
Ad Boycott of Facebook Keeps Growing - megacorp
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/23/business/media/facebook-ad-boycott.html
======
salimmadjd
Am I the only person who has a problem with this headline, "Ad Boycott of
Facebook Keeps Growing" am I overreacting here or others feel the same?

For me at the face of it's not incorrect, but it feels to me a certain
deliberate wordsmithing is used to create a sense of growing momentum.

What we don't know if these advertisers represent 1%, more or less than x% of
Facebook's ad revenue. I do understand FB will not provide that info, but some
real journalism and follow up from said companies could have gathered us the
amount this boycott means. After all this suppose to be NYT.

They do touch on this number, "smaller businesses that make up the bulk of its
eight million advertisers have been considering their options"

However, again they are carefully crafting their words in a way that it's not
inaccurate but showing a larger problem.

Instead of saying "one agency that manages 20 clients", or "we have heard from
some advertisers" using "one agency", or "some advertisers" they are saying
"advertisers" which to some readers will read as a lot of advertisers or a
universal movement among advertisers.

~~~
skewart
What’s more, the NY Times has a strong business interest in convincing
advertisers not to advertise on Facebook. I’m a bit skeptical of anything they
publish these days about Facebook, Google, and other companies that could
potentially threaten their access to clicks, just given their financial
incentives to weaken these companies as much as possible.

~~~
rossdavidh
My thoughts exactly, they have a clear conflict of interest when covering this
story. Although, to be honest, all of mainstream journalism seems way more
biased and blatantly slanted than I recall from 20-30 years ago. Perhaps I am
just better at noticing it now?

~~~
btilly
You are not just better at noticing it. It really is more slanted.

Journalism 20-30 years ago was mostly funded on a subscription model. In this
model they work hard to maintain their reputation, so that people will trust
them as an accurate source of news.

Journalism today is mostly funded per click. Which means that the most
important thing is a headline that grabs people's attention and causes them to
click. The incentive is for the most outrageous and attention grabbing
headline possible. With no incentive for being accurate - by the time you
realize that the article is junk they've been paid and are looking for another
sucker.

If you're interested in a book length exposition of how this change in
dynamics has changed the news landscape, I recommend
[https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-
Manipulato...](https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-
Manipulator/dp/1591846285). The trends that it discusses have played out for
another decade since it was written, but played out along the direction that
it described.

~~~
gms
The NYT operates on an online subscription model, no?

~~~
bobthepanda
How much of a percentage of revenue is that subscription model vs ads, and how
does that hold up to the historical split?

~~~
thorwasdfasdf
i heard somewhere it was 60% subscription 40% ad, though I'm not sure.

------
wayne_skylar
I find it so funny that Facebook hides behind "freedom of speech" when in fact
what they do is the exact opposite.

When everything you saw was cronological, you could make that argument. I
write a message on my wall and everyone who follows me can see it if they
scroll down far enough. Most importantly, the only criteria used was the time
it was submitted which I think everyone can agree is fair.

By prioritizing certain posts based on what the algorithm thinks will make you
stay on the site longer, they are prioritizing, thus interfering with free
speech. When I post something, my message will have a lower chance of reaching
some of my followers. How can facebook justify tipping the scales for one type
of message over another and call it free?

~~~
sneak
The (legitimate) argument is that freedom of speech extends to facebook
getting to decide what, and in what order, information is displayed on
facebook.com.

To dictate a chronological order, or to demand that they publish every single
thing that is submitted to them, is a restriction of their freedom of
editorial expression _on their own website_.

~~~
satokema_work
The (also legitimate) argument is that freedom of speech should extend to
privately-owned de facto commons, and is a concept beyond the enumeration in
the American Bill of Rights.

~~~
phatfish
I agree there is a problem with private corporations that control publishing
platforms with such a large reach. Twitter and Facebook are really the only
ones at the moment with that power (in the "anglosphere" at least).

However, for laws to be created that force them to publish posts that fall
under "free speech" their algorithms must be fully open and auditable.
Otherwise they still hold the power to sensor, or their algorithms could be
covertly gamed by those in the know.

Otherwise your speech might not be the same, or as free as mine, but who would
know?

------
tech-historian
Serious questions: Are the people that work at Facebook proud to work there?
What is morale like inside that place? When someone asks you what you do, and
you say "I work for Facebook," what is their typical reaction?

Not trying to be snarky. I'm genuinely curious how these perceptions/feelings
might have changed over the past few years.

