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Comment by lsjvjn | Hacker News Reader

>The fact that Facebook is uniquely held responsible for the societal problems engendered by the Internet does, I suspect, stem from the fact that Zuckerberg is an obvious target. How many people concerned about anti-vax rhetoric, for example, can even name the person in charge of YouTube, a far more potent vector?

This article makes a very cogent point: Zuckerberg has too much baggage with the general public and Meta would be much better off if he stepped out of the light.

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Agreed, Meta's "good parts" would have a better chance to succeed if it weren't entangled so much with Mark and Facebook at large. Listening to the interview made me feel that Mark/Facebook have good intent with this work (and are clearly doubling down ala rename) but the metaverse feels like something that's being pushed through vs a natural extension of human connection. They are making sure they have a big say on how it unfolds by shifting the focus on the company towards. Good and bad.

I was "defending" the metaverse to a friend outside of the tech bubble last night and I talked a lot about how much I learned about socialization/human connection when I used to play Star Wars Galaxies and World of Warcraft. That those relationships which started somewhat "metaverse"-first meant as much as my "real" connections did... and that's what I feel the essence of Meta/metaverse is really trying to bring to everyone.

The author of this piece pointed out on his podcast that Zuckerberg, despite his baggage, is a founder and thus the only person who can sell such a huge change to employees and investors.

If building a metaverse is a good idea, and that is a large if, then it will have been good for him to stay.

Founder loyalty is much larger among employees than it is among investors (in general, don't know about FB).

OK. How do you know this?

Investors routinely replace founder management with management more couched in an institutional investor background.

> The fact that Facebook is uniquely held responsible for the societal problems engendered by the Internet does, I suspect, stem from the fact that Zuckerberg is an obvious target

Interestingly, the most vocal opponents of Facebook are... traditional medias. The same medias that are competing (and losing!) against Facebook for add revenue.

Keep in mind that before Facebook, for a story to get any traction it had to be approved by the "editorial board" of a legacy news outlet. What do you think happened if the owner of the TV station or newspaper didn't want a story to hit the front page?

That's why it's important to have several TV stations and newspapers with different management in the same area. The actual enemy is corporate consolidation, both online and offline.

Zuckerberg controls a majority of voting shares in Meta, right?

I have no idea if FB or YT is more potent, but Ben didn't offer any evidence so this looks like shilling for Zuckerberg.

Facebook's potency is in the reshares, and in the "headline only" feed format where lies in headlines are persuasive even when the linked content is not. YT algorithm shows one person more bad content, but doesn't spam their friends. And in a video the viewer has time to think if the claims make sense.

What if they're resharing Youtube videos?

Sorry but YouTube is not a far more potent vector.

Facebook and Zuckerberg were fairly blamed because they actively developed features that amplified misinformation, and refused to take any action to curb their damage.

We've seen many articles over the last few years about the YouTube recommendation rabbit hole radicalizing young people online. Facebook is not blameless, but they've become a scapegoat for issues plaguing an entire industry.

YouTube’s algorithms also amplify misinformation, and demonetization isn’t exactly a fix for that

Are demonentized videos allowed in Recommendations/Watch Next?

"Facebook is a potent vector for misinformation" doesn't disprove the contention that YouTube is a more potent vector. We're aware of Facebook's issues around this largely because Facebook became the de facto representative for Everything Wrong With Big Tech -- and while there's a solid case to be made that it's their own damn fault they're in that position, it's kept documented problems with other platforms out of the spotlight. YouTube's recommendation algorithm is notorious for leading you to ever-more extremist ("high engagement!") takes on a variety of topics. And in some high-profile cases -- for instance, Alex Jones back in 2018, coronavirus vaccine disinformation just this year -- YouTube was well behind other social media platforms in executing bans. There is an arguable case to be made that compared to YouTube, Facebook is a relative model of responsibility.

(And, yes, there's a larger question about how companies like YouTube and Facebook should be approaching moderation at all, who gets to decide what is and isn't misinformation, who watches the watchmen, etc. But if we presume there's a rationale for moderation at all, then YouTube should be getting way more scrutiny than it generally receives.)

YouTube has been an extremely potent vector for antivax rhetoric. They've banned antivax content, but we'll see how that holds up.

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/youtube-an... (2021)

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/carolineodonovan/youtub... (2019)

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