
Zuckerberg World President - zdw
https://mondaynote.com/zuckerberg-world-president-d2d88aa5edda#.9jdb10doy
======
temp
If you don't use Facebook, you should block all their domains

[https://github.com/jmdugan/blocklists/tree/master/corporatio...](https://github.com/jmdugan/blocklists/tree/master/corporations/facebook)

~~~
rubicon33
How would one go about blocking their domains? Is that a router config thing?

~~~
slowmotiony
Save the following text file as your hosts file (the location is mentioned in
the first few comments of the text)
[https://github.com/jmdugan/blocklists/blob/master/corporatio...](https://github.com/jmdugan/blocklists/blob/master/corporations/facebook/all-
ipv6)

------
cisstrd
I am not as worried as other people are about Facebook, and here is why:

a) Facebook has less users not more, while they always emphasize their user
growth I come across more and more people in real life who simply don't have a
Facebook-Account, and those are social people. I am careful about basing too
much on my own experience ofc, but this was very seldomly the case 4-5 years
ago and now happens to me very often.

b) More and more users are disillusioned with Facebook to some extent. Due to
some minor reasons I keep a Facebook account (various purposes, among those
domain-specific groups to get questions answered and log in maybe once a
month) and I see among my peers many who aren't really using it for much
anymore. The occasional photo update with minor interaction via comments, the
occasional posting of a music video, or the few users in between with heavy
political activism on their timeline who apparently don't realize that next to
no one will read it anyways and _sigh_ about that crap. Facebook simply isn't
cool anymore, so many don't care for most of its features and instead all they
want is something to easily chat with people, aka WhatsApp.

c) Facebook certainly has trouble with attracting younger users and this won't
stop. A social media platform where it takes a few days after account creation
til your grandfather sends you a friend request and you have to answer to your
parents about what you just posted? Definitely the cool place to be. Similar
things probably can be said about WhatsApp to some extent. WhatsApp is what
used to be normal SMS functionality in a way, while probably everyone has it
cause everyone has it, it certainly isn't something exiting anymore.

d) Those who in my opinion over-estimate Facebook's role grossly under-
estimate how fragile companies are and how easy (in my opinion) something like
Facebook could start to fail. It happened to companies before, it will happen
again. I don't know when, I don't know exactly why (though many possible
reasons are viable). Everyone being on Facebook instead of just your 10
coolest friends might be what kills it in the end for young people for
example, who knows what comes along and might attract user growth. The mobile
market has made that certainly more dynamic via Apps, it's easier for a new
chat App to gain traction than for a new social media website and WhatsApp
with 1+ Billion users might not be bold enough to explore what the next big
feature is people yet don't know they want. I know Facebook owns WhatsApp, I
know Facebook invests in VR, I know their revenue is extreme and they have
money stockpiled, I also know that isn't a guarantee of anything...

After thought: Anyone believing in the mighty power of Facebook should put
their money where their mouth is and invest heavily in the stock, if Facebook
is this monster of a multinational all-controlling company led by this young
genius, a company with only growth ahead and such a minimal risk of failing
then it shouldn't be a tough decision to make right?

~~~
forrestthewoods
> Facebook has less users not more, while they always emphasize their user
> growth I come across more and more people in real life who simply don't have
> a Facebook-Account,

The data strongly disagrees with your anecdote. It wasn't but a few years ago
they were targeting 1 billion users. Now they're at almost 2 billion.

[http://1u88jj3r4db2x4txp44yqfj1.wpengine.netdna-
cdn.com/wp-c...](http://1u88jj3r4db2x4txp44yqfj1.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-
content/uploads/2016/04/facebook_monthly_q1_2016.png)

~~~
MegaButts
How do they define active though? Does that just mean someone that logs in
once during that month? Admittedly, that's still something, but it's not the
kind of engagement that will excite advertisers.

~~~
forrestthewoods
$27,000,000,000 worldwide advertising revenue in 2016. Up 50% from 2015. I'd
say advertisers are sufficiently excited.

[https://www.statista.com/statistics/271258/facebooks-
adverti...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/271258/facebooks-advertising-
revenue-worldwide/)

~~~
MegaButts
So I've always wondered about this. How many of those companies are making a
return on their advertising? Everybody knows that there are bots that click on
ads, so for clicks I'd imagine the metrics are useless. So then the obvious
follow-up is conversion - how many people click through and then buy
something? I imagine for some companies this is a positive return and then
obviously the money was well spent, but what about the many companies where
that just doesn't directly translate? Advertising for cars is very different
than advertising for toys. I imagine a lot of companies trying to generate
brand awareness through advertising are wasting money. And it's obvious many
sites are gaming the system with autoplay videos and a bunch of other
obnoxious shit.

Obviously this works well for Facebook as they continue to generate revenue.
I've just never understood the advertising world. Then again, I use adblock
and when I used to watch broadcast TV I muted commercials, so I'm not the
target demographic. I know in addition to ads they make money selling your
information, such as Facebook's patent to determine your credit score based on
your friends (doesn't that sound fun).

