Facebook Crowned 'Worst Company of 2021' by New Survey

[sudo-sandwich]

And yet, nothing will actually change. I’d love it if everyone who hated Facebook would actually stop using Facebook, but momentum is a very powerful thing.

Everyone who hates FB probably already stopped using it, since it's not essential. That leaves billions who don't hate it.

 

[williedigital]

Here is what you should be upset about and why you should care:

1. Facebook has weaponized A/B testing and human psychology and biology (endorphins) against its users
2. Users are subject to pervasive, consistent A/B tests — the purpose of which is to decode how you think and the conditions under which you are likely to do X (click the like button, not click the like button, support position A, etc.)
3. This knowledge of users and the levers for how to manipulate users is what facebook really sells
4. Facebook uses this knowledge to manipulate context (your feed, the ui and other factors under their control) to engineer optimal conditions for you to take a given set of actions based on their knowledge of your interests and your psychology
5. Users have been duped into thinking that their behavior on Facebook is of their own free will, while they are actually being manipulated based on their quantified psychology — which informs what Facebook chooses to target them with

“With or without [facebook] good people will do good and evil people will do evil. But for good people to do evil, that requires [facebook].” — Apologies to Steven Weinberg.

Evidence: Watch The Social Dilemma on Netflix, Look at Facebook - inspired violence in India, Myanmar, and even the US (Jan 6 insurrection, anti-vaccine lunacy, etc.).

Net-net: Facebook is toxic, and if you are on Facebook you’re unwittingly contributing to the perpetuation of this corrosive and amoral system.

I guess I don't equate " knowledge of conditions I will click like" to "manipulation". My instinct to "like" comes first, and they are simply exposing existing predilections, no?

To see this we need only recognize that intra-group violence of exactly the kind blamed on Facebook existed long before Facebook existence in India, Burma, Rwanda, Balkans, etc. Isn't this just revealing who we've always been, but we're just seeing the ugly reality of the global masses vs. those with Ivy emails?

 

[sudo-sandwich]

My wife included. She is on that crap nonstop. She recognizes the creepiness, but thinks the benefits outweigh it. I’m not sure how to convince her otherwise.

There are benefits from just having one you log into occasionally to keep in contact with people, but there's no way being on it all the time helps.

 

[sudo-sandwich]

Here is what you should be upset about and why you should care:

1. Facebook has weaponized A/B testing and human psychology and biology (endorphins) against its users
2. Users are subject to pervasive, consistent A/B tests — the purpose of which is to decode how you think and the conditions under which you are likely to do X (click the like button, not click the like button, support position A, etc.)
3. This knowledge of users and the levers for how to manipulate users is what facebook really sells
4. Facebook uses this knowledge to manipulate context (your feed, the ui and other factors under their control) to engineer optimal conditions for you to take a given set of actions based on their knowledge of your interests and your psychology
5. Users have been duped into thinking that their behavior on Facebook is of their own free will, while they are actually being manipulated based on their quantified psychology — which informs what Facebook chooses to target them with

“With or without [facebook] good people will do good and evil people will do evil. But for good people to do evil, that requires [facebook].” — Apologies to Steven Weinberg.

Evidence: Watch The Social Dilemma on Netflix, Look at Facebook - inspired violence in India, Myanmar, and even the US (Jan 6 insurrection, anti-vaccine lunacy, etc.).

Net-net: Facebook is toxic, and if you are on Facebook you’re unwittingly contributing to the perpetuation of this corrosive and amoral system.

You're describing any company that's performed extensive (by today's tech standards) customer research, including Apple. This doesn't absolve FB of it. It pisses me off everywhere I see it. Just have to be aware of it and keep it out. A/B testing isn't as evil as you make it sound, but it gets devious when they start trying to alter user behavior rather than adapt to it. That seemingly innocent non-chrono feed many companies implemented was their way of saying, "now we're telling the users what they want."

Also what you're saying is true, but I would never trust a video documentary, primarily served for entertainment, as evidence.

 

[sudo-sandwich]

I quit Facebook 11, almost 12 years ago. I saw this coming and said as much at the time. People thought I was stupid. “You can’t just quit Facebook, how will you stay in touch with people?” Turns out I’m completely fine and didn’t need most of those “friends” anyway. It’s all BS anyway, nobody has hundreds or thousands of actual friends. It’s just a popularity contest akin to high school. I’ve been a lot more successful and less distracted without it.

