily emotional in nature. This is why people
consider bad tasting medecine to be more effective, and why Buckley's uses the
slogan, "Tastes terrible, but works!".

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detaro
URL should probably be
[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/14/technology/facebook-
data-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/14/technology/facebook-data-russia-
election-racism.html), since the submitted URL seems to only report that NYT
reported something.

~~~
danso
Agreed, the NYT story is massive, and about so much more than hiring a PR firm
to discredit critics. It includes a lot of detail of how Zuckerberg and
Sandberg reacted very poorly to the warnings from former security chief Alex
Stamos.

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puzzle
This is not exactly new. Way back when Circles/Plus were being
developed/launched/leaked, FB paid a PR company (M-B, I think) to attack
Google, while insisting on keeping anonymous about their funding. I was at
Google at the time and almost everyone thought of the usual suspects of that
era: Microsoft, Oracle or even Steve Jobs. FB was not on the radar on that
front yet and thus took everyone by surprise.

~~~
_cs2017_
The heck? What exactly did they write and why?

~~~
puzzle
[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/may/12/facebook-...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/may/12/facebook-
pr-firm-google)

To their credit, FB got better (or smarter).

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TACIXAT
>pushed the idea that liberal financier George Soros was behind a growing
anti-Facebook movement

Is there any real connection here? If not, it is really bad approach. People
pissed off about misinformation on your platform? Better fuel some conspiracy
theories to make up for it.

~~~
hnmonkey
Perhaps they've seen how well this practice works on a subset of the American
population and decided to emulate it because it was their best and least worst
idea? While a bad approach it certainly seems to resonate with some portion of
the populace.

~~~
asdff
This is exactly the danger. Morally egregious, but extremely effective
advertising for the large swaths of uneducated and ill-informed. What is to
stop a private corporation from polluting national discourse? Apparently
nothing, now that Facebook has taken the drivers seat spreading loony
conspiracy theories. This Russian playbook is public knowledge now, and
intimately studied for better or worse.

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assblaster
I still wonder to this day who is paying WSJ authors to write hit pieces
against YouTube. It's uncanny how the WSJ is persistent in its attacks on top
YouTube personalities for the purpose of getting advertisers to leave the
platform, see adpocolypse.

~~~
dirkgently
Not only WSJ, but a lot of anti-google articles by other publishers are doing
rounds of YN and most of them get upvoted right here.

The only balanced coverage I find is nytimes. Sure, they are critical of
Google when there is a reason to be, but they aren't printing them either
because somebody paid them to do it, or for hype train click-baits.

Also, they are the only ones who has balls to call out Apple.

~~~
bunnycorn
> the only ones who has balls to call out Apple.

So courageous!

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shanghaiaway
So Facebook is producing fake news. Hmm.

~~~
adtac
Ah, the Netflix model. After a point, you just have to start producing your
own content.

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notacoward
Here's a story about that firm from June of last year.

[https://www.recode.net/2017/6/7/15746928/republicans-
politic...](https://www.recode.net/2017/6/7/15746928/republicans-political-
opposition-tech-silicon-valley-trump)

The big question for me is not whether hiring an opposition-research firm is
within normal ethical limits. That ship sailed long ago, and don't think for a
moment that FB is the only one who has ever hired such an outfit. The question
is: why _this_ one? Just one look at the people involved and their records
would have told anyone who was paying attention that it's an _exceptional_
sleaze magnet and engaging with them could not turn out well in the long term.
Seriously, not a wise choice.

~~~
simonsaidit
Someone was recently convicted for fake hotel reviews if I remember right. I
don’t see how this should be any different.

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jimjimjim
Does facebook ever do anything with a shred of decency or just plain not-evil?

~~~
PavlovsCat
What I don't get is why they don't "just" try genuinely cleaning up their act.
Why not be rich, stable and wholesome; why reach for filthy rich and filthy?
Unbridled greed, and wanting to be _so_ good one _cannot_ admit any
wrongdoing, can easily wrap around to being more self-destructive than
selfish.

~~~
ravenstine
They're not doing that because their long-term goal is to remain formless
while consuming other businesses, like they have with Instagram and WhatsApp.
Long before those have gone into terminal decline, they will have purchased
some other trending technology. I don't think they really believe anyone's
going to be talking about Facebook in another 5 years, and it may even go full
Livejournal in the next year or so.

Besides that fact, they never had a clean act in the first place. Zuckerberg's
vision was never to "make the world more connected", no matter how many times
he said it. Anyone who actually looked into the guy would have found out
quickly that he was a talented programmer who happened to do the right thing
at the right time, but never in a million years had the ethos of changing the
world for the better. The company of Facebook never had a leader with a
_clean_ vision, nor will it ever.

~~~
CaptainZapp
_Long before those have gone into terminal decline, they will have purchased
some other trending technology._

I don't think so. Any other significant acquisition by Facebook will be
scrutinized by a very fine comb by the responsible authorities.

While this will matter less in the US I don't believe that European
competition authorities would allow those deals to go through today.

In addition the really dirty slime oozing out of that carbuncle [and what else
did they try to pull off, which we don't know yet?] also won't really help new
acquisitions.

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ggggtez
The politics are not surprising. They fact that they managed to not know about
radicalizing content and fake news (or not care) is more surprising. They have
the data. It's staring them in the face.

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cmsonger
Classy.

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espeed
Last month when the spin pieces posted on why WhatsApp Cofounder Brian Acton
left, I asked, "Who's submarines [0] are these?"... the contrast in the two
articles is telling....

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18078230](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18078230)

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shard972
Not sure why this is news, just the free market in motion. If consumers didn't
like this, they can just signup for another social media network.

~~~
jordonwii
...What other social media network?

~~~
tdb7893
Perfect time to switch to Google+! /s

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keyle
Ok but ... "reportedly" and "didn't respond for comment", so that remains to
be seen. I am not downplaying the effects of Facebook on politics though,
that's a huge problem.

It is true though that in many newspaper sites you'll find an inciendary title
labelled "opinion" and that could be anti-anything and very biased with little
sources (talking about the posts written by this PR firm).

That stuff has to stop. People read it like the news being reported factually
and the emphasis on "opinion" is never there.

~~~
hnmonkey
The word 'opinion' doesn't appear anywhere in the article, much less the whole
page. You seem to be implying strongly that this article is fraudulent/biased
with no evidence of that. I hope you do realize that news outlets (especially
at the size of CNBC) fact-check and try to make sure their stories are vetted.
They're not 100% perfect at that for sure, but you seem to be ascribing almost
malice to them.

'People read it like the news being reported factually' because it is. That's
literally what this is. There shouldn't be emphasis on 'opinion' because it's
not an opinion piece.

Your take on this news article is however straight up opinion.

~~~
vatueil
I think keyle is suggesting PR campaigns like the one Facebook reportedly ran
may publish slanted articles as "opinion" pieces, not that this news story is
an opinion piece.

~~~
hnmonkey
Ahhhhhhhhh. Yes I suppose that is a possible take on what they said. It didn't
seem at all clear to me that this was the case from my reading of it.

keyle, if this is your message I'm totally sorry about my interpretation.

~~~
keyle
yes it was, all good :)

~~~
hnmonkey
Sorry! I really misinterpreted what you meant to say and think we're actually
probably of the same mind on all this.

Take care.