~~~
erikw
I too am curious about the internal motivations of people who work for
Facebook. Something I've noticed about myself is that I would be okay with
working for a US defense contractor, ie a company which makes machines that
literally kill people, yet I could not picture myself working at Facebook. I
struggle to square this morally, because I also believe that defense
contractors have a greater net negative impact on society than Facebook does,
but there is something "icky" to me about Facebook.

I used to commute with a group of folks from Facebook, Oracle, and Amazon, and
none of them seemed to have any moral qualms about their employers. My buddy
from Oracle invited me to apply to work on his team, and in explaining why I
couldn't consider working at Oracle, I mentioned some recent terrible thing
Oracle had done in the open source community. His response was that Amazon
contributed even less open source (which I believe is true). So I think in the
end, the internal justification is "Yeah, maybe I'm contributing to something
immoral, but it's less immoral than X & Y".

~~~
esperent
> I would be okay with working for a US defense contractor, ie a company which
> makes machines that literally kill people

The thought of working for a company like this makes me feel physically ill.
Soldiers can at least feel like they are working to defend a country they
believe in. Weapons companies will sell killing machines to anyone with money.
Few things in the world make me feel the visceral disgust that these companies
engender.

By contrast Facebook is icky ... In the sense that there's one naive greedy
idiot pulling the strings and he refuses to accept the damage he's causing.
Weapons companies and the people who work for them know that their killing
tools are sold indiscriminately and will end up in the hands of tyrants and
terrorists across the world.

~~~
eanzenberg
What damage is Zuck causing again?

~~~
adamsea
Damage to society by denying the role - via inaction, if nothing else - the
company he leads plays in coordinated campaigns of deceit and disinformation
aimed not just to undermine public discourse but also the functioning of
democractic government itself (via targeted political advertising and
misinformation).

Which isn't to say that moderation at Facebook's scale is an easy problem -
it's not. And balancing freedom of speech with some degree of accountability
and acknowledging empirically verifiable truths is difficult.

But, buy the ticket, take the ride. He's a billionaire. FB makes oodles and
oodles of money. They just don't want to do it because it would cost them
money.

Eventually laws will catch up, in one way or another, and the same way other
media outlets are (imperfectly) regulated, new-media outlets such as FB,
Google, etc, will be as well, IMHO.

------
avernon
Maybe I'm cynical, but I would think this has more to do with the cost of ads
going up so much. If you were already thinking of reducing spend on FB, why
not get a little PR out of it?

Also, since the cost of FB ads has been going up over the last several years,
that means there is no shortage of demand for ads on FB.

~~~
admn2
Yeah, pretty much all the big DTC brands (Allbirds, Away, Warby, OV, etc.) all
have retail store fronts and "showrooms" now across the US. I always just
assumed if they were spending $1mm+/month on FB ads, it wasn't a very
difficult decision to move $20k/month to a store in a big city and see what
kind of lead gen and brand awareness that yields.

~~~
8ytecoder
Personal anecdote - stores resulted in a much better conversion but not a huge
uptick in acquisition.

~~~
jonathanpeterwu
Can you explain this a bit further, long tail which was better ROI

------
tomp
Nice. I like that companies are putting their money where their mouth is, and
not just doing cheap virtue signalling, like posting a black square on
Instagram.

