[hiddenkrypt]

> "Facebook is for the pleasure and benefit of the whole world, myself included, on a number of levels."

Wrong. Facebook is for making money. If providing users with pleasure or benefits makes them money, then that's lucky for the users.

> "Facebook has become a world-leading platform for spreading information, for debate and for social contact between persons. You have gained this position because you deserve it."

Also wrong. The second sentence, I mean.

I agree with the intent here. I agree with the outrage at Facebook. The author of this piece, too, seems to understand the futility of this open letter, and I do think it's a good thing that he's making the statement regardless. I just think that maybe he's being too generous to Mark and Facebook.

[xupybd]

I don't know if I agree with the outrage at Facebook. They are out to make money. They can make more money if they avoid controversy and keep their site a place that brands like to be associated with. It results in corporate censorship for sure, but is it Facebook's responsibility to provide a censorship free platform?

I fully agree with people taking note and becoming aware that Facebook is simply a business providing them a service and not a benevolent social network uniting the world.

But until people are willing to get upset enough about issues like this to leave Facebook, they really have no incentive to change. It's a reflection on society more than on one company. Like it or not, we use Facebook because we like it, it provides a service we're happy to consume. If we're happy and the advertisers are happy why would they care about these sorts of things?

[xg15]

This is mostly true, but IMO ignores:

a) the network effects that make people join the network even if they wouldn't want to on their own

b) Facebook's own agressive strategies of bringing users into their network without conscious choice - e.g. the acquisition of whatsapp or the internet.org initiative.

At this point it's more like some property shark who'd buy up half the city's apartment blocks, then proceed to cut services and raise the rents - and when people complain, respond "well, for some reason all those people chose to rent my apartments, so they must approve of what I do"...

[bbarn]

Point A is especially important. I quit four years ago, and I constantly get bombarded by people trying to get me to come back onto it. I have a few friends who've resisted and never gotten an account, but they are also constantly goaded about it.

[Chinjut]

We SHOULD be outraged at entities that, because they are purely out to make money, end up shaping the world in ways we'd rather it not be. That's a perfectly natural thing to be outraged by; that they are in fact incentivized to do the thing we are outraged by is just another thing to be outraged by!

[jscardella]

This also applies to non-for-profit institutions such as the Wiki Foundation. Jimmy Wales is well known for censoring content. Any resource that is used by a huge percent of the human population for information is going to shape/reshape. We have to be vigilant.

[brazzledazzle]

I think the outrage is perfectly fine. The only thing that's going to sway them is public opinion and outrage that can have an impact on their revenue stream.

[vidarh]

Exactly because they can make more money by avoiding controversy there is every reason to be outraged and make it known - it is the one channel we have to make it worth it for them to listen and consider changing their policies, by making it costly for them to ignore it.

> But until people are willing to get upset enough about issues like this to leave Facebook, they really have no incentive to change.

They will have an incentive to change if e.g. advertisers start worrying about their image if they advertise on Facebook too. Causing outrage and creating a debate around whether Facebook is damaging our society is a way of making Facebook a less attractive advertising channel as well.

[posterboy]

> They can make more money if they avoid controversy

Removing that picture for being pornographic should be much more controversial than the controversial pornographic aspect. The latter is really an US-centric notion.

[kilotaras]

One can argue that due to almost monopolic FB position government can and should take a look at free speech problems there.

[ksk]

The idea that you should discard your integrity in the pursuit of money, or even that that is to be expected, is quite damaging.

[bigiain]

Ideas of "Shareholder primacy" and the that the sole role of directors of corporations is to "maximise shareholder value" are coming under fire lately, but they're still a pretty good rule-of-thumb for a Company Director about how to avoid investor lawsuits. There "may" be other desires and motivations the shareholders have which would influence the decision making philosophy of the company leadership, But if you had a decision to make where you could choose to "make Zuckerberg richer" or to "have Facebook assist in that humanitarian cause Mark once talked about while high at Burningman", which do you suppose you'd have an easier time defending if anybody ever called you on it?

You're right - it's often extremely damaging. But we've ingrained it into capitalist society in the same sort of ways as casual racism and everyday sexism. Pretty much completely socially acceptable, and often easy to participate in unintentionally even when you're trying not to...

[gozur88]

I don't see where anyone is discarding integrity. Not all content is appropriate for all sites. Beyond that, while this is a famous picture, what most people think they know about it is wrong, so it's not really adding much to the public discourse.

[ksk]

>I don't see where anyone is discarding integrity.

It takes integrity to defend a principle in lieu of doing the expedient thing of instilling a "zero tolerance" policy. One that you can define so broadly that you never have to suffer the PR backlash that will eventually result when someone takes advantage of these freedoms and does something abhorrent.

>Not all content is appropriate for all sites.

But I thought that all content is appropriate for all sites. Don't all people fit into size 36 jeans, like cheesecake, ride unicycles, and love to go hiking? I quite like your negate the absolutes game.

>Beyond that, while this is a famous picture, what most people think they know about it is wrong, so it's not really adding much to the public discourse.

That is a rather banal statement. It is obvious that the argument isn't about one particular picture, but about defending freedom of expression.

