"lost" about $18 billion overnight as Facebook's shares plunged on disappointing earnings reports. Ouch. Think maybe someone should start a gofundme so he can eat breakfast today.
Poor Mark Zuckerberg
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It is staggering. I know a lot of people leaving facebook due to privacy issues and the whole Cambridge Analytica scandal. Which is why the Europeans now have locked them down on securing privacy.
FB is going to have to find its way out of the woods.
It's way too young of a company to have to do apology campaigns, like Wells Fargo.
They've spent a decade building products in a vacuum, shrugging their shoulders about the possibility that it could be used for lousy purposes (ironic considering it's genesis as an on-campus hot or not website).
They lost a ton of users in Europe due to GDPR, daily actives are in decline (a trend that preceded their role in election meddling and the Burmese genocide, both things they're not equipped to prevent in the future), and they're struggling to find new ways to monetize.
IMO it's not their product that's in crisis, it's their leadership. You can't just Harvard your way out of stuff everytime. You've got to accept your company's broader role in society, regardless of whether you wanted it or not.
It's way too young of a company to have to do apology campaigns, like Wells Fargo.
They've spent a decade building products in a vacuum, shrugging their shoulders about the possibility that it could be used for lousy purposes (ironic considering it's genesis as an on-campus hot or not website).
They lost a ton of users in Europe due to GDPR, daily actives are in decline (a trend that preceded their role in election meddling and the Burmese genocide, both things they're not equipped to prevent in the future), and they're struggling to find new ways to monetize.
IMO it's not their product that's in crisis, it's their leadership. You can't just Harvard your way out of stuff everytime. You've got to accept your company's broader role in society, regardless of whether you wanted it or not.
According to my teens, nobody their age uses Facebook. “That’s for old people, Dad!”
FB was smart to buy Snapchat - that seems to be the app of choice, followed by Instagram.
FB was smart to buy Snapchat - that seems to be the app of choice, followed by Instagram.
Facebook didn't buy Snapchat. They tried and Snap said no.
Snap is now publicly trading and currently at just under 50% of its all-time high.
Agree that FB usage among younger folks has declined (if it was ever a thing to begin with). Even among my demo (32-40) it's dropped sharply, as in off a cliff. FB is a place you go to get inundated with crap from pages you liked a decade ago, argue with high school acquaintances who never left their hometown about politics, and see ads that remind you they know what websites you've been visiting.
Instagram is basically just the last of those three.
FB bought Instagram for $1bil.
That has turned out to be an ingenious purchase for them.
That has turned out to be an ingenious purchase for them.
Same here with my teens. They all Instagram. I decided to take the plunge and open up an Instagram account. I was so naive I had no idea it was centered around pictures. Nope. That is the worst part about facebook in someways and I am not interested in a constant update of people's lives via pictures of the moment nor boring them with mine.
Heard this morning that the value of Facebook's loss today is about equivalent to total value of McDonald's. It is hard to grasp how they make so much money / are worth so much money when the vast majority of users pay zero money for account.
If you're not paying, you're the product.
We might be users but we're not customers, we're what's being sold.
correct, we are the product, not the customers. Now that it's become common knowledge that they're essentially selling us to other companies, people are shutting down and the courts are making it more difficult to continue that in Europe at least.
An excellent read on FB's path the last couple years and their crisis of leadership and culture.
https://www.wired.com/story/inside-facebook-mark-zuckerberg-2-years-of-hell/
https://www.wired.com/story/inside-facebook-mark-zuckerberg-2-years-of-hell/
I've considered a lot about getting rid of my FB account. Just makes it easy to share images with the grandparents who live 8 states away. I suppose email is just as easy tho...
Definitely don't feel bad for Zuckerberg. I did see something about him not letting his kids on FB. Interesting and should really be something to consider.
https://nypost.com/2017/12/04/faceb...ntal-struggles-to-get-their-kids-off-screens/
Definitely don't feel bad for Zuckerberg. I did see something about him not letting his kids on FB. Interesting and should really be something to consider.
https://nypost.com/2017/12/04/faceb...ntal-struggles-to-get-their-kids-off-screens/
GRU should go ahead and farm out as political consultants. I mean, swung a national election with $100,000 in ad buys?!?
Anyone know how to see aggregate spending on the presidential election last cycle? Something like 1.2 billion on one side and 650 million on the other?
$100K donation gets you a fancy seat a dinner, seems like any of the 'bundlers' could go ahead and afford one of these campaigns without candidate approval.
Shouldn't we expect to see this stuff on steroids next time around?
