I'm learning a lot about the early company culture of Facebook. And to an extent, also about how big tech companies work in general.
Just the past 10 minutes, I've learned that development speed is key, because it is basically their KPI for execution. I don't fully agree with that, but I don't think it's a bad heuristic. Speed is a necessary condition to survive from the competition. I think Paul Graham greatly exemplified that in his essays, you need to be one of the fastest or at least not be outpaced a lot by the #1.
I think there's also a lot of interesting startup advice in these type of documents. The advice may or may not be ethical, but there may be info in there to understand why Facebook became so big. I wouldn't want to do something unethical, but it's handy to know what unethical things work and why because maybe one could distill successful principles from it that are ethical.
From Zuck (Thursday, January 10, 2013 1:28AM)
Subject: Re:Competitive Mobile App Install Ads
"I think we should block WeChat, Kakao and Line ads.Those companies are trying to build social networks and replace us.The revenue is immaterial to us compared to any risk.
And I agree we should use ads to promote our own products, but I'd still block companies that compete with our core from gaining any advantage from us.
I'd also keep blockingGoogle but otherwise wouldn't extend the block to anyone else."
These actions may look anti-competitive, but these companies are all foreign (China, South Korea, Japan). China does anti-competitive stuff to US companies all the time. I doubt there's any legal case for FB abusing monopoly powers based on this email. If anything, this is just very competent business decision making.
I don't really see this as morally objectionable (don't know about the law, am not a lawyer). It's interesting to see the perspective, though. Not sure what point you're making.
It'll be a pretty long while before I manage to read through all of this, but I plan to. Got a small start today, and I'm going to keep going through at least a few dozen pages every day, and dedicate a couple of weekends to doing more significant reading.
I'm seeing some people around the Internet arguing that this is pretty typical and not surprising. The stuff I'm reading so far is surprising to me.
My prediction: similar to the Snowden leaks, there are going to be a bunch of people who say that none of this is unexpected, and we already knew most of the main points. With Snowden, those people are downplaying the environment that existed prior to the leak, and retroactively rewriting the arguments that people used to make. The same thing will be true with Facebook.
So I have personally had people argue to me on HN (recently) that the reason Facebook's APIs are so closed-off is because of privacy concerns, particularly around the 2016 election. If we want an Open Internet, that's fundamentally at conflict with a private Internet, so really we're to blame for Facebook's policies. These documents, to me, make that claim objectively false -- Facebook was talking about closing off access as early as 2012, and the reason they were doing so was to reduce competition.
There are people on this very thread arguing that really this is just a story about privacy, and everyone is being mean to Facebook -- and I don't know how to square that with the memos and emails I just finished reading that argue the opposite.
> "When we started Facebook Platform, we were small and wanted to make sure we were an essential part of the fabric of the Internet. We've done that - we're now the biggest service on Earth. When we were small, apps helped drive our ubiquity. Now that we are big, (many) apps are looking to siphon off our users to competitive services. We need to be more thoughtful about what integrations we allow and we need to make sure that we have sustainable, long-term value exchanges."
Regardless of whether or not anything here is actually illegal, based on what I've read so far, I feel like (for me) the debate over whether federation is compatible with privacy is over, barring some kind of crazy revelation half-way through this document. We should assume that platforms like Twitter are having the same conversations, and we should assume that when Facebook/Twitter executives say that closing down APIs is necessary for privacy, that they're gaslighting.
> Facebook has fought vigorously against the release of the documents. It continues to argue that the documents do not paint a balanced picture of its activities. In an emailed statement, a company spokesperson told Business Insider: "These old documents have been taken out of context by someone with an agenda against Facebook..."
I sympathize with some (it probably doesn't paint a 'balanced' picture, this person probably does have an agenda against FB) of what they're saying here but...4000 pages and the context still can't be established?
A few years after your CEO proposes crazy ideas via email:
24 Q. So where you say "which is kind of crazy,"
25 why was that kind of crazy?
< missing pages ... >
1 A. Again, I don't recall.
2 Q. Mr. Olivan?
3 A. Again, I don't recall.
4 Q. Mr. Cox?
5 A. Again, I don't recall.
6 Q. Ms. Sandberg?
7 A. Again, I don't recall.
8 MR. GODKIN: All right.
I think we should be skeptical when it comes to Facebook coverage in the media, as quite a few stories have been pushing these false and speculative narratives, often including hearsay and personal subjective opinions to support claims rather than facts.
