[breadzeppelin__]

To go a bit further MSM's ad revenue is being hollowed out by Facebook et al. Why would anyone pay to advertise in Economist when they can advertise to "people interested in economics, earning over 150k, last thought about cigarettes three weeks ago" etc.

Similarly, if you were an advertising exec at pfizer, would you choose to pay millions of dollars to advertise your meds to a continuously shrinking audience on something like CNN, or would you spend significantly less directly targeting "oldsters who need meds" on FB or Goog's platforms?

I'm a huge cynic but it seems like most of the critiques of social media coming from big / old media are just symptoms of having their revenue bled away, not any meaningful calls for change for the better

[jdhn]

>it seems like most of the critiques of social media coming from big / old media are just symptoms of having their revenue bled away

I feel that so many people blindly hate Facebook that they overlook this point. The loudest critics of social media are the old vanguards of news who are upset that the new kid on the block took their ad money.

[yanderekko]

>The loudest critics of social media are the old vanguards of news who are upset that the new kid on the block took their ad money.

Also activists who are clearly engaging in motivated reasoning in arguing that Facebook needs to do more to censor conservative opinions.

[asdfman123]

Lies aren't opinions. "Hillary Clinton is a Gila Monster" is not an opinion but a complete fabrication.

That's what mainstream liberals are deeply concerned about, not conservative ideas about taxation.

[bodge5000]

Maybe I'm behind on the times but I don't think liberals are kept up at night by the idea of someone putting on facebook that the clintons are a race of green skinned aliens.

In actual fact I think, as per usual, the situation is more complicated than that. Some of the censoring may be for fabrications, but the people who decide what is and isn't a fabrication are biased, and therefore leads to opinions at very least being caught up in the mix

[chmod600]

But in practice it's taking out things that appear to be true or at least a viable theory. For instance, the reporting on Hunter Biden's laptop, and the lab leak theory.

So be concerned about people calling Clinton a Gila Monster if that's your most pressing concern. But by censoring it, you will also miss out on contrarian reporting that's actually true.

[KaiserPro]

> Also activists who are clearly engaging in motivated reasoning in arguing that Facebook needs to do more to censor

censor _everything_

[joshstrange]

> conservative opinions

That's an interesting way to say "misinformation".

[pcf]

Everything in society is between "progressive" and "conservative" values. To say that "conservative opinions" are simply "misinformation", is very misinformed in itself.

[joshstrange]

Read the whole comment I replied to. There is no one trying to just censor conservative opinions, they are trying to censor conservative misinformation. I wasn’t painting all conservative opinions as misinformation, I’m was saying the things people want censored is the misinformation, not just opinions.

[pcf]

> There is no one trying to just censor conservative opinions

Hm? There are lots and lots of people and companies trying to censor conservative opinions.

I don't know if you've managed to read/consume the whole news spectrum over the last years, but I recommend that you pay regular attention to both progressive/liberal AND conservative outlets. Then you would know better than to say something like this.

[tablespoon]

> Read the whole comment I replied to. There is no one trying to just censor conservative opinions, they are trying to censor conservative misinformation.

Exactly. There's there a popular bit of spin that tries defend mis/disinformation by confusing it with political opinion.

One of the signs of American decline and weakness is how several bits of blatant mis/disinformation have lodged themselves in the conservative discourse, and the conservatives who have problem with that are too weak to do anything about it.

I'm not saying that couldn't also be true of liberals, but that doesn't and shouldn't mean conservatives are off the hook for their own problems.

[pm90]

Facebook has had an outsize impact on society, they have a lot of power. I believe they (and any other agent that has that effect on society) are pretty much fair game for the press to cover; that’s literally their job.

[corinroyal]

"Blindly"

[6gvONxR4sf7o]

This doesnt make sense. Which is it? Everyone blindly hating FB? Or just old media?

[gorwell]

The internet hollowed out the legacy media's business model, but it's more than that: It also destroyed the ability of the ruling class to control the narrative. Now everything they say and do is endlessly scrutinized by the internet hive mind, which embarrasses them on a daily basis. Nor does it forget `weapons of mass destruction`, `mission accomplished`, `masks don't work`, `wuhan lab leak hypothesis is a racist conspiracy theory`.