I think, and hope, however, that Facebook will come out victorious; (1)
freedom of speech is important, (2) it's not up to Facebook to be the arbitrer
of what's allowed or not (it's up to the law), (3) advertisers need Facebook
more than Facebook needs them, and (4) sooner or later companies will learn
that SJW-ing is at worst negative (each company could easily come under attack
itself) and at best irrelevant (did Pepsi suffer any long-term consequences
for the backlash against it a year or 2 ago? Did Gillete gain a lot for
publishing its anti-toxic masculinity ad? I doubt it.)

~~~
tzs
Having the law as the sole arbiter of what is allowed or not would be terrible
for free speech.

The problem is that we have an overwhelming amount of information being
produced, so that people have a hard time evaluating all they are exposed to.
Furthermore, we have a lot of people who are just too trusting, or too naive,
or too gullible, or perhaps just even stupid. Finally, on top of that we have
many information producers who are _trying_ to cause harm ranging from people
just doing it for fun to countries trying to undermine each other's stability.

A society _must_ find some way to prevent or at least limit those who are
intentionally trying to harm people from taking advantage of the overly
trusting, naive, gullible, and stupid.

The law is a monopoly. Using it to try to address that problem will tend
toward overly broad restrictions on speech, with little or no recourse for
those whose speech should not have been included.

It's far better for it to be handled by Facebook, Twitter, and the rest. If
Facebook won't let me talk about some particular topic I do have alternatives.
They might not reach as far so I might have to go to some serious effort to
contact like minded people and get them to agree to discuss my topic on some
other platform--but I _can_.

~~~
tomp
You're conflating a few issues. Facebook is being boycotted ostensibly for
failing to combat _hate_ speech, whereas your comment is mostly written as a
argument to censor _fake_ news. Classical mote-and-bailey fallacy.

Twitter deleting bots claiming that Obama was born in Africa? Fine. Twitter
tagging Trump's warning that any squatters in Washington DC will be treated
according to law as "promoting violence against specific groups" or "abusive"?
That's quite transparent political bias.

Sure, you probably wrote your comment because you oppose Trump on political
views and you support Twitter acting against promoting those views, but at
least be transparent about it; don't claim that tech giants are just trying to
protect the "naive, gullible, stupid" is gas-lighting.

Last but not least, do you have any evidence for this? IMO it's mostly just
used for journalists to discredit people they disagree with (e.g. Trump or
Brexit voters).

 _> we have a lot of people who are just too trusting, or too naive, or too
gullible, or perhaps just even stupid._

~~~
danans
> Trump's warning that any squatters in Washington DC will be treated
> according to law

What is this law against peaceful protest that you cite?

And under what statute is the use of violence against those protesters
sanctioned by the law?

~~~
bhupy
Squatting + Vandalism != peaceful protest

If a group of people peacefully protest on my lawn, they are not
Constitutionally protected to do so, no matter how "peaceful" their assembly.
If I call the cops to forcefully remove them from my property, I would be
acting within the bounds of the law.

If a group of people spray-paints my business, and I call on the police to
reprimand them, that is again within the confines of the law.

The President tweeting about doing the same is a simple extension of this. You
may disagree with the law in question (as is your right), but it's a bit silly
to suggest that tweeting about enforcement of the law (no matter how unjust
you think it is), should be considered beyond the pale on a global platform.

~~~
danans
> Squatting + Vandalism != peaceful protest

Agreed that vandalism is not peaceful protest.

> If a group of people peacefully protest on my lawn, they are not
> Constitutionally protected to do

But occupying a public space (not a private lawn) in protest - what you refer
to as squatting - is absolutely peaceful protest. Lafayette Square is not
POTUS' private lawn.

~~~
bhupy
> Lafayette Square is not POTUS' private lawn

But St Johns church is not a public space, and vandalizing it is not legal.
Even in public commons, vandalizing/toppling public statues is currently not
legal.

Trump's tweets/posts are strictly about reprimanding this behavior. Again,
there is a growing orthodoxy that holds that this behavior _should not_ be
reprimanded, but tweeting about enforcing those existing laws is well within
the realm of reasonable discourse, especially for a political leader.

~~~
danans
> But St Johns church is not a public space

Lafayette Square is a public place, and that is where POTUS cleared peaceful
protectors with force, so that he could walk across it for his photo op at the
church. If it were an issue of protecting St John's Church property, they
could have cleared just that property, and brought the president in with a
helicopter. But the whole point was to demonstrate the show of force against
the protesters.

You appear to be focusing on St John's Church's private property with the goal
of distracting attention from the public place where the actual use of force
against peaceful protesters took place: Lafayette Square.

One doesn't need to be a liberal to call out the shamefulness of that
incident. In fact the hardly liberal James Mattis did exactly that, as did the
other general who was caught in the photo op.