I mean, if you really believe Facebook is so bad, then do your job as a journalist and dig though the material yourself. Find the facts, and show us the exact facts that support your idea. Do not just speculate and make assumptions. However, you should really understand to leave out irrelevant off-hand comments made in "the heat" of a discussion. What is important is what a company is saying publicly, and that it matches up to what they are doing to a reasonable degree.
I am generally in favor of transparency, but it is not good to blindly and uncritically leak internal documents and discussions, just look at the whole pizzagate falseness. But, this is especially true when you know about the current media sentiment and same said material has just conspicuously been held by a company in conflict with Facebook.
Personally, I think the bikini app was deprived of decency, and it is amazing this app is not getting more criticism for what it did in the media. I think we can all agree the decision to remove access was necessary and a victory for users, as it is a step towards more privacy focused social media. The fact that the media will even touch the bikini story is ridiculous.
Those of us who grew up on the internet should be more objective.
Facebook is doing a much better job than their competitors (YouTube, Twitter. Etc.). The privacy controls are actually really good already, and I am sure we will only see them improve. We should give credit where credit is due!
I think, ultimately, this is about privacy and the information companies collect. People are in their right to be worried, but the media should still be more objective. For example, I wonder why no one cares about anonymization and increased transparency as solutions, something that rarely seems mentioned by the media. Companies do not invest in this for fun and giggles. More info here: https://policies.google.com/technologies/anonymization?hl=en
Making more technology open source, including anonymization technology, would probably help to increase trust.
After reading some of this, I'm a bit blown away by how sophisticated and on top of their game FB is as a company. Pretty sure my company would not have these discussions at the same level, or think about things in this way with such a tight engineering/product/business alignment and thought.
If Facebook disappeared tomorrow, I don't think it would make a difference. The same incentives and behavior patterns still continue to exist, so something else would fill its place.
You must realize game developers have the majority of the responsibility, since they are the ones making these notorious business models. When I was a kid, you used to buy a game once, and then play it for as long as you would. I still love some of the games released for DOS.
Interestingly enough, even old DOS games are much better than the crap released and mass produced through the Internet. People are stupid for buying into it. I used to be one of them, but I never paid for in-game stuff, and eventually I simply lost interest because it actually ruined the gameplay completely.
The article is clearly blowing things out of proportion, framing it as if Facebook was responsible, when in fact there is much more to the story. It's really unfurtunate, because the credibility of journalism is under attack already, and releasing biased junk like this will not help. Start-ups are never perfect, and if you dig hard enough, especially in big companies, you will find some dirt.
Then again, some things also just happen by accident, not necessarily because it was a conscious decision to do bad things, which is also clearly not the case here, unlike what the article falsely claim.
"The British Parliament's Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport Committee published hundreds of pages in a report in December; they were seized from Six4Three's founder, Ted Kramer, when he visited the UK."
Can anyone explain how/why the documents were seized?
I am only on page 9 and the pattern appears to be somewhat obvious. I can kinda understand now the constant anti-FB crusade in media now. FB pissed off a lot of powerful people getting to where it is.
Facebook is the dumpster fire nobody wants to walk away from because it's here everyone hangs out. Everyone tolerates the smell because if they want to show their mom or their grandmother pictures, it's where you do it. You just have to ignore the flaming garbage all around you while you flip out your photos.
There is no alternative to Facebook. Even if Twitter were tons better, if you want to move, you have to drag all your friends along with you.
After deleting Facebook, I didn't feel any impact on my relationships... I think it's more related to addiction than not having a platform to hang out with.
As far as I can tell, Twitter is hugely dysfunctional and has literally contributed to at least one friend's mental decline. (Twitter seems much closer to single experience since you automatically get everyone's comments).
Facebook seems much more "what you make it", meaning it can be as bad as Twitter if you choose the wrong friends, wrong groups and wrong approach or it can be a place where you meet people with similar interests and filter out the noise.
Especially, you have this effect "everyone hates Facebook" but that everyone is distributed between people wanting Facebook to censor more (and as they'd prefer), people wanting Facebook to censor less (and especially not bother their bullshit), and people using Facebook as a stand-in for social networking or being on the Internet, or just talking with people you don't know very well.
I use Signal or Telegram, or regular email to send pictures to family and close friends. When they get the pictures they know I thought specifically of them, rather than a post that they may or may not actually see. In that regard, sending a message with a picture seems way more personal than a post to a socialnetworking site.
I'm on board on the Facebook hate train, but I still have one.
Why? Because the martial arts gyms I visit only communicate there. And because the card gaming communities (I used to play Netrunner) always used Facebook to coordinate. All seminars, tournaments and other events require Facebook.