“All over the world, elite institutions from governments to media to academia are losing their authority and monopoly control of information to dynamic amateurs and the broader public.” --Marc Andreessen

This coordinated attack against facebook is merely the mechanism through which they are trying to reassert control over the flow of information. It's the justification to create a new federal agency with gatekeeping powers over the internet: https://twitter.com/gillibrandny/status/1445451624005001217

Is there any doubt this agency, The Ministry of Truth let's say, would have flagged `Iraq does not have weapons of mass destruction` as misinformation in 2003? Or `masks do work` in March 2020? We're not far from this as it is. Indeed, facebook was removing counter narratives with regard to the origin of Covid-19, which it only reversed when it became untenable: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/05/26/facebook-ban-covid-...

[Karrot_Kream]

I agree that there's way too much unnecessary vitrol over FB on these forums, but let's not pretend like FB is some "new, scrappy disruptor" of legacy media institutions engaging in a "coordinated attack". Facebook has just become the _new_ media power and legacy media is trying to reassert itself. I didn't enjoy the stranglehold of legacy media on information flow before and I don't enjoy the strangle of Facebook now. Just because Facebook is better than legacy media (which I'm guessing many will second guess here) doesn't mean it's a _good_ alternative.

[gorwell]

I'd be more than happy if facebook disappeared. They are a disaster, no doubt. That's not what's going to happen though. Facebook will get exactly what they keep saying they want: regulation and oversight. Facebook will be just as entrenched as ever and will protect the Official Copy of Reality as defined by the ruling class. They are already doing that to some degree and just want it to be codified.

My concern is for the open internet, for the people, for the ability to challenge and dissent, for free speech in practical terms.

[rumblerock]

Is oversight of and transparency into recommendation algorithms, to make sure they don't overprioritize vitriol and sow division, really creating an "Official Copy of Reality"? At this point I'd say our reality is actively being fractured by the effects of these platforms. The solutions suggested by Haugen, whose disclosure is driving this broader conversation we're having, are related to fundamental algorithmic design that feeds addiction and propagates completely false or harmful information – which is not exactly content moderation by the "powers that be".

[gorwell]

If it bleeds, it leads. The corporate media has been the primary sower of division and spreads plenty of misinformation itself.

Polarization and vitriol precedes these platforms. Facebook, twitter, reddit, they all make it worse, I agree with that. And I would be in favor of requiring them to make their algorithms public at the very least.

But we must not give an even more centralized authority power over what's considered `harmful` or `misinformation`. You have to imagine this tool in the hands of your enemy because at some point it will be.

[Karrot_Kream]

I agree that the regulation and oversight they seek will be a mistake. They'll help create a regulatory regime which only Facebook will be in a position to comply with and stifle all competition in this space. That is definitely a concern I have with all the vitrol I see here.

[splistud]

The internet (for the last few years) is both a megaphone for shouting the narrative of the ruling class, and a funnel for collecting information about every other class.

[snowwrestler]

Zuckerberg went to Harvard. Sandberg got her BA and MBA from Harvard before working for Larry Summers at the World Bank and U.S. Treasury. Peter Thiel got his bachelors and law degree at Stanford before clerking for a federal judge and trading options for Credit Suisse. He had a direct line to President Trump and spoke to him often.

To believe that “the ruling class” oppose Facebook because people say mean things there, you have to maintain a crazily tortured definition of who is and is not in the ruling class.

To believe that Facebook, a huge company that recruits heavily from the Ivy League and pays huge salaries across the board, is not an elite institution, requires willful ignorance about what they do and who they work for. Who do you think buys most of the ads on Facebook? Dynamic amateurs and the broader public?

[jancsika]

> Why would anyone pay to advertise in Economist when they can advertise to "people interested in economics, earning over 150k, last thought about cigarettes three weeks ago" etc.

Isn't the economist subscription-based?

Regardless, I'll bite: Isn't an important reason because someone wants to signal to the world that "everyone knows" their company is a sexy, category-defining beast?

E.g., there are Coca Cola machines that span both physical space (can be found in any region of the country) and time (everything from a machine built yesterday to half a century ago). When a human notices this their long-term memory probably goes, "Oh, Coca Cola has been and must still be one of the most important soft drinks," and-- just guessing here-- that increases the probability that their impulsive choice is for Coke in cases where thirst is involved.

If someone asked the question, "Why would Coca Cola want their soft drink ad in a rickety old gas station in an area of Northern Georgia that's still associated with the movie Deliverance?" they'd be confusing cause and effect.

Same logic applies here. I'd assume that advertising in [old media's digital presence] is an effect of an ad campaign that seeks to deliver an image of said ubuiquity.

[dcow]

Also the quality of integrated ads is far higher. I read integrated ads occasionally. I never read FB or Google ads.

[soheyl]

Not a FB fanboy here, but instagram ads have been the most relevant and interesting ones to me. I actually like seeing them pop up in my feed.