Nobody complains, nothing is likely to change, things stay the same. I'm on the side of complaining. You?

[gozur88]

>It takes integrity to defend a principle in lieu of doing the expedient thing of instilling a "zero tolerance" policy.

If you start from the position that kind of content belongs on FB, then sure. But not of you don't. And I don't.

>But I thought that all content is appropriate for all sites. Don't all people fit into size 36 jeans, like cheesecake, ride unicycles, and love to go hiking? I quite like your negate the absolutes game.

And I quite like your pointless reductio ad absurdum. The point is Facebook is a site with a purpose, these kinds of articles are at best tangential to the site's purpose, and it's perfectly reasonable for Facebook to say "This content will make some people uncomfortable, and they're not coming to our site to be made uncomfortable." I would have thought my point was obvious.

>That is a rather banal statement. It is obvious that the argument isn't about one particular picture, but about defending freedom of expression.

Nobody is saying this guy doesn't have the right to express himself. The argument he's trying to make is he has some sort of moral right to put content he likes on a site created, owned, and operated by someone else for a purpose other than disseminating news. He doesn't.

This is why news organizations have their own web sites.

>Nobody complains, nothing is likely to change, things stay the same. I'm on the side of complaining. You?

Not me. I think Facebook made a perfectly reasonable decision here, and I'm not interested in change for its own sake.

[throwanem]

You seem to have put a fair amount of effort into this declaration of principle and partisanship on behalf of an advertising company that wants to monetize everybody in the world. I hope it was worthwhile.

[gozur88]

I have no doubt you can't understand why anyone would disagree with you, but maybe you can stretch a little, intellectually, and try to see other viewpoints.

[mavrc]

> Wrong. Facebook is for making money.

I know you're not wrong here, but at what point does social responsibility trump profit? Should it?

[cag_ii]

Before answering those questions you would first have to define "social responsibility" in this context.

[robryan]

Basically only when the law says that something is illegal.

[kefka]

And that answer is what is wrong with capitalism.

Why can a drug maker jack their prices up 100x? Because it's profitable.

Why do gas companies raise their prices when there's an impending disaster (hurricane, blizzards, etc.)? Because they can.

Capitalism is great in a different aspect: it provides a form of unaccountable eugenics. Your parents were poor, and went to a public school that wasn't funded well. That travels along with life, leading to a harder life for you. Less money for the essentials, and perhaps health insurance.

There's nobody out there with a knife going to kill you; it's more of ling-chi or death by a thousand cuts. And the culmination amounts to moralizations like "You should have went to better school", or "Its your fault not getting a better job", or insults of "Lazy".

But your lifespan is shortened; there's less everything for you. And society has no one to blame except you. Well, other than every other actor who causes tiny bits of pain and suffering... but not enough to quantify. Not like they could sue, anyways.

[jshevek]

I agree with you the first three stanzas of your post, but is this what is wrong with "capitalism", or is this what is wrong with "the way we are currently doing capitalism" ?

[kefka]

Capitalism, the economic theory as posited by Adam Smith in "The Wealth of Nations" fails when stuff approaches infinity.

We already have a taste of it with the internet, where it's 'Create once, share everywhere'. The idea of scarcity is forced via legal tools, where scarcity means little.

And now, with cheap solar, leads to cheap/free energy. And robots are creating more and more goods. And we're on the cusp of a level 4 vehicle automation systems. As this trend continues, many things will approach 'infinity' the same way they do already online.

What does that mean? It means that people could have the requirements of life provided as a citizenship right: food, water, shelter, electricity, internet, plus a bit more. Unlike the older socialism and communism systems, that required people be slaves to the state and work in prescribed manners, robots and computers could be the provider of these essential resources.

And that starts looking at post-capitalism systems. Would there be money? Of course. Some resources would still be rare. But this idea of "go to work so you can eat and survive" would no longer be hanging over people's heads like a guillotine.

[ranko]

Taking a very narrow legal view, you're correct. Surely, however, we can make more sophisticated judgements than "legally it's OK, therefore morally it's OK".

[tormeh]

Does morality matter?

It sounds dumb, but in this context I'm actually not sure.

[ridgeguy]

It's not dumb. When corporate executives make decisions, they're explicitly constrained by legality. Morality is negotiable. And relative.

[posterboy]

Law is ideally not different to morality. The same ethic measures should apply to both. The law is supposed to codify morality. It can capture only so many aspects of daily life, so there is a personal responsibility for everyone to account for the cases not explicitly mentioned. Law is also negotiable, that's why parliament literally means discussion.

[jawbone3]

Ah yes, and its not like what the law labels illegal ever changes, especially not when people are upset about something legal...

[xiaoma]

Surely you wouldn't support working slaves to death just to make a profit? Or murdering people to sell their organs? You wouldn't do either of those things even if there were no law stopping you, right?

Of course social responsibility trumps profit.

[1_listerine_pls]

Do you really expect everyone to self-regulate in your favour? That's not how people work.

[tomohawk]

Perhaps you could direct me to this money making API of which you speak.

See what happens when you woodenly interpret the words someone is saying?