That's the part about "Definers" at the end of the article. They make sure not to say his name.
Their claim is -- and this is ridiculous -- their PR team thought people needed to know that a campaign criticizing Facebook was funded in part by "a well-known critic of Facebook" and it's entirely coincidental that this well-known critic is the bogeyman of the right. (Who would have guessed that Facebook critics criticize Facebook?)
Of course, as a response to their PR organization supposedly doing nothing wrong, just presenting people with vitally important tautologies, they have fired them.
It's remarkable how much of this response just mildly confirms the New York Times article. (We reject the claim that Facebook execs all use Android just because Zuck hates Tim Cook! They use Android because they need an operating system on their mobile phones, and because Zuck hates Tim Cook.)
While pointing out funding from George Soros is an overused trick reliant on ad hominem, I do not see how it is any more outrageous or racist than the even more common trope of vilifying projects because they are linked to the Koch brothers.
I'm part Jewish myself and I don't think criticism of Sheldon Adelson or George Soros for their political activity is necessarily anti-Semitic.
That's not the issue. The issue is that actual, proud anti-Semites have created and pushed horrible conspiracy theories and gross content about George Soros for years, and any PR company worth their salt should know that. Knowing that sort of thing, navigating a message through the broader cultural context, is job #1 for a PR firm. It is why PR exists as an industry.
So, Definers either consciously played into those attacks on Soros, or are incompetent.
This response is a disaster of PR. Facebook are the trolls, the cyber-bullies, the fake news.
It is time that they learned to respond like grown ups. This is supposed to be a world leading company, and they write press stuff like a school yard bully would. I see a fad about to hit it's inevitable decline.
I don’t think I’m the only one that finds it a bit weird what a hash FB have made of this issue. For a long time it was an era-defining company. It’s employees and even Zuckerberg seemed intent on making the world a better place. But the machine metastasized into something other than a tool to share baby pictures with distant relatives. I think we’ve all (re)learned for the first time that virality seems to favour the bad guys. Tap our worse nature and score eyeballs(1). In a sense this wasn’t FB’s fault, it’s a feature of human nature which FB inadvertently facilitated.
As such, I don’t see why FB just didn’t try and own this. They had a lot of goodwill, even as the platform changed over the years. Why didn’t they just come clean: we have a serious issue, and we’re going to close down aspects of the platform until we can deal with it.
I obviously know none of the protagonists of this tale, but I’d love some insight into their personalities and how these drove their decisions.
(1) I say (re)learned as this as been the profit basis of British tabloids for 30 years and more.
Edit: for formatting and clarification of one point.
> I don’t see why FB just didn’t try and own this. They had a lot of goodwill, even as the platform changed over the years. Why didn’t they just come clean: we have a serious issue, and we’re going to close down aspects of the platform until we can deal with it.
Probably because, at their core, they're a shady company. The idea of being upfront, honest, and embracing shot term pain to benefit others is alien to their DNA.
Facebook's entire business model involves tracking people and tricking them to reveal more about themselves than they realize, then they use that data in ways they're not entirely honest about. Those practices build institutional habits of mind that are hard to break.
The movie The Social Network might be half fictionalized, but it portrayed a way someone like Zuckerberg or Sanders could be out of touch with reality by not responding to normal social cues or morals, and then getting used to getting away with things.
The platform has so much volume they refuse to actually hire enough people to monitor it, they've adapted to this level of profitability and won't change without being forced to (it's the same issue with Youtube, if it can't be automated, the platform would have to change) - it's like how in the USA and even the UK farmers with significant manual labour requirements won't raise wages, they'll try to get migrant farm workers to do it.
out of touch with reality by not responding to normal social cues or morals, and then getting used to getting away with things.
I like to call this Michael Jackson Syndrome.
People get rich and/or famous enough and surround themselves with enough sycophants who keep telling them how great they are and they start doing things that normal people wouldn't do. Then it turns into a destructive feedback loop.
