
‘No Morals’: Advertisers React to Facebook Report - mindgam3
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/15/business/media/facebook-advertisers.html
======
mindgam3
[EDIT] I don't know why this post has been flagged. It was on the front page
for a while, now it's gone. Are there any mods who can comment?

\-------

‘The revelations may be “the straw that breaks the camel’s back,” said Rishad
Tobaccowala, chief growth officer for the Publicis Groupe, one of the world’s
biggest ad companies. “Now we know Facebook will do whatever it takes to make
money. They have absolutely no morals.”’

When an ad executive is calling you out for doing whatever it takes to make
money... you know you’ve got problems.

I remain convinced that the only thing that will turn Facebook around longterm
is a new CEO. No illusions about that happening any time soon due to Zuck’s
control of voting shares. The stock will have to tank for at least another 3-6
months before the prospect of a shareholder revolt will finally motivate the
board of directors to put an adult in charge.

I’m no fan of Uber, but I have to admit that they have made progress as a
company since Kalanick was ousted and Khosrowshashahi took over. The same kind
of values-based turnaround is possible at FB. But not with Zuck at the helm.

~~~
aaaaaaaaaab
>The stock will have to tank for at least another 3-6 months

I hope so! I’m starting there next year so the less their stock is worth then
the more I can profit on my RSUs assigned on joining.

~~~
mindgam3
I don’t have a crystal ball, but if I had money to play the market I would be
shorting the heck out of FB right now. So I think you’re in good shape. That
said, did you consider working for another company that wasn’t so ethically
compromised?

~~~
aaaaaaaaaab
Well, I consider this my golden ticket to raise the money needed to
comfortably start a family with my partner. Call me Machiavellian, but this is
the goal I’m willing to work in the sewers a few years.

~~~
FakeComments
You’re undermining the well-being of your future children by doing so: you
generate the start-up costs for your family by creating a world in which a
company will psychologically manipulate them from the age they’re starting to
form their independent identity onwards. For that matter, it might actually
even undermine your relationship with your partner — by constantly exposing
them to lifestyle porn and fostering unhappiness.

I hope that ends well for you.

Sometimes, your means goals can undermine your top-priority goal.

If you were really Machiavellian, you’d be a welder with a side project using
pilfered IP — realizing that being “in the sewers” is much more productive if
you’re not destabilizing the very society you’re going to later depend on.

~~~
aaaaaaaaaab
My dad taught me critical thinking and to think about the motives of different
actors around us (people, corporations, media, politicians).

I’ll try to raise my children similarly. I’ll teach them about privacy, like
my dad who insisted that each family member should have their own account on
the family computer, even when we were small kids with my brother.

The way I see it, if it weren’t for FB, there would be others trying to
manipulate them, like other tech companies, advertisers in general, or simply
scammers. So the need to raise your children to be conscious about these
things is not a recent development, and not strictly due to FB. I know this
doesn’t make me “innocent” though.

~~~
FakeComments
“The world is already toxic, there’s nothing wrong with me manufacturing
poison!”

I get the logic, I just don’t agree — and I think it’s the kind of thinking
that underlies “penny wise, pound foolish” or similar sayings. It’s also just
outright untrue that anything like Facebook existed over 20 years ago — you’re
contributing to something new, or at least a massive escalation in kind likely
to bring about qualitative differences, not merely producing “more of the
same”.

Also, I think it’s naive to say kids with critical thinking skills are
equipped to fend off hundreds of PhDs backed by thousands of programmers
implementing their tools, coupled to all of their friends peer pressuring
them.

Or adults, or institutions, or....

I don’t want you to think I don’t respect your motivations or view, though — I
just think you made some errors in assessing trade offs, in a way that hurts
not only you, but everyone else.

I think that’s worth pointing out.

Have a good one, and sincerely, best luck starting a family!

------
ForHackernews
I guess it's nice that these execs are in high dudgeon in the NYT, but nothing
will change until they move their money.

~~~
FakeComments
I think of it like watching something really big move:

There’s a lot of whines and groans as stress builds, but inertia holds it in a
roughly steady state until — snap! — it’s in motion, and the entire side of a
mountain sloughs off.

It’s _really_ bad for FB if large ad agencies are talking about them as two
faced, doubting their honesty and wanting to see actions, or just outright
grumbling about how they want to move platforms.

Those are the noises that precede a large scale break.

~~~
r00fus
Kind of like how Hemingway described going bankrupt... "Two ways - Gradually,
then Suddenly"

------
mindgam3
Question for mods: why is this post getting flagged?

~~~
sctb
We don't know exactly why users flagged this post, but it's possible that they
felt the issue was sufficiently discussed at the time (there were heaps of
Facebook-related posts about the report then). We've turned off the flags now
so the discussion can continue.

~~~
mindgam3
Thanks for the possible explanation. I just came across the source article in
my news reader today so I assumed it was today's news. Not sure how I missed
it last month.

I know there were various threads on HN about the NYT report, but I don't
remember any discussion of this particular topic around advertisers. Did I
miss this being previously discussed in HN?

------
letorruella
This doesn’t have anything to do with this but as a developer I cannot longer
see the word “React” with its intended meaning.

------
fumar
Why is this flagged? Advertisers calling out Facebook is a big shift in the
industry. Two years ago, agencies talked about their love for Facebook's
people-based marketing.

