
As Facebook Struggles, Rivals’ Leaders Stay Mostly Mum - domevent
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/01/technology/facebook-tech-industry-leaders.html
======
primitur
The elephant in the room is not Facebook.

Its the generations of people who have, over the last 10 years, grown up to
assume that their personal lives are of interest to others, and wish therefore
to capitalize/profit on exposing their life to strangers.

This is going to be a much more difficult precipice to step back from than,
say, the rampant piracy of things like Napster, and so on. We'll definitely
have to push technology harder and further to establish better ways for these
addicts to come down from their highs and return to a more normal level of
social interaction - but then again, maybe its too late.

(Upvote me if you agree.)

Seriously though, I believe we have to appeal to one demographic that gets
ignored through all of this, thick and thin: parents. Its truly the only way
to adjust this cultural liability for future generations - we simply must
insist on parental controls over social media from now on.

And, in addition, we have to establish that parents _should_ regulate their
kids' use of online/social media tools in such a way that we reduce the
devolutionary effect on human interaction that is occurring now.

Perhaps its truly time for a revolutionary new service: FamilyBook. You can
only gain access with a birth certificate .. mmm ...

~~~
harryf
> And, in addition, we have to establish that parents should regulate their
> kids' use of online/social media tools in such a way that we reduce the
> devolutionary effect on human interaction that is occurring now.

Basically: yes! But with lots of caveats.

\- Parents shouldn't be able to play Big Brother in their children's lives -
it's important for all kinds of reasons, especially sexual development, that
children and teenagers get to have a safe degree of privacy e.g. son who's gay
vs father who's homophobic

\- "I blame the parents" needs to be eliminated from the conversation.
Parenting today is full of bad compromises e.g. give your kids access to
social media and expose them to a random stream of cultural influences vs.
isolate them and risk social exclusion. And most parents anyway have little
extra time / energy for keeping tabs on whether your child's use of a VR
headset or whatever latest consumer tech found its way into your household is
harmful or not.

\- we need to exercise collective wisdom on what social media does to
children. Seeing my daughter using musical.ly for example really makes we
wonder if we're training a generation of narcissists.

...and that's just three off the top of my head

~~~
Zak
> _we need to exercise collective wisdom on what social media does to
> children_

You seem to be suggesting some sort of regulation. Since you weren't concrete
and specific, I can't respond to that directly, but I urge you to keep in
mind:

* Many things that are valuable to adults may be dangerous to children. Consider a kitchen knife, power tools or cleaning chemicals.

* With all the privacy concerns that are in the public eye lately, age verification, which is probably difficult to separate from identity verification, seems fairly unappealing.

~~~
watwut
Kids able to read and write enough for Facebook are remarkably safe around
kitchen knife and cleaning chemicals. Teenagera are fully able to operate
power tools.

~~~
Zak
Many, perhaps most are indeed. I think most teenagers are also able to use
social media in ways that aren't harmful to them.

~~~
watwut
One difference is that while your safety around knife or tool depends only on
you, your safety on social media can easily be ended by other people.

You don't have full control over social media you do have around cleaning and
knives.

------
marricks
Speak out against FB, people call you a hypocrite. Speak out in defense...
we’ll who would be stupid enough to do that.

I bet their real play is lobbying legislators aggressively to weaken any
potential legislation against them.

[https://theintercept.com/2018/03/29/the-u-s-government-is-
fi...](https://theintercept.com/2018/03/29/the-u-s-government-is-finally-
scrambling-to-regulate-facebook/)

------
dawhizkid
Snapchat is definitely not staying mum this April Fool's
[https://twitter.com/CaseyNewton/status/980341288753967109](https://twitter.com/CaseyNewton/status/980341288753967109)

~~~
dictum
It's disappointing how this kind of commentary, disparaging a whole
nation/language instead of a government/chief of state, is seeping into mass
media. Another recent example is the mock-Cyrillic in the Silicon Valley
intro.

It stops being about _Putin_ , _the Russian government_ , _leading Russian
politicians_ , _Russian oligarchs_ or some identifiable group. It becomes "the
Russians".

(It's not a new phenomenon—remember Dr. Seuss's cartoons about the
Japanese?—but it's being done by people who arguably didn't skip the lessons
about the problems with national exceptionalism and just recently were making
sure everyone knew that.)

~~~
oblio
That tends to happen when you’re supposed to be living in a democracy.

At least with the Soviets there was no pretending.

~~~
Nuzzerino
There was plenty of pretending in the Soviet Union. Perhaps even more.