The thing is, 11 years ago, FB Messenger hadn't gained traction. It's the only FB feature I use because all my actual friends use it, and while I can definitely SMS them individually, FB group chats are where plans happen. So unless I intend to become the social leader in every circle just to move people off FB Messenger, which I don't even mind using, it's not happening.

FB proper though, I've railed against it since 2008. Lost friends doing so, but idc. We actually need a messenger but don't need something to replace significant chunks of human interaction.

 

[sudo-sandwich]

I beg to differ... remember the Cambridge Analytica scandal and their involvement in the 2016 elections... or the Russians.. New research says Instagram and as well as Facebook were leveraged to spread propaganda.

FB has always been a source of information for advertisers, and that includes political campaigns. In 2016 they were used by someone the media hates for the first time. It actually would've been worse had FB not closed a lot of the API off in the years leading up to that.

I take my original statement back, though, because they actually made big changes to the product that I've forgotten. Non-chrono feed, IG acquisition, WhatsApp acquisition. (And part of the reason I hate this survey's "best company ever" Microsoft is because they keep acquiring and screwing things up, plus not respecting user intent.)

 

[williedigital]

You're describing any company that's performed extensive (by today's tech standards) customer research, including Apple. This doesn't absolve FB of it. It pisses me off everywhere I see it. Just have to be aware of it and keep it out. A/B testing isn't as evil as you make it sound, but it gets devious when they start trying to alter user behavior rather than adapt to it. That seemingly innocent non-chrono feed many companies implemented was their way of saying, "now we're telling the users what they want."

Also what you're saying is true, but I would never trust a video documentary, primarily served for entertainment, as evidence.

Yes, it seems odd to use a video documentary to criticize Facebook of manipulation. Kettle black and all.

 

[mzeb]

I have yet to see a social charity or organization that isn’t corrupt. After all, you’re suckering people in emotionally into giving you money/data/whatever. The company knows it has the upper hand.

Acquaint.org offers no ads, does not sell your data, is centered around one on one direct communication and has the lofty goal of overcoming cultural and political division. They are young but growing.

 

[0924487]

This changes literally nothing

Facebook being crowned the worst company of 2021 won't suddenly make them go out of business and delete the website.

Well, they are crating "Meta", i.e., the whole virtual universe.

 

[tridley68]

Glad someone finally figured that out.

 

[kalsta]

I wondered if I could stay off of it. Now, a year later, I’m not regretting my decision at all.

Mate, I feel exactly the same. I'm less distracted (without the temptation to just quickly check FB), I don't feel a moral obligation to reply to all the crazy stuff with links to Snopes articles, and I have so much more time for real life. Ah… it's like stepping outside and breathing the fresh air again.

 

[BrownyQ]

Person who took the time to assign an avatar complains about timesinks...

I don't see how choosing an avatar on this site should affect my opinion on social media. Though for the record, I didn't choose the avatar, MacRumors plucked it from my e-mail.

 

[bobtem]

Who are the “1,000 individuals”?

 

[chrono1081]

Jokes on them, Facebook may suck, but Meta is not the worst company in the word. Zuck is smarter than he looks.

He's really not though and people still call "Meta" Facebook. It was a terrible rebranding attempt. Comcast at least did it right by making many people think XFinity was something new. Facebook was all "WeRe MeTa NoW!"

 

[MacBH928]

Sure, they are collecting information about me and selling it to companies so they can target ads. What is so terrifying about that? It's the basic business model of freely available media for 100+ years. How is this materially different from say, Nelson demo ratings? I don't get what you guys are so afraid is going to happen.

Here is whats going in the background that you do not know. They have a file with your name on it. When you double click it, here are some of the info that can be shown about you:-

name , age, height, spouse , kids , contacts, phone number of contacts, browsing history, devices owned, yearly income, net worth, chat history with everyone, browsing history, when you make calls and who you call and how long you talked, storage of all photos and voice records (maybe even video calls), location history, where you are now, which links you clicked, your job, debt, politcal views, religeon...etc

They might even be recording you using your camera and microphone without you knowing. Most people do not know about this, they just downloading instagram and start posting away. Unlike Nelson rating where a small group of subjects probably signed a contract explaining everything to them and will be compensated financially for participating in the data collection.