I realize this is a mature industry and I do not pretend that I have some
brilliant insight nobody has thought of before. But I do question the
assumptions on which modern advertising is based.

~~~
forrestthewoods
My industry is premium video games. But a lot of my industry friends are in
the mobile f2p world. According to them not only is Facebook a clear return on
investment it's by far the best. No other advertising platform comes close in
efficiency.

Successful games can achieve a user lifetime value (LTV) in the range of $5 to
$10. Which lets them turn on a firehouse of advertising money. If user
acqusition costs $4/user but their LTV is $8 that's a good deal!

I'm somewhat with you. I also block all the ads. And I'm not a fan of the vast
majority of f2p games. But the proof is in the pudding. It works and
businesses are highly profitable off the back of Facebook advertising. <shrug>

------
jungturk
(reaching now) - i wonder that fb mightn't be a phenomenon that transforms the
"we" that we're so used to into the "us" that forms the basis of super-human
organizations.

that this ain't a similar transition that might've occurred as singular-celled
organisms became co-opted into the multicellular, and the multicellular became
co-opted into communities, and those communities became co-opted into
cultures, and those cultures became co-opted into...

Its a laddering fractal up into scale-similar, and self-organizing, beings...

~~~
edejong
The keyword is self-organising. In order for evolution to work, partial
information decentralisation is key.

------
rdtsc
> His company sells persuasion tools to manufacturers of consumer (and
> industrial) goods and services producers.

I think the whole "Fake News" is the start of a new thing. What has happened
is that traditional media failed to manufacture consent like it was supposed
to. It surely wasn't for the lack of trying. They were passing debate
questions to their favorite candidate, claiming reading leaked document is
only legal for the media and so on. So they really tried, failed, and everyone
noticed.

That in effect, created a vacuum in that market. That is the market of "pay us
a lots of money and we'll persuade millions of people to accept whatever
ideology, products, ideas you want". It is good for selling trinkets, but also
good for electing officials and so on.

Notice how quickly (and smartly) both Google and Facebook jumped in:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/25/technology/google-
faceboo...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/25/technology/google-facebook-
fake-news.html)

Now it has to be wrapped officially in "We are saving those poor uneducated
slobs from being told lizard people run the government" and so on, but I think
the message has to be read between the lines.

~~~
meowface
>They were passing debate questions to their favorite candidate

Sort of. Rather, Donna Brazile, a high-ranking Democrat at the time, was also
working as a CNN analyst. She got access to general debate topics and sent
them to Clinton's camp.

CNN fired her almost immediately upon learning this, and said:

>"CNN never gave Brazile access to any questions, prep material, attendee
list, background information or meetings in advance of a town hall or debate."
[0]

Brazile doubled down, criticized CNN, and said her only regret was getting
caught. [0]

>“My conscience — as an activist, a strategist — is very clear [...] if I had
to do it all over again, I would know a hell of a lot more about
cybersecurity.”

CNN is not at fault here. Brazile violated her contract and general ethical
standards to support her party. I'm no fan of CNN, but they did not leak
questions intentionally.

Sure, CNN could be lying and Brazile could be agreeing to take the fall. But
considering they both shittalked each other in the media after she was fired,
and CNN's immediate condemnation of her and her actions, then that's a pretty
hefty conspiracy theory claim. To me, this just seems like the Democratic
leadership wasn't afraid to play a little dirty - all of their own doing.

>claiming reading leaked document is only legal for the media

Who did this? Every major media source, including the left-leaning ones,
openly discussed and sometimes provided links to the Wikileaks archives.

[0] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-
fix/wp/2016/11/07/do...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-
fix/wp/2016/11/07/donna-brazile-is-totally-not-sorry-for-leaking-cnn-debate-
questions-to-hillary-clinton/)

~~~
remarkEon
>Who did this?

The claim that "reading leaked document[s] is only legal for the media" isn't
what was actually said, but this clip is probably what parent is referring to.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DcATG9Qy_A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DcATG9Qy_A)

~~~
meowface
Well, that's pretty bad.

A charitable interpretation would be that the scriptwriter, or Cuomo,
genuinely believed this to be true and so were ignorantly trying to give
helpful advice to the audience. Maybe not, though.

Regardless, both of the grandparent post's criticisms (and I'd really only
merit this one criticism as particularly valid) apply to CNN, which has
consistently proved itself to be one of the worst mainstream outlets of the
decade. So I wouldn't take that as a huge indictment of the media in general.
He'll have to provide more examples than that.

~~~
InternetUser
You may be dismayed that many the new voters in the new few elections do not
share your high level of faith in the mainstream media: a Data & Society
report posted last week finds that American teenagers have low levels of trust
in the media:

[https://datasociety.net/blog/2017/03/01/navigating-the-
news/](https://datasociety.net/blog/2017/03/01/navigating-the-news/)

~~~
meowface
I'm not dismayed by it.

