[jstandard]

I don't see Cambridge Analytica as a "stupid media freak out", it exposed a concerning and far reaching privacy issue with the Facebook platform.

Concerns about Tesla's solvency have been building for months. The departure of several high-level executives is a big concern and what moved markets. It might signal that people are jumping ship.

[gonehome]

The details of the Cambridge Analytica piece (as I understand them) were that a third party violated the terms of service and grabbed more data than they should have from friends of users that filled out a survey.

Facebook had since restricted access to the API to prevent this terms of service violation a few years ago, but it was after Cambridge Analytica had already engaged in their bad behavior.

The news was largely that a bad actor did a bad thing and FB had already locked down the API to prevent this a couple years ago, though in the news the details around this were mostly incoherent. The market reaction was a massive crash.

It's probably worth Facebook focusing on bad actors more explicitly (which they're doing now with their focus on integrity teams), but the reaction to the CA news was disproportionate - even on HN. The market moves during sensational media stories seem to be an easy place to make money, I think this is where it's similar to the pot smoking CEO overreaction.

[ThomPete]

I am unconvinced about that.

If it was the case that CA actually was able to do the things the media claimed they didn and affect people like that, FB would be in an even better position to affect people which means FB shares should have risen not fallen.

We do not live in the world created by the media about the capabilities of CA not even close.

But as they say. The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent. That irrationality is further fueld by the medias attempt to dumb down things IMO.

[jstandard]

I don't think it was about CA capabilities per se, but the privacy blowback which followed.

The issue became mainstream and gave rise to the "Delete Facebook" movement which regular folks as well as celebrities[1] piled onto. It's fair to discuss the faddish nature of the #delete movements, but I don't see any positive angle in it for FB.

It also forced FB to overhaul their platform, most notably applying larger restrictions[2] to the amount of data available via APIs. This wasn't grandstanding, it cut revenue streams for many advertising and data companies. I'm not sure this had a direct effect on FB's revenue, but indirectly it makes FB less attractive as a platform for hyper-targeted advertising. This can eventually lead to a lower ROI on FB ads vs. other channels and thus, lower share of a marketing budget.

[1] https://variety.com/2018/digital/news/will-ferrell-delete-fa...

[2] https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/04/facebook-instagram-api-shu...

[ThomPete]

I don't think I agree.

This wasn't anything new for most people who knew just a little bit about how FB worked for 3rd parties.

What changed was Trump. Had this been Hillary we wouldn't been talking about it at all and I am pretty sure FB wouldn't have been called to the hearing.

So I would say it's mostly a media driven thing but of course don't have any final proof. Just pretty sure it wasn't the privacy part that was the problem but rather Trump.

[jstandard]

I think we're talking past each other a bit.

I responded to someone drawing similarities between Cambridge Analytica and Elon Musk's joint toke, claiming both were examples of "stupid media freakouts" which caused a drop in the stock price of their respective companies.

I think those 2 media events are very different from each other and have very different consequences for their respective companies. I might be proven wrong though if Musk is brought to task in front of a senate committee for his pot-smoking ways.

I agree with you that Trump's election may have made it more likely that Cambridge Analytica became a big deal in the public eye. There's more controversy to fuel media frenzy if the person who got elected is seen to have unjustly ascended the throne.