~~~
bhupy
I think you have that backwards. The "photo op" incident occurred weeks ago,
and James Mattis rightfully condemned it.

The current spate of boycotts appear to be in response to Facebook's refusal
to remove a post by Trump _directly_ referring to the "Black House Autonomous
Zone". That's why the focus is on St. John's church and statues — it's what is
_currently happening right now_. I will include the text of Trump's post:

"There will never be an “Autonomous Zone” in Washington, D.C., as long as I’m
your President. If they try they will be met with serious force!"

This has nothing to do with the photo op incident, and the willingness to
focus on it distracts attention from the private place where actual vandalism
and squatting is currently taking place. It's a valid (if crass) expression of
a willingness to enforce the law, no matter how much people may disagree with
it.

~~~
danans
Yes, it sounds like we were talking about different incidents.

I personally support Facebook's ability to make the decision to either allow
or disallow president's posts - within the parameters of the law - regardless
of whether I would agree with their decision.

The question is whether the parameters of law allow for a public official to
issue credible threats of violence again citizens over mass media channels,
and under what conditions.

The actual use of force by this president in his shameful photo op incident in
front of the church has clearly demonstrated without a shadow of doubt that
his threat of _disproportional_ violence against protesters - even for trivial
purposes - is credible.

The legality of all this is not a settled issue, and is something the courts
may have to decide.

~~~
bhupy
The courts have already decided. The Brandenburg v Ohio precedent establishes
the "imminent lawless action" test.

Issuing threats of (legal) force against citizens that they perceive to be
breaking the law fails the "imminent lawless action" test, and is currently
within the parameters of the law.

~~~
danans
From the Brandenburg v Ohio wiki page:

> The U.S. Supreme Court reversed Brandenburg's conviction, holding that
> government cannot constitutionally punish abstract advocacy of force or law
> violation

Brandenburg was an individual private citizen advocating "abstractly" for
violence against black and Jews as a representative of his private
organization (the KKK). His speech rights were protected then by the case.

However, we will almost certainly have court cases in the near future that
will test the protections of hate speech, which is what we would more readily
call Brandenburg's speech today.

POTUS is a public official and in this incident was speaking in his role as a
public official with the power to use force, and issuing a concrete threat
against a specific target. He is speaking as the government itself because he
is invoking the government's powers.

It's not at all clear that Brandenburg v Ohio protects this sort of speech.
There is plenty for the courts to still consider.

~~~
bhupy
> POTUS is a public official and in this incident was speaking in his role as
> a public official with the power to use force, and a concrete threat against
> a concrete target.

Yes, but that use of force is not lawless. Police use of force against
vandalism is currently legal. Calling for that is also legal, because it fails
the "lawless" portion of the "imminent lawless action" test.

Similarly, if POTUS calls for war against a specific nation (or group), it is
within his rights to do that, no matter how violent or deadly war may be. War
isn't a lawless action (for better or for worse). As such, the Commander in
Chief declaring the intent to call on the legislature to approve a war is also
protected, for the same reason.

~~~
danans
> Similarly, if POTUS calls for war against a specific nation (or group), it
> is within his rights to do that, no matter how violent or deadly war may be.

Calling for war against a foreign adversary, yes. But for violence against
domestic protesters - not clear that Brandenburg v Ohio protects that,
regardless of whether the violence is lawful, and to what degree it is lawful.
The use of violence by public officials is not a blanket right, and courts
will likely consider the types of situation where particular levels of
violence are legal or not.

Also, there are specific legal prohibitions against using the military against
domestic targets, which is one of the things Mattis was so incensed about in
the photo op incident. The administration would like to claim they have the
option of the Insurrection Act, which will again have to be tested in courts.
Calling protests insurrection, even those that commit vandalism, is false on
its face.