Uhh I definitely wouldn't compare Michael Jackson to a Zuckerbot/Sandberg (the latter were raised in seemingly wholesome suburban families and just seem to have ego/greed issues, while the former (not being a saint himself or anything) was the victim on an abusive/oppressive childhood). Don't really want to get into this, as it'd be an unrelated tangent.
TLDR: this is a horrible attempt at drawing a parallel
Consider this: Facebook brought on Joel Kaplan in May 2011.
According to wikipedia:
In May 2011 Facebook hired Kaplan as its vice president of U.S. Public Policy, as part of a Facebook's effort to "strengthen" the company's ties to Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill.[8] In October 2014 Kaplan succeeded Marne Levine as Facebook's vice president of global public policy.[9]
The first big FTC ding against FB was in Nov 2011. That's some good timing!
Further, before working for Facebook, the wonderful Joel Kaplan oversaw public affairs for Energy Future Holdings. Ok, so what? Well, from the wikipedia for Energy Future Holdings:
Energy Future Holdings owns four of the nation’s highest emitting coal-fired power plants, which together account for approximately one quarter of all industrial/utility air pollution reported to Texas regulators.
And:
The Martin Lake, Big Brown, and Monticello plants rank first, third, and fourth, respectively, in airborne mercury pollution in the United States according to company reports submitted to the EPA.[10][13] Such high levels of mercury pollution have drawn criticism for their harmful effects on child development.[13]
And:
NOx emissions from EFH’s coal plants help contribute to harmful levels of ozone in the air in Dallas and other parts of east Texas, and ozone pollution can trigger asthma attacks and respiratory problems.[13]
So you have this guy that clearly gives zero fucks about "making the world a better place" or whatever Mark says his vision is.
> It’s employees and even Zuckerberg seemed intent on making the world a better place.
That was their public relations working as planned.
Actions never reflected that. Unlike Google, who had, in fact, tried to not be evil (but has since removed "don't be evil" from their mission statement...), FB was evil from the start, but behaved like it was the fault of those dumb fucks. (And in many ways, it still is - fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, then thrice, then gogoolice...)
Yes, I can only imagine the shitstorm that went down yesterday.
They should have called it the Mark and Sheryl rebuttle as this piece was really only about them. Digging a deeper hole, which is what I took from this, would seem to indicate that there are stronger calls for a leadership change than anyone suspects.
what's driving me (and others I know) away from Facebook is that they are actively scanning and deleting content that we have created and stuff we want to see in Secret groups (some are of an adult nature, and Facebook is very obviously against any "adult content") but straight up fake news, memes that are borderline racist and inaccurate and inflammatory, and other absolute clickbait trash remain visible all over the place.
I'd delete it too if so many things I keep track of were elsewhere.
“Tim Cook has consistently criticized our business model and Mark has been equally clear he disagrees. So there’s been no need to employ anyone else to do this for us. And we’ve long encouraged our employees and executives to use Android because it is the most popular operating system in the world.“
They aren’t exactly denying Zuckerberg encouraged his executives to stop using IPhones.
21 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 54.6 ms ] threadTheir claim is -- and this is ridiculous -- their PR team thought people needed to know that a campaign criticizing Facebook was funded in part by "a well-known critic of Facebook" and it's entirely coincidental that this well-known critic is the bogeyman of the right. (Who would have guessed that Facebook critics criticize Facebook?)
Of course, as a response to their PR organization supposedly doing nothing wrong, just presenting people with vitally important tautologies, they have fired them.
It's remarkable how much of this response just mildly confirms the New York Times article. (We reject the claim that Facebook execs all use Android just because Zuck hates Tim Cook! They use Android because they need an operating system on their mobile phones, and because Zuck hates Tim Cook.)
I'm part Jewish myself and I don't think criticism of Sheldon Adelson or George Soros for their political activity is necessarily anti-Semitic.
