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Comment by cmsonger | Hacker News Reader

> Mission focus produces social good: Working in a single direction on a strong, well-considered mission is the best way to make a socially positive impact.

Facebook seems like the obvious counter example to this.

The whole statement seems to be: "Trust the business, we know it's going to be good. Ignore the larger societal issues we might be causing."

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Facebook lays it out plainly: "Facebook's mission is to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together. People use Facebook to stay connected with friends and family, to discover what's going on in the world, and to share and express what matters to them."

It's so vague as to never be controversial. However, their behavior in the details...the implementation, if you will.

I suspect this mission might actually end up being controversial. It's quite possible that the fundamental mission of facebook is simply a bad idea. Maybe the world is better when it's not so easy to form communities solely based on shared opinions and activities.

Their mission used to be "make the world more open and connected". They changed it because it because they've mostly achieved it and being open and connected has a different set of negative externalities.

But people these days don't have tolerance for 'middle of the road' politicking. You're either for or against. There is no grey anymore. Independent thought is no longer allowed. So you either get the 'trust the business' or 'quit doing business and bring all of your personal shit to the office' groups.

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