~~~
bhupy
> The administration would like to claim they have the option of the
> Insurrection Act, which will again have to be tested in courts. Calling
> protests insurrection, even those that commit vandalism, is false on its
> face.

We're not talking about classifying anything as "insurrection" here.

Given the context of the tweet in question, we are strictly talking about
vandalism and trespassing, and we're talking about classifying it as
"obstruction of the law", which is explicitly carved out in the text of the
Insurrection Act. I'm not sure if you can make a strong case that vandalism
and trespassing are NOT an obstruction of the law. If a mid-20th century
Arkansas school refusing to desegregate can be considered an obstruction of
the law, so too can vandalism/trespassing.

The POTUS declaring the intent to call on the legislature to approve the
Insurrection Act against those that are objectively obstructing the law is
protected by the Constitution, and you'd have to really stretch yourself to
suggest that this fails the imminent lawless action test.

And this is also all assuming that POTUS is talking about using the military.
He could also be talking about just calling on the police force to just
enforce the existing laws. The statement is vague enough that it's legal on
its face, but even in the non-charitable interpretation pretty clearly fails
the Brandenburg test.

------
throwaway_jobs
It seems the pandemic and unemployment is finally causing voodoo economics
(trickle down economics) to reverse course and perhaps cause trickle up
economics, where the multi-billion dollar corporations and rich alike will
begin to feel the pinch of poverty on a massive scale trickle up.

Unfortunately while taxpayers got their $1,200 Checks they were robbed blind
of over $4T to the FED which went directly to stabilize the publicly traded
companies. If it weren’t for that, we would have already seen bankruptcies on
a massive scale from publicly traded companies...instead the markets are back
where the were pre-covid. But at some point they will have to admit there
can’t be a recovery when there are no consumers left.

~~~
camillomiller
I'm frankly flabbergasted by what's going on with the markets. If anyone
thought stocks were still somehow a projection of reality and an indicator of
expectations on the future of a company's performance, well, that's clearly
not the case anymore. I am really scared that a real devastating collapse is
still looming, but I frankly have no clue of when that could happen and what
could actually trigger it.

~~~
jfengel
It is baffling, and I've been expecting a crash for a decade... which is the
problem. The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.

Right now it's kind of persistently slightly irrational. A quick-and-dirty
measure of its sanity is the P/E ratio: how much money are the publicly listed
companies actually making? Right now, the number is around 22[1], meaning a
dollar invested in the market takes 22 years to pay itself back purely in
terms of corporate profits.

That's a return of about 3%. Numbers over 20 are generally considered a sign
that the market is overheated. They peaked at around 45 and 65 right before
the 90s and 2000s crashes. So there is revenue there, and not entirely out of
line with stock prices, but not entirely line with them either.

None of that takes coronavirus into account; that's current price with last
quarter's earnings. But if you assume that coronavirus is only temporary (it
may not be, but let's be optimistic for a second) it means that long term the
numbers are calling for a crash... eventually. One of these days. Longer than
you can remain solvent while shorting it.

Probably.

In other words, I've got no idea what's going on. The markets have been
weirdly stable (in price-to-earnings terms) for the past decade, at a number
that's too optimistic, before coronavirus. Surely the inevitable at-least-
short-term loss of earnings should have corrected that, but it hasn't. So
either people are thinking very long term, or they're just nuts.

[1] [https://www.multpl.com/s-p-500-pe-
ratio](https://www.multpl.com/s-p-500-pe-ratio)

~~~
dehrmann
I've started ignoring P/E because , among other reasons, it doesn't account
for cash reserves. If you have two similar companies, but one is sitting on
more cash, it should be worth more, but its P/E makes it look overpriced
relative to the other.

------
hprotagonist
I wonder how much of the elephant in the room, which is "ad-tech kind of
doesn't work so great", people are going to be willing to say out loud.

~~~
mattlondon
Based on some personal experience from perhaps 7 or 8 years ago, it can work
for driving sales.

