Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by nonrandomstring 1401 days ago
The important difference is that an author is just one person with a busy life who for a few hours a week writes to manipulate your emotional state.

Facebook is a machine. It's a gargantuan, for-profit, always-on swarm of bots spread globally across multiple data centres all programmed to relentlessly manipulate your emotional state.

When making moral comparisons people forget factors of scale and speed matter. Quantitative differences become qualitative differences.

1 comments

Yes, that really what I meant. Once you’re on Facebook it takes over your reading selection, and it does so to the benefit of Facebook.

It’s been incredibly pernicious, and I remain astounded that we (Facebook users) allowed it to happen.