I don't really care about talking to friends, and I haven't even added friends on Facebook. But Facebook being the gatekeeper to my hobbies, which I really don't want to miss, means I will continue having an account there. You're right that there's no alternative for me.
I think you framed it negativly. The reason why I am not leaving, is because it's actually far better than other social networks, including YouTube and Twitter.
Google made a bad decision by closing Plus, but I guess they smelled the stench in the media, and decided it would be bad for their public image. This is just my speculation, however.
Regardless, fact remains. Facebook is providing a great service to users for free.
Really? I've been sharing Google Photos / iCloud Photo Library albums with my friends family for years, and even my technically-inept relatives have had no trouble liking or commenting on them, all without the need for Facebook.
Just stop posting anything about your personal life on it, block all forms of geolocation (other than by IP, which they can still do), and use it for only shitposting.
I'm honestly creeped out by people who post photos of the interior of their homes, the children, etc on Facebook now.
I haven't seen a single internal document on child labor or corporate plans to assassinate the president... This all seems rather tame considering the amount of flack FB has been taking in recent years.
[+] [-] mettamage|6 years ago|reply
Just the past 10 minutes, I've learned that development speed is key, because it is basically their KPI for execution. I don't fully agree with that, but I don't think it's a bad heuristic. Speed is a necessary condition to survive from the competition. I think Paul Graham greatly exemplified that in his essays, you need to be one of the fastest or at least not be outpaced a lot by the #1.
I think there's also a lot of interesting startup advice in these type of documents. The advice may or may not be ethical, but there may be info in there to understand why Facebook became so big. I wouldn't want to do something unethical, but it's handy to know what unethical things work and why because maybe one could distill successful principles from it that are ethical.
[+] [-] plickdixon|6 years ago|reply
"I think we should block WeChat, Kakao and Line ads.Those companies are trying to build social networks and replace us.The revenue is immaterial to us compared to any risk.
And I agree we should use ads to promote our own products, but I'd still block companies that compete with our core from gaining any advantage from us. I'd also keep blockingGoogle but otherwise wouldn't extend the block to anyone else."
[+] [-] a13n|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lucb1e|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paganel|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] marvel_boy|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danShumway|6 years ago|reply
I'm seeing some people around the Internet arguing that this is pretty typical and not surprising. The stuff I'm reading so far is surprising to me.
My prediction: similar to the Snowden leaks, there are going to be a bunch of people who say that none of this is unexpected, and we already knew most of the main points. With Snowden, those people are downplaying the environment that existed prior to the leak, and retroactively rewriting the arguments that people used to make. The same thing will be true with Facebook.
So I have personally had people argue to me on HN (recently) that the reason Facebook's APIs are so closed-off is because of privacy concerns, particularly around the 2016 election. If we want an Open Internet, that's fundamentally at conflict with a private Internet, so really we're to blame for Facebook's policies. These documents, to me, make that claim objectively false -- Facebook was talking about closing off access as early as 2012, and the reason they were doing so was to reduce competition.
There are people on this very thread arguing that really this is just a story about privacy, and everyone is being mean to Facebook -- and I don't know how to square that with the memos and emails I just finished reading that argue the opposite.
> "When we started Facebook Platform, we were small and wanted to make sure we were an essential part of the fabric of the Internet. We've done that - we're now the biggest service on Earth. When we were small, apps helped drive our ubiquity. Now that we are big, (many) apps are looking to siphon off our users to competitive services. We need to be more thoughtful about what integrations we allow and we need to make sure that we have sustainable, long-term value exchanges."
Regardless of whether or not anything here is actually illegal, based on what I've read so far, I feel like (for me) the debate over whether federation is compatible with privacy is over, barring some kind of crazy revelation half-way through this document. We should assume that platforms like Twitter are having the same conversations, and we should assume that when Facebook/Twitter executives say that closing down APIs is necessary for privacy, that they're gaslighting.
[+] [-] Karrot_Kream|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dosy|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] FillardMillmore|6 years ago|reply
I sympathize with some (it probably doesn't paint a 'balanced' picture, this person probably does have an agenda against FB) of what they're saying here but...4000 pages and the context still can't be established?
[+] [-] EsssM7QVMehFPAs|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JacobSeated|6 years ago|reply
I mean, if you really believe Facebook is so bad, then do your job as a journalist and dig though the material yourself. Find the facts, and show us the exact facts that support your idea. Do not just speculate and make assumptions. However, you should really understand to leave out irrelevant off-hand comments made in "the heat" of a discussion. What is important is what a company is saying publicly, and that it matches up to what they are doing to a reasonable degree.