However it required quite a lot of effort.

It wasn't just throw some money into the ads and wait for the returns - you
needed to basically spend a full-time job pulling levers and prodding buttons
to find out where the "sweet spot" was and then make sure you keep up with the
moving target over the following days weeks and months. If you were lucky and
your business was selling the "right" things (i.e. large margin items) you
could do quite well. E.g. it might cost you $15-20 in ads to make one sale -
that is net-positive if the margin on your items is large. So some fashion,
furniture, holidays etc a $20+ Cost-per-acquisition is a bargain as you just
paid $20 to make a $150 profit. If you are competing for common ad
space/keywords and you have a low-margin business then you're probably not
going to do so well since you might be paying $20 to sell something that costs
$9.99 or whatever.

Of course, there is then the question of would you have made that $150 profit
without spending the $20? Or did you actually make more than one sale from
those $20 worth of ads (e.g. in-store sales etc in addition to purchases made
online). I am not involved in online advertising now, but at the time that was
the trillion dollar question that everyone was trying to answer... no idea if
it is solved now.

------
creaghpatr
Given what they are trying to do to Scott Alexander, it's hard to take NYT's
reporting angle seriously.

------
avsteele
This is a poor article. It mixes up several different issues and lumps them
together as if they were one thing. Strongly ideological companies aren't
going to behave like the bulk of their customers.

I read this as yet another shot from the NYT against tech in general. It's
propaganda.

------
donw
After the SSC debacle, NYT is likely to learn itself a thing or two about
boycotts.

~~~
intsunny
If we punish respected organizations (of any kind) for every gaffe, we would
not have any left.

In an era where the journalists are more under attack than ever, we might want
to remember it is easier to tear things down than build them up.

~~~
Veen
What about gaffes like the 1619 Project, the shortcomings and errors of which
the NYT steadfastly refused to correct in the face of criticisms from
historians. At a certain point, when the gaffes all line up in one direction,
one might reasonably suspect an underlying motive.

~~~
ciarannolan
What were some of the issues with the 1619 Project?

~~~
solarwind
The main thesis of the 1619 project was that the colonists decided to declare
their independence from Britain because they wanted to protect the institution
of slavery. This is categorically false according to actual historians, and so
the NYT had to issue a correction (some 7 months later). None of the leading
scholars of the whole period from the Revolution to the Civil War were
consulted on the project, yet now it is being taught in some public schools

~~~
Veen
> yet now it is being taught in some public schools

That's the real problem. Newspapers get things wrong all the time. There's a
conversation, people put forth their views pro and anti, and everyone makes up
their own mind. But making a newspaper story that has come under fire from a
huge number of respectable scholars part of the school curriculum for children
is nakedly ideological.

~~~
catalogia
I think/hope everybody recognizes that mistakes happen. In this particular
case I think it goes beyond a mere mistake. Some points to consider: The 1619
Project refers not merely to "a newspaper story". Originally it was 100 page
magazine with ten essays, a variety of poems and stories, etc. It has since
become an ongoing multimedia project. Secondly, as mentioned above, the NYTs
has not been particularly responsive to criticism from actual historians.

~~~
cmdshiftf4
> In this particular case I think it goes beyond a mere mistake.

I think that supports another point made above:

>At a certain point, when the gaffes all line up in one direction, one might
reasonably suspect an underlying motive.

The NYT seems to be beyond "gaffes" at this point, and be entirely focused on
promoting their ideology.

------
moksly
I wonder how much of it is Facebook being unwilling to be editorial and how
much of it is then being unable to moderate a couple of billion users.

Either way, they might not get a choice. The EU is going to regulate them more
and more. My own country is passing a law to force platforms to remove child
pornography within 24 hours of it being reported as an example of where it
starts. Won’t be long before we make enabling nazi groups planning hate crimes
illegal either.

