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Comment by gorwell | Hacker News Reader

For the millionth time, the media is fabricating a moral panic around their belated discovery that Facebook does what they do, but better, more scalably, and more profitably.

This is the 2016 Facebook panic all over again, but with fewer Russians. You’d think the storyline would get old, but no…

There's almost nothing novel in the leaked Facebook docs, other than confirmation of Facebook's slowing growth and aging userbase.

Everything being discussed now was being discussed years ago. There were whole chapters in Chaos Monkeys about it. Big whoop.

As for why this is getting nonstop coverage:

Aside from mere anti-FB animus, the aesthetics of all this--a compelling whistleblower, leaked docs, internal discussions of (known) tradeoffs--plays precisely into the necessary Aaron Sorkin drama and regnant journalist epistemology.

https://twitter.com/antoniogm/status/1453032152178651136

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> other than confirmation

Confirmation matters. A lot of people here and elsewhere (but especially here) have trouble distinguishing between their own opinion and absolute truth, between suspicions and proof, but that difference does exist and it does matter. Suspicions have been superseded by evidence.

At one time, not so very long ago either, it was still possible to believe in the possibility of positive change from within Facebook. The documents that have leaked are filled with the voices of people who believed that, who acted on that belief, who worked hard and suffered hardship trying to make a difference. But now, with this evidence before us, it's no longer possible to think that battle is winnable. Confirmation like this drastically changes the moral situation for anyone who's still there.

So, essentially the Rupert Murdochs are reacting fairly predictably to the realization that they've already been replaced by Mark Zuckerbergs.

The Rupert Murdochs still have some of their (paid) sympathizers in government, which is the only reason the Rupert Murdochs have any appearance of potential future viability.

I, probably like most HNers, like neither the Rupert Murdochs nor the Mark Zuckerbergs, but I don't know what to do in opposition to them, other than avoid their services - which I already do.

Lobby government for greater personal privacy protections? Hahahahaha, ALL Western Governments are going in the opposite direction because Facebook opened that door to show the world that 'the people' don't care about privacy. The Rupert Murdochs are also coming (a decade late) to the private data party, and Governments already have cozy relationships with them, so they'd be shooting themselves in the foot to put up any resistance to "gathering all the datas", making any opposition to Facebook's internal decisions laughably hypocritical - but only to those who already know or care (a vast VAST minority).

Murdoch had that realisation earlier than you think. He did buy MySpace for $800 million (IIRC) somewhere in the late 2000's. Only to have that investment become worth a whole lot less when Facebook came around.

Speculation: She's a spook (or working with spooks), and this is a public part of a negotiation taking place between FB and "the establishment" aka deep state Feds who want greater access to FB data, and greater influence and control over its policies. Ultimately these negotiations will result in some new legislation and regulatory systems put in place which put more power in the hands of government officials.

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