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Comment by ck425 | Hacker News Reader

You have a good point but there are a couple of areas where they're starting to hurt:

1) Politically. While most users don't care enough to stop using the service, users in the US and Western Europe care enough that politicians who stand up to FB get praise and potentially votes. Looking tough on tech is now a quick political win and that will eventually hurt them, most likely in the EU.

2) Talent wars. HN might not a good proxy for the general population but it's reasonable proxy for people FB wants to hire and the general sentiment around here seems to be I don't want to work for FB anymore. IRL most of my engineering friends don't want to work for FB either.

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> 2) Talent wars.

It's already happening. See last month's New York Times story "‘I Don’t Really Want to Work for Facebook.’ So Say Some Computer Science Students." [1]

1. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/15/technology/jobs-facebook-...

Some college students have been saying this back in 2017, 2016, 2015, and so on and so forth. For some definition of 'Some'.

They then get 6-figure offers, and shit, have to pay those student loans somehow.

There was a time when I was younger, at the height of Microsoft’s unethical attack on Linux and open standards, when I would not have even considered working for them, and would automatically recommend “no-hire” anyone who had recent experience there (because what kind of depraved moral compass do you have working there?) If your company’s brand gets a black enough mark, it can have real consequences.

I recently graduated from college and was heavily involved in national hackathons, and this story is just BS. It's so laughably BS that this story can be used as proof of the New York Time's willingness to publish anything that'll hurt Facebook.

Facebook goes to the best schools in the country and hires the best of the best.

It's a start.

I fear that (1) might turn into a witch hunt -- "all tech is bad". Mass population is not very good at distinguishing nuance, especially when charismatic politicians tell them what to think. But I guess in this case this will work to Facebook's detriment.

As for (2), I haven't thought of that because I don't live in the USA and lack the perspective. Thanks for providing it! I think this might actually hurt FB a lot.

I don't live in the USA either (UK), but even over here I've heard engineers saying they wouldn't work for them.

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