

As Facebook Takes a Beating, a Brutal Movie Is Set to Make Things Much Worse - marcusbooster
http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/techtonicshifts/archive/2010/05/13/as-facebook-takes-a-beating-a-brutal-movie-is-set-to-make-things-much-worse.aspx

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jsm386
If you want to read it yourself: [http://wiscreenwritersforum.org/wp-
content/uploads/2010/01/S...](http://wiscreenwritersforum.org/wp-
content/uploads/2010/01/Social-Network-The-by-Aaron-Sorkin-May-28-2009.pdf)

All 162 pages.

edit: Ironic quote on page 62, which actually exists in the Harvard Crimson:

 _Zuckerberg said that he hoped the privacy options would help to restore his
reputation following student outrage over facemash.com, a website he created
in the fall semester._

[http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2004/2/9/hundreds-
register...](http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2004/2/9/hundreds-register-for-
new-facebook-website/)

~~~
paraschopra
Thanks for sharing that old article. It had one interesting nugget:

>While Zuckerberg promised that thefacebook.com would boast new features by
the end of the week, he said that he did not create the website with the
intention of generating revenue.

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lr
Sorkin is a fantastic writer. Some of the best TV shows of the past 12 years
(The West Wing, Studio 60, Sports Night) were written by Sorkin. When I first
heard about Sorkin doing a Facebook movie I was dismayed. However, now, given
all the things that are going on with Facebook, I think it shows he has an
insight beyond most (this movie has been in the works for quite some time
now).

~~~
rue
(Also, the movie "Charlie Wilson's War" is definitely worth watching if you
have not seen it.)

~~~
trafficlight
I did not like that movie. It felt like the movie was building the whole time
and then abruptly ended. They were trying to start a war and then all of a
sudden the war was over.

~~~
dejb
Should you add spoiler alert to this your post?

~~~
seunosewa
If that's a spoiler then the movie must be 'twist movie'. It may be more
important to warn people about it!

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neurotech1
One thing that annoys me is how often someone is portrayed in the media as
borderline autistic, or having Aspergers.

Borderline Personality disorder or Narcissism would be closer to the mark.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borderline_personality_disorder>
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism>

When I worked around more therapists(I worked as a qEEG tech) it became
apparent that some are the worst offenders when it comes to "inability to
respect social norms"

~~~
inboulder
Not that I disagree, but "inability to respect social norms" is basically part
of the definition of Borderline Personality disorder or Narcissism, so saying
as much is basically tautological.

~~~
barrkel
Basically that's what he was saying: that Aspergers or borderline autistic are
basically less accurate descriptions than BPD etc.

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chegra
Hey anyone get the feeling that we are being played by the media. There might
be some legitimate privacy issues, but is it this bad or over hyped for an
upcoming movie? Let's be critical.

I have posted a time-line of diaspora success:
<http://chegra.posterous.com/time-line-for-diaspora>

What I want to do next is to investigate their dna. Who are the people that
first got this going? What are the connections? Did readwriteweb have a
connection with them. How about the nytimes?

I could be paranoid, but my intuition says dig deeper.

------
philk
I don't trust Facebook but to be honest I trust sensationalist Hollywood
dramatizations even less.

~~~
mortenjorck
The general public, though, tends to be rather the opposite. Toward both.

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res0nat0r
I love amid all of this uproar on HN and other tech sites approximately
0.00002% of facebooks user list have actually cared enough to cancel their
accounts. This will blow over next week when Gizmodo steals new hardware from
someone else.

~~~
jacquesm
Better still, every _hour_ there are probably more new signups to facebook
than have cancelled in the last months because of this flap.

That doesn't mean it is wasted time though, facebook is a brand and brands are
vulnerable to more than just absolute numbers of people leaving.

Advertisers will take note, for instance.

~~~
bad_user
Rate of new signups is also important because that's in correlation with the
number of active users and with projections of growth advertisers love so
much.

I have lots of friends that aren't on Facebook, and I have friends that are
inactive on Facebook, logging only when they get a direct message.

Contrary to popular belief, IMHO switching from Facebook to something else is
not that hard. People that are active online do have multiple accounts on
multiple social apps. And you can use Facebook to advertise your new favorite
social app to your friends.

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clemesha
Holy shit, this Facebook situation is turning into a full-on witch hunt.

Mostly the intense criticism is warranted, but I feel as though a lot of
levelheadedness is starting to go out the window.

~~~
joezydeco
Maybe the public finally realizes all these titans of the tech scene (going
back to Gates, Jobs, Ellison, etc) are deep deep down just another bunch of
cash-driven assholes like the rest of the business world.

The media got swindled by putting them all on pedestals. (Wired, you're the
latest guilty party by putting Zuck next to Gates on the cover).

Time to knock a few down.