So, Definers either consciously played into those attacks on Soros, or are incompetent.
It is time that they learned to respond like grown ups. This is supposed to be a world leading company, and they write press stuff like a school yard bully would. I see a fad about to hit it's inevitable decline.
As such, I don’t see why FB just didn’t try and own this. They had a lot of goodwill, even as the platform changed over the years. Why didn’t they just come clean: we have a serious issue, and we’re going to close down aspects of the platform until we can deal with it.
I obviously know none of the protagonists of this tale, but I’d love some insight into their personalities and how these drove their decisions.
(1) I say (re)learned as this as been the profit basis of British tabloids for 30 years and more.
Edit: for formatting and clarification of one point.
Probably because, at their core, they're a shady company. The idea of being upfront, honest, and embracing shot term pain to benefit others is alien to their DNA.
Facebook's entire business model involves tracking people and tricking them to reveal more about themselves than they realize, then they use that data in ways they're not entirely honest about. Those practices build institutional habits of mind that are hard to break.
The platform has so much volume they refuse to actually hire enough people to monitor it, they've adapted to this level of profitability and won't change without being forced to (it's the same issue with Youtube, if it can't be automated, the platform would have to change) - it's like how in the USA and even the UK farmers with significant manual labour requirements won't raise wages, they'll try to get migrant farm workers to do it.
I like to call this Michael Jackson Syndrome.
People get rich and/or famous enough and surround themselves with enough sycophants who keep telling them how great they are and they start doing things that normal people wouldn't do. Then it turns into a destructive feedback loop.
Uhh I definitely wouldn't compare Michael Jackson to a Zuckerbot/Sandberg (the latter were raised in seemingly wholesome suburban families and just seem to have ego/greed issues, while the former (not being a saint himself or anything) was the victim on an abusive/oppressive childhood). Don't really want to get into this, as it'd be an unrelated tangent.
TLDR: this is a horrible attempt at drawing a parallel
According to wikipedia:
In May 2011 Facebook hired Kaplan as its vice president of U.S. Public Policy, as part of a Facebook's effort to "strengthen" the company's ties to Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill.[8] In October 2014 Kaplan succeeded Marne Levine as Facebook's vice president of global public policy.[9]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_Kaplan
The first big FTC ding against FB was in Nov 2011. That's some good timing!
Further, before working for Facebook, the wonderful Joel Kaplan oversaw public affairs for Energy Future Holdings. Ok, so what? Well, from the wikipedia for Energy Future Holdings:
Energy Future Holdings owns four of the nation’s highest emitting coal-fired power plants, which together account for approximately one quarter of all industrial/utility air pollution reported to Texas regulators.
And:
The Martin Lake, Big Brown, and Monticello plants rank first, third, and fourth, respectively, in airborne mercury pollution in the United States according to company reports submitted to the EPA.[10][13] Such high levels of mercury pollution have drawn criticism for their harmful effects on child development.[13]
And:
NOx emissions from EFH’s coal plants help contribute to harmful levels of ozone in the air in Dallas and other parts of east Texas, and ozone pollution can trigger asthma attacks and respiratory problems.[13]
So you have this guy that clearly gives zero fucks about "making the world a better place" or whatever Mark says his vision is.
To me, that really says it all.
That was their public relations working as planned.
Actions never reflected that. Unlike Google, who had, in fact, tried to not be evil (but has since removed "don't be evil" from their mission statement...), FB was evil from the start, but behaved like it was the fault of those dumb fucks. (And in many ways, it still is - fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, then thrice, then gogoolice...)
They should have called it the Mark and Sheryl rebuttle as this piece was really only about them. Digging a deeper hole, which is what I took from this, would seem to indicate that there are stronger calls for a leadership change than anyone suspects.
Deleted it.
Freedom.
I'd delete it too if so many things I keep track of were elsewhere.
They aren’t exactly denying Zuckerberg encouraged his executives to stop using IPhones.