Yes. There are already reports of russia, China, and several middle eastern nations (along with non-nation actors) engaging in this strategy.
Now that they know the ROI on a few hundred K, they’re will be tens of millions thrown at this and to date fb and the US govt have done little to protect the US from it.
This. Too busy making weak efforts to pretend it didn't happen even though its well established for years of the intent.
Funniest quote regarding FB, SC or Instagram from Sean McDonough(ESPN announcer):
Interviewer asked why McDonough wasn't on social media, his reply "I guess I just don't think people care if I had a turkey sandwich for lunch."
Love when people post pics of their burgers, soda etc... So foolish
Interviewer asked why McDonough wasn't on social media, his reply "I guess I just don't think people care if I had a turkey sandwich for lunch."
Love when people post pics of their burgers, soda etc... So foolish
Another great read...
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/06/inside-russias-attempt-to-hack-2018-and-2020
The enemy is sophisticated, capable, and very creative. Yet we coddle them and some deny their enmity or use it for their own gain.
I hope FB, Uber, and a slew of other tech platforms have ramped up their cybersec, editorial, and ad content monitoring teams because they (and infrastructure like electric cos) are our new first line of defense from foreign assaults, whether they like/accept it or not.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/06/inside-russias-attempt-to-hack-2018-and-2020
The enemy is sophisticated, capable, and very creative. Yet we coddle them and some deny their enmity or use it for their own gain.
I hope FB, Uber, and a slew of other tech platforms have ramped up their cybersec, editorial, and ad content monitoring teams because they (and infrastructure like electric cos) are our new first line of defense from foreign assaults, whether they like/accept it or not.
Thiel invested 500k. InQtel invested 12.7 million. You don't have to put on your Columbo rain jacket to figure this one out. Go look up the origin of InQtel.
It's not as straightforward as you state, but there is some connection there.......the big question is, is the CIA directly data mining the information on facebook or are they using money from such investments to fund other dark activities? More than likely it's somewhere in between, but one would think that such actions should violate CIA's mandate of not being able to operate within US borders.
Of course it does, but when has that ever mattered?
I think it had an effect. Enough to swing the election? I don't know.
There were definitely a number of people who were convinced to vote for third party candidates from some of their controlled pages who would have voted for Hillary instead. Likewise, a lot of the anger I saw from Republican's (Some of whom I know had never voted before) turned out to be stories they were talking about which were absolutely fake and that (in many cases) were now traced back to Fake news put out by Russia.
So I do think it stoked anger, which led to more people voting who hadn't voted prior and in most cases either for Trump or for a third party. Was it enough to swing anything? I have no idea. Did it have an effect? Absolutely.
Except that it wasn't InQtel that invested the $12.7 million.........it was Accel Partners. Now the managing partner of Accel, James Breyer, was on the Board of the National Ventures Capital Association (a Washington think tank) with a man named Gilman Louie. Gilman Louie is the founder and CEO of InQtel.
Like I said, it's not as straight forward as you put it, is it suspicious? Kinda, but you have to remember that through just 6 other people you are connected to EVERYONE on this planet. IMO, the idea that InQtel invested heavily in Google is far more disconcerting than the possible links it has with Facebook.
It had a YUGE effect. - $100,000/$2,600,000,000 = 0.004%
I didn't find it necessary to prorate for the portion of the $100k spent after the election.
Facebook is evil and is going about as expected since FB's predecessor Face Smash, but they are no worse than Twitter, Google, Microsoft (Outlook) and, I suspect, Amazon.
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I'm intrigued by the conspiracy theories, I don't fully buy them as much as I buy FB being a company that's been bouncing from guard rail to guard rail trying to find more users and profits while shrugging off responsibility or ownership for its own geopolitical impact.
In the new era companies like these are going to need some form of regulation and responsibility (provided lawmakers themselves aren't the ones manipulating them or benefiting from the manipulation). It's far too easy to weaponize these companies against their own users for whatever purpose or chaos you seek to achieve and the companies themselves have been somewhere between negligent and hesitant to do anything about it themselves.
In the new era companies like these are going to need some form of regulation and responsibility (provided lawmakers themselves aren't the ones manipulating them or benefiting from the manipulation). It's far too easy to weaponize these companies against their own users for whatever purpose or chaos you seek to achieve and the companies themselves have been somewhere between negligent and hesitant to do anything about it themselves.
Blaming FB for the election results is so 2018. Don't like the result - blame someone or something for it.
I don't think anyone is "blaming" FB. A segment of the voting population was already angry and scared. FB just had no problem taking money from people that wanted to feed that anger and fear.
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