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You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / That NYTimes Facebook Bombshell: “Delay, Deny, Deflect..”

That NYTimes Facebook Bombshell: “Delay, Deny, Deflect..”

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Much as I hate to endorse any opinion of Franklin Foer’s, I have to admit I’m glad I never joined Facebook. (Not being on Facebook has sometimes felt like a minor luxury, because I don’t have an employer who demands it, or social networks that I can’t access via alternate routes. And, yes, I realize they’ve probably mined all my personal information anyways.) Props to the NYTimes reporters:

… In just over a decade, Facebook has connected more than 2.2 billion people, a global nation unto itself that reshaped political campaigns, the advertising business and daily life around the world. Along the way, Facebook accumulated one of the largest-ever repositories of personal data, a treasure trove of photos, messages and likes that propelled the company into the Fortune 500.

But as evidence accumulated that Facebook’s power could also be exploited to disrupt elections, broadcast viral propaganda and inspire deadly campaigns of hate around the globe, Mr. Zuckerberg and Ms. Sandberg stumbled. Bent on growth, the pair ignored warning signs and then sought to conceal them from public view. At critical moments over the last three years, they were distracted by personal projects, and passed off security and policy decisions to subordinates, according to current and former executives.

When Facebook users learned last spring that the company had compromised their privacy in its rush to expand, allowing access to the personal information of tens of millions of people to a political data firm linked to President Trump, Facebook sought to deflect blame and mask the extent of the problem.

And when that failed — as the company’s stock price plummeted and it faced a consumer backlash — Facebook went on the attack.

While Mr. Zuckerberg has conducted a public apology tour in the last year, Ms. Sandberg has overseen an aggressive lobbying campaign to combat Facebook’s critics, shift public anger toward rival companies and ward off damaging regulation. Facebook employed a Republican opposition-research firm to discredit activist protesters, in part by linking them to the liberal financier George Soros. It also tapped its business relationships, lobbying a Jewish civil rights group to cast some criticism of the company as anti-Semitic.…

…[T]rust in the social network has sunk, while its pell-mell growth has slowed. Regulators and law enforcement officials in the United States and Europe are investigating Facebook’s conduct with Cambridge Analytica, a political data firm that worked with Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign, opening up the company to fines and other liability. Both the Trump administration and lawmakers have begun crafting proposals for a national privacy law, setting up a yearslong struggle over the future of Facebook’s data-hungry business model…

… [A]s Facebook grew, so did the hate speech, bullying and other toxic content on the platform. When researchers and activists in Myanmar, India, Germany and elsewhere warned that Facebook had become an instrument of government propaganda and ethnic cleansing, the company largely ignored them. Facebook had positioned itself as a platform, not a publisher. Taking responsibility for what users posted, or acting to censor it, was expensive and complicated. Many Facebook executives worried that any such efforts would backfire.

Then Donald J. Trump ran for president. He described Muslim immigrants and refugees as a danger to America, and in December 2015 posted a statement on Facebook calling for a “total and complete shutdown” on Muslims entering the United States. Mr. Trump’s call to arms — widely condemned by Democrats and some prominent Republicans — was shared more than 15,000 times on Facebook, an illustration of the site’s power to spread racist sentiment…

Some at Facebook viewed Mr. Trump’s 2015 attack on Muslims as an opportunity to finally take a stand against the hate speech coursing through its platform. But Ms. Sandberg, who was edging back to work after the death of her husband several months earlier, delegated the matter to Mr. Schrage and Monika Bickert, a former prosecutor whom Ms. Sandberg had recruited as the company’s head of global policy management. Ms. Sandberg also turned to the Washington office — particularly to Mr. Kaplan, said people who participated in or were briefed on the discussions…

TL, DR: “Damage Control at Facebook: 6 Takeaways From The Times’s Investigation”

‘Both sides’ cameo by the ineffable Chuck Shumer, because of course:

Reader Interactions

119Comments

  1. 1.

    Patricia Kayden

    Also glad I’ve never joined Facebook. Imagine what they’re doing that we don’t know about. Zuckerberg is a sleazy businessman just like a Trump.

  3. 3.

    seaboogie

    I deleted my FB account and apps around the Alex Jones clusterf*%k, and – while I miss keeping up with a few geographically distant friends and relatives, it was worth it in principle at the time, and I feel better about the wisdom of that decision every day. Rather addicted to Twitter for the latest breaking news and wit.

  4. 4.

    Major Major Major Major

    Not being on Facebook has sometimes felt like a minor luxury, because I don’t have an employer who demands it, or social networks that I can’t access via alternate routes. And, yes, I realize they’ve probably mined all my personal information anyways.

    And they are not the only ones!

    Facebook is awful (though they own great things like Oculus). I am of course on Facebook. Just today I posted two popular things! But I use it with much the same attitude as when I fill a car’s gas tank with fossil fuel.