~~~
HeroOfAges
No one has a problem with anyone making nazi groups planning hate crimes
illegal. My biggest concern is Facebook deciding who is a "nazi" and what
constitutes a hate crime. My belief (backed by scientific fact) that
biological sex is real and immutable is enough to have me branded as a "nazi".
The statement "males are not females" is enough to be considered hate speech.
Saying, "males are not females" could be a hate crime.

~~~
sneak
As usual, context is everything in communication.

"Males are not females" may be accurate when referring to biological sex, but
in the context it is most commonly used (as harassment and as a
neoconservative tribal signifier) it is referring to gender, and is roughly
equivalent to saying "the gender you have now should match the gender you were
assigned at birth, or your gender identity is illegitimate".

It's similar to saying "all lives matter". Of course they do, but the context
in which its said indicates that it's an opposition to the explicit statement
about black lives mattering, a de-focusing and dismissal. "All lives matter"
or "males are not females" are not incorrect statements, but in the vast
majority of the times they are used on the internet, they are used to express
hatred of a group and the active dismissal of that group's efforts to achieve
equal human rights. The context in which they are used makes them hateful.
Hiding behind the "but it's scientific fact!" is simply a deflection from the
fact that it is an expression of hate in the context in which it is used.

I shouldn't have to explain this, honestly. Please stop acting like a jerk to
people online.

~~~
HeroOfAges
Since when does the truth need context? If I tweet "males are not females" on
Twitter with no context, they will ban my account.

Also, if I want to say "the gender you have now should match the gender you
were assigned at birth, or your gender identity is illegitimate", that's
precisely what I'll say, but I tend to speak directly. Have you considered you
might be projecting if you can read the literal words "males are not females"
and conclude a person intends to say, "the gender you have now should match
the gender you were assigned at birth, or your gender identity is
illegitimate"? That seems like quite a leap.

~~~
perl4ever
I'd say the truth value of any possible statement is _entirely_ derived from
context. Any possible statement could appear on a sign from nowhere in an
infinite empty universe purely out of quantum fluctuations, but it would have
no meaning without the context of a universe like ours. Every statement has a
context in which it expresses the truth, and many others in which it is false.
And people get into conflicts about the meta-issue of whose context is right.

Mach's principle is kind of an analogy I'm thinking of.

------
1235711
One thing to consider is that this is largely a self-correcting problem for
Facebook due to the auction model for ads.

As money leaves the pool, price per conversion will tend to go down
automatically for everyone else.

If you think other advertisers will leave money on the table to make a point
then you haven't worked in business very long.

------
franze
I wrote about it here and I stand with it "Paid Ads are a Trap"
[https://medium.com/@franz.enzenhofer/ads-are-a-
trap-80df01d2...](https://medium.com/@franz.enzenhofer/ads-are-a-
trap-80df01d2fbaf?source=friends_link&sk=ed2680c921a7bb5a0b147b44a9a14b1e)
(Medium free to read link)

The ad system of Google and Facebook is obviously not created to benefit the
businesses which book ads, but Fb and G. The business should be at best held
at minimum but viable profit, highest cost for ads. At worst "burn through all
your money with us". I by now came to eh conclusion that "paids (ads) growth"
is scheme with only Fb and G as the profiteers.

------
newsclues
I hope government gets on-board.

I frequently see government of Ontario and Canada advertising on Facebook and
its poorly targeted and it makes me mad

------
globular-toast
I have mixed feelings about Facebook. I was one of the first people in my
friend group to boycott Facebook back when it _really_ wasn't cool to do so:
back in 2008 or so. I did so for reasons of privacy. As someone who works with
data for a living, I know full well the risks people are taking by using
Facebook and I also see how little the general public understand about this.
So I boycotted them.

But nobody talks about privacy any more.

The current backlash against Facebook seems to be due to them not wanting to
censor the platform in quite the way that users want them to censor the
platform. It seems everyone is happy with the censorship---because like anyone
who has ever been happy with censorship they don't believe the readership is
intelligent enough to read certain words---but they are unhappy that the
censorship isn't being conducted in a way that benefits them.

Back in 2008 I thought it was simple: just don't use Facebook. Maybe it was
that simple back then. But not now. This internet thing really seems to be
turning into the great problem of our time and I fully expect it to cause
several major crises before we figure it out.

------
code4tee
For better or worse money talks. Advertiser pullouts have been an effective
change mechanism in many other cases. TV personalities doing controversial
things were typically done in when the advertisers pulled their money. Until
then nothing happened.

Facebook does a lot of cool things but it’s only sustainable as a business if
the advertising dollars keep flowing. Shut that off in any appreciable
quantity and things will get ugly there real quick.

------
rootusrootus
While it might affect Facebook’s bottom line for a short while, until users
start moving away from FB nothing really will change. Advertisers will come
back.