------
rco8786
Because they’re all doing the same stuff?

~~~
maxxxxx
Exactly! Google, Twitter, Snap and others are exactly the same. It's exactly
the same business models as Facebook's. The whole focus on Facebook is pretty
misguided. Maybe it will hurt Facebook but there will be a ton of companies
ready to jump in and do exactly the same or worse. In the end we need privacy
regulation and make the business of selling customer data difficult to the
point it doesn't make sense for most companies.

~~~
creato
They are not the same. Yes, they all collect a lot of information, but only
Facebook allowed much of that information to come into possession of third
parties.

~~~
maxxxxx
Just wait. They will all look for ways to monetize their data once there is
pressure to meet growth numbers.

------
hx2a
Today the WSJ has an article with the opposite headline:

Silicon Valley Rivals Take Shots at Facebook
[https://www.wsj.com/articles/silicon-valley-rivals-take-
shot...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/silicon-valley-rivals-take-shots-at-
facebook-1522595763)

~~~
paxys
Other SV companies (Apple, Salesforce etc.) and former Facebook executives,
but no one that actually compete with them in social networking/advertising.
The lone Google statement is a personal one from an engineer, not a company
stance.

------
paxys
> Part of the silence, people in the industry say, comes from a desire to
> avoid the business equivalent of bad karma — knowing that they, too, may one
> day face the buzz saw of public censure.

This is pretty much it. Rule 1 of PR is not to criticize competitors for
problems you have as well.

------
kelukelugames
lol, what did you expect?

I worked at Microsoft when the Playstation got hacked. They were like, "let's
not say anything and attract attention from the hackers."

~~~
aswanson
Thats kind of sinister.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
Is it "sinister" to not want to also get hacked? Hackers love a challenge, the
worst thing you could do in response to a competitor getting hacked is suggest
you aren't as vulnerable. It's basically an invitation.

------
bookofjoe
“Never try to kill a man who’s trying to commit suicide.”—anonymous

------
ror6ax
YOLO, people from IBM and Apple chiming in to preach about business decency.
Now I've seen everything.

------
dominotw
how do they facebook is struggling? Their numbers might have been unaffected
by all the scandals, for all we know.

Remember all the articles about 'Toxic Struggling Uber' , turns out no one
really cared and their numbers didn't change much.

~~~
machinehermit
I think it is reflection of the total bubbles people live in.

I have facebook and not a single person has deleted their account. Honestly, I
doubt any of my friends on facebook know or care about this "movement".

It is just some goofy form of entertainment for young people who waste too
much time on twitter.

------
sheeshkebab
When is Verizon going to buy Facebook? Any rumors out there?

------
dom96
They stay "Mum"? Boy that sounds odd to a British resident.

~~~
petepete
Not to this one, mum means to stay silent (mum as in 'mmm', not your mother).
Even Shakespeare used it in Henry VI

> Seal up your lips and give no words but mum

~~~
jacobolus
'mum' meaning silent dates from the 15th century. 'mum' meaning 'mother' (in
England) dates from the 17th century.

Various English posters and signs in WWII warned readers to 'be like dad –
keep mum'.

[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/INF3-243...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/INF3-243_Anti-
rumour_and_careless_talk_Be_like_dad_-_keep_Mum_Artist_Alexander.jpg)

[https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/be-like-dad-
ke...](https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/be-like-dad-keep-
mum-c-1940s-propaganda-sign-encouraging-news-photo/102731046)

~~~
a_e_k
Yep. And of course "Mum's the word!"

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mum%27s_the_word](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mum%27s_the_word)

Though in terms of Shakespeare, my favorite bit on keeping quiet is actually
Iago's last line: "Demand me nothing: what you know, you know: From this time
forth I never will speak word." My wife and I tend to quote it around
Christmas and birthdays. :-)

------
fancyfacebook
I've been wondering for a few years now what it would look like if one of
these tech behemoths collapsed, mainly in the context of how intertwined and
globalized they all are now.

We're also not allowed to talk about how important and integrated these
companies are with the defense industry, but they are. Lots of people working
on lots of projects that they can't put on their resume. Some of these
companies are practically governmental entities, particularly the telecoms.

Maybe too big to fail isn't the correct term, more like too integrated to
fail. Market caps can move around but the apparatus must be maintained.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
AOL and Yahoo are now both properties of Verizon.

The idea that one of these companies could fall in a "literally just gone from
the Internet" standpoint isn't realistic. They're worth too much, and someone
will buy them for some amount, and keep the basics of their company online.