  5. 5.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    I’ve said this here and elsewhere many times, but: I have never had a Facebook account because I recognized from the start that Facebook is a machine for collecting your personal information so that Mark Zuckerberg can use it any way he wants. Without limits, without disclosure, and obviously, without ethics or scruples. I know the machine has a ton of info on me, too, because of my friends and despite all my care. I’ve had this discussion with my real-life friends so often, but they just can’t wean themselves off it. (I’m excusing anyone who has to use it for work: librarians, small-businesses operators, etc.) I’ve missed SO MUCH news about friends and family over the years, but you know what? That’s on them, not me. That fucking thing is a brain-wasting drug. I won’t take it.

  6. 6.

    hitchhiker

    Can’t even with that NYT article. FB execs don’t have the chops to manage what they’ve built in a responsible way. There’s just no other way to say it.

  7. 7.

    eemom

    FWIW, which of course is nothing, I will insist to my dying day that FB has been invaluable in enabling me to reconnect with many dear people I would otherwise have lost forever. It facilitates connecting with them in non-cyberspace, as well.

  8. 8.

    eemom

    @hitchhiker:

    FB execs don’t have the chops to manage what they’ve built in a responsible way.

    That might be the most sensible comment I’ve ever read on this blog about FB — recognizing the difference between the thing itself and its handlers. None of the other bashers has ever figured that out.

  10. 10.

    Mnemosyne

    I’m stuck on Facebook for now because my professional network of writers is mostly on there. As M^4 said, I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I’m using a damaging product and try to keep my footprint as small as possible.

    I do keep meaning to create a separate Facebook profile for my pseudonym, which would probably just exacerbate the existing fake accounts problem.

  11. 11.

    Ninedragonspot

    FB ambivalent here. Yes, the management is quite evil.

    But: it’s been a boon for small arts organizations throughout the world, connecting performers with potential audiences. I’ve learned a great deal about local arts programs in distant places. I frequently have dealings in China, and the lack of a unified social media environment there is a major PITA for arts consumers, especially outside the biggest cities.

  12. 12.

    Corner Stone

    I’m still wondering how this is a bombshell. Sandberg is the fucking devil herself. What did anyone think she was doing?

  13. 13.

    Mnemosyne

    Also, just because I was ranting about it here earlier today:

    ‘Both sides’ cameo by the ineffable Chuck Shumer, because of course

    It drives me absolutely up the fucking wall that there’s an entire exposé about how Facebook directly conspired with the Republican Party to steal the 2016 election and the only takeaway some people on the left* had was, Chuck Schumer did a few minor things to support them, so therefore both sides are equally guilty!

    * Present company (including AL) excluded, in case that wasn’t clear.

  15. 15.

    mad citizen

    Is it really 2.2 billion PEOPLE? How many accounts are companies, organizations, dogs, cats, fake people, etc.? I’m highly skeptical of that number. Myself, I created one a few years ago solely to be able to log into my local newspaper site to make comments, and use it for other such things. I rarely use it, they send suggestions to connect to people I don’t know, etc. My account is under a fake name. I doubt they have gleaned anything of value from me.

  16. 16.

    Corner Stone

    We need to stop venerating these Big Tech people as demi-Gods who are going to save us all. Zuck is really just a supremely rich 12 year old who might wish us all into the cornfield at any moment.

  17. 17.

    NotMax

    Related.

    Dozens of lawmakers in Congress are using tracking tools on their campaign websites to collect personal information about online visitors, including some legislators who have lambasted Facebook and other social media companies for employing similar methods.

    The revelations underscore how critical internet tracking has become to politicians who seek information on voters in their districts to target them with advertising.

    One senator removed tracking tools from his campaign website after his office was contacted by McClatchy, and another lawmaker pledged to put up a privacy alert about the tracking. Source

    Never been to Facebook. Never been to Twitter. And unable to discern any reason whatsoever to veer from that.

  18. 18.

    Doug R

    I am on Facebook way too much these days. It’s good for political friends keeping you sane. Bloom County is on Facebook. I also watch TV. On cable.

  20. 20.

    Ninedragonspot

    @mad citizen: I still see a lot of fake China accounts, wumao-type accounts set up to push back against news stories perceived as “unfriendly”. Don’t know whether their numbers are statistically significant, though.

  21. 21.

    Yarrow

    But as evidence accumulated that Facebook’s power could also be exploited to disrupt elections, broadcast viral propaganda and inspire deadly campaigns of hate around the globe, Mr. Zuckerberg and Ms. Sandberg stumbled. Bent on growth, the pair ignored warning signs and then sought to conceal them from public view. At critical moments over the last three years, they were distracted by personal projects, and passed off security and policy decisions to subordinates, according to current and former executives.

    This is bullshit in that it dismisses what they did and allowed to happen prior to three years ago. Like running psychological experiments on Facebook users by purposely promoting sad or disturbing news to see if it would change how those users felt or responded. Hey, guess what, it did! Those users were sadder. Facebook was playing with fire and there have been no consequences for them for any damage they did to those users.

    And then there’s the partnering they did with Cambridge Analytica and the Russian funding they took to keep the company going. They are traitors. Whatever bad stuff comes their way as a result of all of this is probably not even close to what they deserve.