Of course if you are ok with this, no problem, there was a girl on the internet that broadcasted her whole life 24/7 AFAIK even intimacy. As for most people, they would not like a camera hanging over their head broadcasting all their life to strangers.

 

[MacBH928]

Aside from TikTok which is clearly Instagram's biggest competitor and the one Zuckerberg is constantly ripping off from, there's an emerging competitor that I'd keep my eye on: Glass. It's beautifully done and a great way to share photos in a feed. It's ad free because there's a small annual fee. I'm happy to pay it. If Apple ever wanted to get into this space directly, I'd see them buying this company and its quickly growing community.

nah...this is more like Flickr app not a social platform. Its more about sharing pictures than socializing which is what instagram turned into. There was an a dead attempt some years ago, for the life of me I can't find any trace of it on the internet, it was like a mini blog/photo sharing app. There is the FOSS pixelfed but that is extremely underdeveloped and under funded.

The other important piece of the app is the community, its no use going to a place where there is no one. Everyone is on instagram because... everyone is on instagram.

 

[_Spinn_]

This warms my heart. Facebook/Meta is a terrible company.

 

[RaceTripper]

They only polled over 1,000 individuals!!!? That represents what..... A neighborhood?

Take a Statistics course and you might understand why a sample of 1000 people is perfectly valid and has a high probability for reasonable accuracy. Assuming they did their sampling correctly.

 

[Grohowiak]

One hell of a understatement.
I don't understand why anybody would use that platform.

 

[EdT]

Yet nearly 3bn people use it every month. Let that sink in for a minute, that is approximately 2,800,000,000 people, 35% of the worlds population - every month.

For all Apple's marketing about privacy, forum frothings about people and their data being the product, even the acceptance that Facebook/Meta really is a cancer on society, it is clear that the majority of internet users do not care.

I agree with you but decided that I don’t ’Like’ that you are probably correct. So you’ll have to live with just a verbal affirmation rather than a smiley or frowny face icon.

 

[EdT]

Here is whats going in the background that you do not know. They have a file with your name on it. When you double click it, here are some of the info that can be shown about you:-

name , age, height, spouse , kids , contacts, phone number of contacts, browsing history, devices owned, yearly income, net worth, chat history with everyone, browsing history, when you make calls and who you call and how long you talked, storage of all photos and voice records (maybe even video calls), location history, where you are now, which links you clicked, your job, debt, politcal views, religeon...etc

They might even be recording you using your camera and microphone without you knowing. Most people do not know about this, they just downloading instagram and start posting away. Unlike Nelson rating where a small group of subjects probably signed a contract explaining everything to them and will be compensated financially for participating in the data collection.

Of course if you are ok with this, no problem, there was a girl on the internet that broadcasted her whole life 24/7 AFAIK even intimacy. As for most people, they would not like a camera hanging over their head broadcasting all their life to strangers.

I don’t think that I could live with a lot of people telling me just how disgusting and ugly I am. They wouldn’t be wrong, I’d just get depressed seeing everyone confirm it.

 

[CarlJ]

I’d split it three ways along with Twitter and Reddit , all equally abysmal

Huh. I see Facebook in a league of their own, because of the company's creepy sociopathic factor, deceptively trying to get around limits to collect more creepy information about users and such. I don't see either of the other two doing that.

 

[CarlJ]

Of course, my wife uses it religiously and keeps me up to date on family and friends stuff, so that did make it easier.

So you've got the "second-hand smoke" version of Facebook 😂

 

[CarlJ]

Of course if you are ok with this, no problem, there was a girl on the internet that broadcasted her whole life 24/7 AFAIK even intimacy.

Jennicam? I'd forgotten about that.

 

[dysamoria]

Why not? That's what has been expected of people for all time. It's never been easier to source accurate information so I don't see why it's so impossible to not believe BS.

The scale of monied disinformation campaigns have massively scaled up and their access to people is far greater. It takes considerable effort for people to check on the validity of the crap pushed into their faces, and it’s even harder to KNOW to do so when their acquaintances, friends, and family are the ones presenting it to them.

If you find it easy to wade through the muck, consider yourself privileged to extra time and practice with critical thinking and internet research methods. It’s not the norm. Just because actual facts are available online does not mean it is equally pervasive or equally accessible.