[ChrisMarshallNY]

That’s fairly standard “brand-building.” Ever notice how, when a new movie or album is about to drop, you start seeing tabloid stories, featuring the stars?

On the one hand, it can be argued that “people are interested, because of the movie.”

Except the stories usually start long before any “official” advertisements appear.

It’s about “building buzz,” and the American advertising industry (they refer to themselves as “communications”) is the best in the world, for this kind of thing.

The term “dog whistle” is used in a derogatory manner, but it’s actually a fairly apt metaphor. Dogs won’t respond to the whistle (which they hear just fine), unless they have been trained. "Building buzz" is training, so the paid ads will be much more effective. It works very well.

[WJW]

> is the best in the world, for this kind of thing.

I don't mean to be rude here, but how do you know? How could you even know? Did they tell you they're the best, by any chance?

[ChrisMarshallNY]

Not rude, but I'd be interested in knowing who's better at it.

I'm not a fan of the industry. Recognizing that someone is good at something, is not the same as approving.

[duckmysick]

> Isn't The Economist subscription-based?

They have ads in the printed version.

[Taywee]

> it seems like most of the critiques of social media coming from big / old media are just symptoms of having their revenue bled away

A large portion of it is people who find advertisement inherently distasteful (or, at the least, targeted advertisement) and that optimizing everything entirely for engagement causes massively negative effects for society and individual psychology. Fine-tuning everything for addiction and intense emotional reaction is great for advertisement revenue, but really bad for people.

I think you might be underestimating how many people are actually seriously upset about how they've seen the national conversation degrade to a lower level of discourse, and blame that on social media (whether they're right or wrong). There are clearly people who are upset about modern social media that aren't associated with old media.

[rumblerock]

Agreed, painting this as some kind of power struggle ignores the effects on society that affect everyone, not just new age tech titans and the establishment.

[iamacyborg]

> Why would anyone pay to advertise in Economist when they can advertise to "people interested in economics, earning over 150k, last thought about cigarettes three weeks ago" etc.

Because they don't trust that that data is accurate.

https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/pdf/10.1287/mksc.2019.118...

[mbg721]

Print ads are still classier than online ads. In the Economist, your next-door neighbor isn't "Still eating these six foods that will kill you? Here's one weird trick that Virginia retirees are using to save money."

[nzmsv]

People interested in economics and earning more than 150k are increasingly not on Facebook much, if at all. The Economist actually has a much more targeted audience. FB caters to the lowest common denominator.

[initplus]

I have a couple of friends who are much more politically engaged and insightful than myself. But all I see them post on facebook are low effort gotcha memes.

Facebook has a problem in that it seems to frown on "intelligent" content. Long form journalism, in depth analysis, professional content (industry journals, tech blogs etc.), none of this content really exists on facebook.

I have friends that read hackernews, we find similar articles from hn interesting. But I would never think of sharing one on facebook, and I would be surprised if a friend of mine did so. For some reason, facebook is just not the place where content like this is shared.

This is the advertising proposition of non-facebook media.

[chuniversity]

Low-effort memes with cheap wit get more likes, which in turn bumps your content higher in the feed which in turn invites more likes, cascading into dozens or scores of your friends liking and validating your post.

Long-form content with more depth gets fewer initial likes, resulting in being hidden from most of your ancillary friends altogether.

This has behavioral impact on all of its users. Do you want to post content that only gets 5 likes versus what gets 50 likes?

[piggybox]

While some movies may make viewers more "intelligent", most people watch movies just for entertainment.

[lostlogin]

> Similarly, if you were an advertising exec at pfizer, would you choose to pay millions of dollars to advertise your meds to a continuously shrinking audience on something like CNN, or would you spend significantly less directly targeting "oldsters who need meds" on FB or Goog's platforms?

You’re probably already aware but this only applies in the US (and a few other small places like New Zealand).

Direct to consumer drug advertising is fraught with issues and therefore banned in most the world.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/harvard-health-ad-watch-...

[mkr-hn]

CPC[0] ads, maybe. CPM[0] and CPA[0] probably still benefit from ads in publications.

[0] Cost-per-[Click, Mille/thousand, Action]

[paganel]

Presumably people earning over 150k don't waste that much time on an website like FB.

[v77]

This has always been pretty clear. But, also effective. Lots of congresspeople and MPs still read the NY Times, Guardian, etc.. Facebook also has no political 'country', being a big company (left wing hate) based in San Francisco with liberal views amongst its workers and ownerss. (right wing hate)