~~~
aphextron
>"While it might affect Facebook’s bottom line for a short while, until users
start moving away from FB nothing really will change. Advertisers will come
back."

Counterpoint: users already have moved away, and that's why advertisers are
able to do this without hesitation now. FB is still growing in the third
world, but I don't know a single person in the US under 30 that still uses it.

~~~
jjice
As a Uni student, I still see people use Facebook, but it's a select group of
people. It's the same < 5% of the people I interact with regularly. Most
people I know use Facebook just for events so you can invite someone to a
fundraiser or party.

On the other side, I see Instagram doing fantastic among my friends, and it
gets way less hate from them, despite being very openly owned by Facebook (it
says it on the splash screen).

------
ecmascript
So because Mark Zuckerberg won't censor people with different opinions he is
complacent in spreading fake news and hate?

Wow, that kind of rhetoric is dangerous imo. For once I actually think
Facebook have made the right call. Censoring people is wrong and Facebook
should refrain from doing it.

Let me decide what is true and false, I don't need Facebook or other people to
decide that for me.

Good job Facebook, thanks for standing up for free speech.

~~~
abtom
Facebook as a bastion of free speech? That's not something you hear often. I
don't even even want to dig up the old examples of Zuckerberg bending over
backwards for China, here's a recent example from Vietnam -
[https://in.reuters.com/article/vietnam-facebook/exclusive-
fa...](https://in.reuters.com/article/vietnam-facebook/exclusive-facebook-
agreed-to-censor-posts-after-vietnam-slowed-traffic-sources-idINKCN2232KP)

~~~
bzb3
They only censor when the government forces them to. In other words they do
the minimum to comply with the local law. Isn't that what we were looking for?

~~~
abtom
If they were only complying with court orders / subpoenas that's what would be
called doing the minimum to comply with the law. They have done way more than
that in the past - giving out tools to governments to enable mass surveillance
and takedown of posts/accounts. Whatever content any government agency has a
problem with is taken down immediately.

Don't be mistaken. This is not Facebook standing up for your rights. It's them
not wanting to stop fake news from spreading on their platform because that
would hurt the bottomline.

------
djohnston
nyt will never waste an opportunity to paint their usurper as a failing
company.. i am highly confident that this will all amount to nothing

~~~
mintym
It gives them political cover to ban content and act as if they are
"responding to pressure" but still "striving to be neutral".

------
0xy
This is amazing, because it means less competition and my business will get
better marketing ROI. I fully support other businesses reducing advertising.

------
naringas
I for one am thankful that thanks to facebook there's not only google.

------
acd
I boycott Facebook as a platform for privacy reasons.

------
admiralspoo
The NYT is no longer credible

------
eanzenberg
Wishful thinking from the nyt

------
mesozoic
Wow they're in trouble. Both the left and right are not happy with them. The
left cause they won't censor enough and the right because they sensor too much
and put in a likely bias review committee. The Project Veritas video was
pretty exposing and will likely fuel a senate investigation.

------
buboard
Maybe instead of trying to damage fb directly, nytimes could instead write
about the countless social communities that facebook destroyed abd sidelined
over the years. It s not long ago that nytimes was writing praises about
facebook, we remember.

Unfortunately these days it doesn’t seem that nytimes holds itself to a higher
moral standard than fb

[https://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/12/business/smallbusiness/12...](https://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/12/business/smallbusiness/12guide.html)

[https://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/08/technology/08class.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/08/technology/08class.html)