~~~
derwiki
Gates: made computing ubiquitous; I've seen Windows boxes in rural towns in
3rd world countries Goldman Sachs & Co: "bunch of cash-driven assholes"

I think Gates has done considerable more good for the world than the other
assholes of the business world.

~~~
celoyd
I have great respect for how Gates is spending his money now.

But, in all seriousness, Windows (including Office etc.) is morally
questionable. Grant me two points:

First, it could be better without serious harm to its success. Over the last
15 years, Microsoft could have funded security and usability a bit more and
saturation advertising a bit less, and it would have the same market share but
save its users something like 10% of their use time.

Second, it hasn’t competed ethically. Microsoft under Gates did things that
were only slightly to its medium-term benefit and very much to the detriment
of the market. Many products that were clearly better for the user never got a
fair shake. Cutthroat capitalism has its place, but Gates went further.

Given these, the opportunity cost of Windows adds up to a _huge_ amount of
inefficiency – time spent needlessly fighting computers – for which Gates is
significantly responsible.

Some back-of-the-envelope math: If Windows has an install base of 1 billion,
and the average install is used for 4 hours a day, that’s about 150 million
Windows-years per year. If Gates is personally responsible for 1% inefficiency
there, that’s about 1.5 million person-years of waste per year.

Would that particular time and effort have cured cancer? Or made the Linux
kernel twice as good? No. But it’s still a lot to waste.

I’m trying not to be glib. I know it’s not original to say that Windows sucks.
My point is that when something _really big_ sucks _preventably_ , we’re
talking about significant amounts of resources burning away, and that has a
moral dimension. More power to Gates as he eradicates malaria, but as far as
I’m concerned he started with a big debt to society.

~~~
bad_user
> _Microsoft under Gates did things that were only slightly to its medium-term
> benefit and very much to the detriment of the market._

If Microsoft would have delivered sexy / functional products, nobody would
have noticed ... not only that, but they would have a legion of people
defending them.

Unfortunately they preferred to make partnerships with companies like Intel,
Compaq or HP, favoring IBM-compatible PCs, or hardware that was more open /
accessible, putting a lot of control in the hands of hardware companies.

Maybe it was IBM breathing down their necks, maybe it made sense for their
business, but if this didn't happen Windows NT would've been released as a
consumer version instead of Win 9x ... which is the main culprit of almost all
problems associated with Windows.

And I don't know what "big debt to society" you're talking about ... in '95 in
my (arguably third world country) I live in schools in small towns had
computer-labs with Microsoft software on it. If IBM-compatible PCs weren't so
popular (with MS software contributing a lot to that) or free to clone, we
wouldn't have had local companies producing cheap computers, and thus we
wouldn't have had computers in school (and I wouldn't be a software developer
for that matter).

IMHO, I see a lot of double-standards flying around.

~~~
celoyd
This is why my first premise is important. I’m asking you to accept that
Windows could have been better without serious harm to its success. I’m
blaming Gates more for things like security and usability than for an approach
to hardware platforms. If you disagree, I’d be interested to know why.

Basically, I recognize the huge benefit to society that Microsoft was
_involved_ with. What I’m asking is whether they used the huge opportunities
they got (by hook or by crook) as well as should be expected.

(“Third world”, incidentally, originally meant countries that were unaligned
in the Cold War, and has no clear meaning when it comes to poverty or human
development.)

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trevelyan
The article doesn't even mention that the director is David Fincher. That
alone makes it a must-see.

------
marcusbooster
On IMDB: <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1285016/>

Starring Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg and Justin Timberlake as Sean
Parker!

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jrockway
So, an obscure movie is going to convince people to leave all their friends
behind? Yeah, I bet...

If anything, Facebook should do something like this themselves, to maximize
advertising revenue. If you place a product in the movie _and_ advertise on
Facebook, you're getting every demographic :)

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madair
Stinky implications: _it portrays Zuckerberg as a borderline autistic,
entirely ruthless conniver_

Those dangerous autistics....bring your children inside!

~~~
dfranke
Also, how many autistic sociopaths have you ever met? Those two traits just
don't go together.

I'm autistic and can recognize autistics very quickly. I've met Zuck face-to-
face and didn't get any of that vibe from him at all.

~~~
queensnake
| how many autistic sociopaths have you ever met? Those two traits just don't
go together.

Well more like, probably, that autism /neuters/ the sociopathy. You wouldn't
have the skill to exploit people. Even more likely, they're both just
rarities; someone with both would be rare^2.

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metamemetics
The comment[s] section on that article is gold. These damn "chatlines" just
make me want to run my sentences together in rage.

