
You Can’t Block Mark Zuckerberg or Priscilla Chan on Facebook - OJFord
https://qz.com/1066804/facebook-fb-wont-let-you-block-mark-zuckerberg-and-priscilla-chan
======
5trokerac3
I wonder how long it will be before the common person understands that social
media has become mass scale social engineering.

If a news article critical of something Google is lobbying for doesn't come up
in a Google search, then most of the population will never know it ever
existed.

If Zuckerberg really is eyeing a political run in 2018 or 2020, will he block
his opponent's posts or those critical of him from reaching people's
timelines? Will he ban anyone critical of him from the platform? [0]

[0] - [http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/street-artist-sabos-
fa...](http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/street-artist-sabos-facebook-
page-shut-down-zuckerberg-stunt-1029102)

~~~
peteretep

        > that social media has become mass
        > scale social engineering
    

I find comments like this exceedingly glib and conspiratorial, and they're
usually presented simply as fact, as if proof was not needed.

~~~
5trokerac3
[https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-internet-flips-elections-
and-...](https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-internet-flips-elections-and-alters-
our-thoughts)

> Writing in the New Republic in 2014, Jonathan Zittrain, professor of
> international law at Harvard University, pointed out that, given the massive
> amount of information it has collected about its users, Facebook could
> easily send such messages only to people who support one particular party or
> candidate, and that doing so could easily flip a close election – with no
> one knowing that this has occurred. And because advertisements, like search
> rankings, are ephemeral, manipulating an election in this way would leave no
> paper trail.

> ...another Facebook experiment, published in 2014 in PNAS, prompted protests
> around the world. In this study, for a period of a week, 689,000 Facebook
> users were sent news feeds that contained either an excess of positive
> terms, an excess of negative terms, or neither. Those in the first group
> subsequently used slightly more positive terms in their communications,
> while those in the second group used slightly more negative terms in their
> communications. This was said to show that people’s ‘emotional states’ could
> be deliberately manipulated on a massive scale by a social media company, an
> idea that many people found disturbing. People were also upset that a large-
> scale experiment on emotion had been conducted without the explicit consent
> of any of the participants.

~~~
peteretep

        > could
    

being the operative word.

Also from your article:

    
    
        > The formation of The 
        > Groundwork prompted Julian 
        > Assange, founder of 
        > Wikileaks, to dub Google 
        > Clinton’s ‘secret weapon’ in
        > her quest for the US 
        > presidency.
    

No conspiracy no conspiracy you're the conspiracy!

~~~
5trokerac3
I think you're operating on some cognitive dissonance here, because you're not
addressing the second quote, which shows that Facebook has engaged in such
experiments.

Also, you show cognitive bias by instantly scrapping a multi-thousand word
essay because of one paragraph mentioning someone you already have a
preconceived opinion on.

~~~
5trokerac3
> The thousand word essay that turns up absolutely no evidence of foul play or
> conspiracy by owners of social media

The _multi_ -thousand word essay that not only speaks of verifiable evidence
from the author's own research proving the order or omission of search engine
results heavily shape opinion, without detection, and:

1\. Gives evidence from multiple other sources that Google's results are
biased to support their business interests.

2\. Calls upon a 50+ year precedent of corporations using all forms of media
to manipulate opinion.

3\. Recites the fact that two C-level Googlers straight up worked for Hillary
Clinton.

4\. Recites the fact that Google's search algorithm is a black box.

All this on the heels of a revelation that Eric Schmidt (one of those two that
worked for Clinton) is willing to flex his muscle in nefarious ways when
people are critical of Google, and you'd have to be unbelievably naive to
think that he's above using his technology along with his money.

------
BartSaM
Respect to the QZ for showing "profiles likely to get blocked often", using
examples of both Donald and Hilary. This is an example of neutral reporting.

------
ironic_ali
Not having a facebook profile solves this problem.

~~~
ballenf
Not being able to block the Zuck is actually a surprisingly transparent move
by the FB. To the degree it reveals the website as being his property and
dispels someone's notion that they have some "ownership" of the platform
because of how much content they've contributed to it.

~~~
ironic_ali
To prove your point, about 95% of the people I know from 14-85 have a Facebook
account (personal anecdote..). out of those, most won't know about this
information or care - and out of the small percentage that do, probably zero
will close their account after thinking critically about the implications.

I'm not quite a pariah in this group of family and friends, but not having a
Facebook account is definitely looked down upon because they have to email,
call or text me.

------
hnlmorg
> _But if you are not particularly taken by the Zuckerberg-Chan family posts,
> you have essentially no way to make sure you don’t see them._

Is this a problem other people have faced? I ask because I've never once had
any content from any of the aforementioned appear on my timeline. In fact
aside adverts (which I don't like but I get why they are there), I've never
had any content appear on my feed that I hadn't specifically opted in to.

------
polotics
I've been floating the phrase "facebook is the new cigarettes" and had good
uptake. Teens also get it, surprisingly.

~~~
ironic_ali
Given the relationship to dopamine, this is a good analogy.

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donquichotte
This is an artificial problem. Just don't follow them if you don't want to
read their posts!

Actually, I've written a script to unfollow anyone and currently I use fb just
as a messenger, using the "Friendly" app on Android, because it requires less
privileges than facebook messenger.

~~~
randallsquared
I installed and bought Friendly, but it was never great for messages (because
notifications are more miss than hit), and has become useless now that the
messages tab always shows "SoAndSo has invited you! Join her on Messenger!"
instead of, you know, messages.

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neo4sure
I wonder if these people thinking of FACE BOOK social manipulation ever think
about FOX NEWS social manipulation. Do they agree with it or are they
influenced by FOX news to think that FACE BOOK and GOOGLE are running social
manipulation?

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kevinsimper
Donald Trump and Hillary is also both pages which are different from Profiles,
they should have tried with a public personal profile.

------
sysdyne
You think that if I ,or somebody else, would own Facebook that I wouldn't
abuse it ? Wake up people!!

------
malmsteen
"lol"

Honestly this is so unimportant i don't exactly see a better answer.

I mean seriously: the higest comment in this thread right now is discussing
"social media has become mass scale social engineering"... are you for real?

It's just two guys and maybe it's not even intentional.. and maybe if it was
then so what? it's still just two guys.

People feel threatened by anything these days..

~~~
ironic_ali
I think you failed critical thinking 101.