I am generally in favor of transparency, but it is not good to blindly and uncritically leak internal documents and discussions, just look at the whole pizzagate falseness. But, this is especially true when you know about the current media sentiment and same said material has just conspicuously been held by a company in conflict with Facebook.
Personally, I think the bikini app was deprived of decency, and it is amazing this app is not getting more criticism for what it did in the media. I think we can all agree the decision to remove access was necessary and a victory for users, as it is a step towards more privacy focused social media. The fact that the media will even touch the bikini story is ridiculous.
Those of us who grew up on the internet should be more objective.
Facebook is doing a much better job than their competitors (YouTube, Twitter. Etc.). The privacy controls are actually really good already, and I am sure we will only see them improve. We should give credit where credit is due!
I think, ultimately, this is about privacy and the information companies collect. People are in their right to be worried, but the media should still be more objective. For example, I wonder why no one cares about anonymization and increased transparency as solutions, something that rarely seems mentioned by the media. Companies do not invest in this for fun and giggles. More info here: https://policies.google.com/technologies/anonymization?hl=en
Making more technology open source, including anonymization technology, would probably help to increase trust.
[+] [-] jorblumesea|6 years ago|reply
edit: and I work at a "tech company".
[+] [-] Fellshard|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] freen|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stri8ed|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dddw|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] randomb_1979|6 years ago|reply
[1] https://www.revealnews.org/article/facebook-knowingly-duped-...
[+] [-] jimrandomh|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JacobSeated|6 years ago|reply
Interestingly enough, even old DOS games are much better than the crap released and mass produced through the Internet. People are stupid for buying into it. I used to be one of them, but I never paid for in-game stuff, and eventually I simply lost interest because it actually ruined the gameplay completely.
The article is clearly blowing things out of proportion, framing it as if Facebook was responsible, when in fact there is much more to the story. It's really unfurtunate, because the credibility of journalism is under attack already, and releasing biased junk like this will not help. Start-ups are never perfect, and if you dig hard enough, especially in big companies, you will find some dirt.
Then again, some things also just happen by accident, not necessarily because it was a conscious decision to do bad things, which is also clearly not the case here, unlike what the article falsely claim.
[+] [-] n8henry|6 years ago|reply
Can anyone explain how/why the documents were seized?
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] A4ET8a8uTh0|6 years ago|reply
For the record, I dislike FB myself.
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] in3d|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SirLJ|6 years ago|reply
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21465169
[+] [-] ogre_codes|6 years ago|reply
There is no alternative to Facebook. Even if Twitter were tons better, if you want to move, you have to drag all your friends along with you.
[+] [-] tpae|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joe_the_user|6 years ago|reply
Facebook seems much more "what you make it", meaning it can be as bad as Twitter if you choose the wrong friends, wrong groups and wrong approach or it can be a place where you meet people with similar interests and filter out the noise.
Especially, you have this effect "everyone hates Facebook" but that everyone is distributed between people wanting Facebook to censor more (and as they'd prefer), people wanting Facebook to censor less (and especially not bother their bullshit), and people using Facebook as a stand-in for social networking or being on the Internet, or just talking with people you don't know very well.
[+] [-] jkepler|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ghaff|6 years ago|reply
>if they want to show their mom or their grandmother pictures
Email? Personally that's how I show pictures to my dad. (Well, that and in person.)
[+] [-] lawn|6 years ago|reply
Why? Because the martial arts gyms I visit only communicate there. And because the card gaming communities (I used to play Netrunner) always used Facebook to coordinate. All seminars, tournaments and other events require Facebook.
I don't really care about talking to friends, and I haven't even added friends on Facebook. But Facebook being the gatekeeper to my hobbies, which I really don't want to miss, means I will continue having an account there. You're right that there's no alternative for me.
[+] [-] JacobSeated|6 years ago|reply
Google made a bad decision by closing Plus, but I guess they smelled the stench in the media, and decided it would be bad for their public image. This is just my speculation, however.
Regardless, fact remains. Facebook is providing a great service to users for free.
[+] [-] panglott|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jseliger|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jeanofthedead|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ggregoire|6 years ago|reply
I guess people were sharing pictures with their mom before Facebook.
[+] [-] TurkishPoptart|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] walrus01|6 years ago|reply
I'm honestly creeped out by people who post photos of the interior of their homes, the children, etc on Facebook now.
[+] [-] buboard|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mdszy|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rubbingalcohol|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dang|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ohduran|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Vysero|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gopher2|6 years ago|reply