[sdrawkcabmai]

Why out of the largest tech companies, like Amazon, Google, Netflix, Microsoft, Facebook, Apple, Twitter (well not large but similar to FB in terms of social network) only one has a reputation for constantly lying and misleading people on purpose in its self-interest? Is it because we pay more attention to FB or is it because FB is different in some way?

[Cthulhu_]

In this particular case, it's only Facebook and Twitter that are significant social networks and they are responsible for the biggest spread of misinformation. Google is a close third, if you hold Google responsible for its own search results (and not the websites they link to which their algorithm considers most important).

I mean I think they're all overgrown capitalist machines that thirst for their users' data, mindshare and money, and all of them have a heap of dirty secrets that either have or will leak out sooner or later. And none of their dirty secrets - like this 'revelation' that Facebook has a database of favorites - will be surprising.

Twitter has it too - Trump got away with stuff most people would be instantly banned for. They cite he is a person of high importance, but the real reason is that Trump and the ripple effect each of his tweets had were responsible for a big chunk of their annual revenue.

Remember a few years ago that Twitter was struggling financially or stagnating in terms of activity and users? I'm sure I remember a few articles about that. But since then, Trump and some other populist politicians and commentators have caused big waves on there, because each post starts a very big and long discussion involving thousands if not tens of thousands of people, all of them having 'hot takes' on things.

TL;DR they exempt people from the rules because they make them the most money.

[KaiserPro]

> Facebook and Twitter [are] responsible for the biggest spread of misinformation

I really wish it was that simple. if it was, we could just ban it all and have done with it. For the US this is a symptom of the splitting of a country into multiple warring parts. Partly whipped up by news networks, print journalism and all by the constant war for your attention.

TV news picks up some stupid tweet, offers it as an morsel for 5 minutes of hate. This pissed people off, they got online and berate the original tweet, the "other side" counter attacks, rinse, repeat. (see critical race theory)

The general public are being played, so that a number of large corporations can get attention enough to sell advertising space.

> Google is a close third, if you hold Google responsible for its own search results

why wouldn't you? I mean they are well known for allowing advertisers to manipulate results. They track your location, what your reading, who your talking to, and sell the products to third parties. If we should be keeping an eye on anyone, it should be google. The level of questioning that FB gets must be applied to any of the internet giants.

[GeekyBear]

> Google is a close third, if you hold Google responsible for its own search results (and not the websites they link to which their algorithm considers most important).

If you include the videos that YouTube recommends, they pull even with Facebook and Twitter.

They are all optimizing for the ability of content to keep eyeballs glued to the screen (so they can show more ads), and nothing else.

>in Google’s effort to keep people on its video platform as long as possible, “its algorithm seems to have concluded that people are drawn to content that is more extreme than what they started with—or to incendiary content in general,” and adds, “It is also possible that YouTube’s recommender algorithm has a bias toward inflammatory content.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/03/youtube...

[throwawayboise]

I put all of the companies you name in pretty much the same basket, and avoid them as much as I can. I don't shop on Amazon, I don't use Netflix, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter. I don't use Apple products. I do use Android and Google Docs/Drive/Mail but my next phone will probably be an open one and I could drop the GSuite stuff without too much pain, mostly laziness that I haven't already.

[streamofdigits]

In a few years this will be considered the only sane approach to digital life. There is still some road to travel though in terms of making it easy for the majority of people.

In retrospect the "big tech" era will be such a sad, dark, insidiously toxic period. So much hypocrisy, so much in-your face failure to honor basic social contracts, so much misallocated talent...

[davidkellis]

I'm in the same boat. Trying my best to de-FAANG my life. Self hosting as much as possible, with as little management overhead as possible, but I'm still stuck on Android and I don't know how to break free.

[schiem]

It's not quite ready for the prime time, but there are some open source phones in the works. The two most notable are the Librem 5 (https://puri.sm/products/librem-5-usa/) and the Pinephone (https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/).

[retro64]

Flip phone. People laugh at mine, whatever. Honestly though I use a flip because it does what I need and it's tough as nails.

[IntrepidWorm]

De-Googled android distros are definitely out there, but I also think flip phone plus small portable laptop is a very powerful combo.

[armagon]

Which self-hosting software do you recommend?

[davidkellis]

I'm self hosting Ghost for blogging, Home Assistant for smart home controller, and in the middle of setting up Vaultwarden for passwords. I also run a lot of stuff off my Synology - Synology Drive instead of Dropbox or Google Drive, Synology Photos instead of Google Photos. I don't have a great solution for email or phone - emails is paid hosting through Zoho and use Android for phone. I'd like to get off those. It's all a long drawn out process.

[castis]

I dont actually see a reason to believe that _any_ of them would be telling the truth _ever_. There's no incentive to be honest and there's plenty incentive to not be.

[cratermoon]

Microsoft was a serial liar for decades over its efforts to quash competition for DOS, Windows, Internet Explorer, and its "embrace, extend, and extinguish" strategy. Amazon's statements about working conditions in its warehouses and its treatment of workers trying to unionize directly contradict documented actions. Twitter says one thing regarding abusive and hateful users but does another. Google finessed its theft of Java.

Some would say that you don't get to be as large and as profitable as those companies without resorting to mendacity and rule-breaking. Some would even say that such moves are required and acceptable

[BiteCode_dev]

I recall Google, Microsoft, Apple and Amazon to have lied a ton.

[logicalmonster]

> Is it because we pay more attention to FB or is it because FB is different in some way?

Facebook probably has the most well-known face of any of these companies in Mark Zuckerberg. And one difference between Mark and other typical cut-throat business leaders is that he's got a reputation for being weirdly socially awkward in a noticeable way to the extent that there's numerous memes about him being a robot or alien.

Tim Cook, Jeff Bezos, and others might be similarly ruthless or worse entrepreneurs, but they don't come across as the same level of creepy even though they also want to own your data, put cameras and microphones in your house, just as much as Facebook.