  24. 24.

    Old Dan and and Little Ann

    I have less than 200 fb friends because I was always skeptical and don’t care about every Tom, Dick, and douchebag I’ve ever crossed paths with in my life. I know 3 active triumph supporters online. I feel like that’s better than most users.

  31. 31.

    Adam L Silverman

    Why do we need neo-NAZIs and other anti-Semites when you can get three Jewish corporate execs to peddle the exact same ant-Semitic crap for their own personal profit?

  33. 33.

    Ruckus

    I’ve been on FB for a number of years. I used to check it very often, it allowed me to keep up with far flung friends. Now I check in maybe once every 6-8 weeks.
    Also I understand that deleting your account is a lot more difficult than one might think, even given their assholelyness. In that vein I found a couple of years ago a site that tells how to actually delete your account. Here’s the link about actually deleting your FB account. I make no claim as to anything about it but it has been up and updated a few times.

  34. 34.

    Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)

    The real hitch here, at least to my mind, is that Facebook has become something of a practical need to a whole lot of people in the world, people who often don’t have many ways to keep up with others, people in developing countries, that kind of thing.

    I think the answer–and my guess is that we’ll get there sooner or later–is that the thing be designated a public utility, and run as one. This is just too important to be left to scheming, greedy scumbags like Zuckerberg and Sandberg.

  38. 38.

    Brickley Paiste

    People who participate in Facebook and Twitter are complicit in the ongoing destruction of this country.

    This is stuff that’s been talked about for years now. It isn’t news that everytime you log in you sell a tiny part of yourself.

    SAD.

  40. 40.

    Yarrow

    @Corner Stone: She is awful. Years and years ago, when Facebook was still relatively new I remember seeing her interviewed on some morning newstainment show, like the Today Show. Facebook had just changed some design and settings, as they were doing all the time at that time, and things that previously were private were suddenly public. The interviewer asked her about that and suggested that perhaps not everyone would like that info to be public and she just replied with something like, “We believe that sharing more is good!”

    No thought of how suddenly making private info public might endanger people. No worries about how they’d misrepresented what users could make public and private. Not a care in the world. Just “sharing more is good!” and bulldoze right through.

    She’s not to be trusted and hasn’t been for as long as she’s been at Facebook. Probably well before that.

  42. 42.

    Shalimar

    @mad citizen: I had 6 Facebook accounts maybe five years ago to play a baseball card-collecting game, one for each division. I never used any of them for anything else, even the one that was actually in my own name. My guess is I was far from the only person who has ever done something like this.

  43. 43.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Mike in DC:

  44. 44.

    Tenar Arha

    @Adam L Silverman: said this earlier today…
    I cannot get it out of my mind that they ended up contributing to the online environment that resulted in the killings at Squirrel Hill.

  45. 45.

    Yarrow

    @Shalimar: Remember when they were making people send in pics of their driver’s licenses to prove who they were or they’d shut down their accounts? Also, they were shutting down drag queens’ accounts because they didn’t use their real names.

  48. 48.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Corner Stone:

    We need to stop venerating these Big Tech people as demi-Gods who are going to save us all. Zuck is really just a supremely rich 12 year old who might wish us all into the cornfield at any moment.

    This is a quality post.

    Steve in Floriduh

  49. 49.

    Tenar Arha

    I’m like a lot of you too. I was never on it, bc I didn’t need it or want it & then I just kept finding really good reasons not to join.

    First I avoided it because it didn’t seem like something meant for an old head like me. Then I was like, you want me to use my real name, really? Then they kept on changing their TOS & privacy settings, which meant I’d have to pay close attention to it bc it would be associated with my real name. Then bc every new offering was another sliver of privacy they were asking me to give away. Then it was the studies showing it was contributing to everything from FOMO, to addictive behavior, to depression, to DV & stalking, etc. even to increasing the spread of false information & acting as the primary megaphone for genocide.

    I don’t for a minute forget that between Google & Twitter & Apple & my cell provider, all of whose different services & monopoly power I use & depend on, my information is out there somewhere, & my privacy invaded. But none of these companies required me to give them all the parts of my self, & use them together through their curated portal in front of everyone I’ve ever known IRL while selling all of that information to the highest bidder. & then practically guaranteeing that information would be used to turn some of those same people into right wing extremists, or manipulations.

    So anyway, I’ve always thought FB was creepy, but now I think they’re the 21st century’s first hazardous equivalent of the bomb, of chemical weapons, or dynamite….FB created an monopolistic international societal propaganda & manipulation network, and then ignored the warnings.

    I’m not sure what happens next, but it needs everything in the toolbox plus, & even if we break it up here, probably we’ll need international regulations to reduce its scope & harmful characteristics there too. Maybe while we’re doing that, we’ll learn from the past & look at regulating all the other computer based monopolies too.

  50. 50.

    JR

    Facebook has insinuated itself into mundane communications for PTO meetings, etc. For that reason my wife hasn’t left (I quit when the CA story broke, and haven’t regretted it one iota). But perhaps if there were a craigslist-esque alternative to social networks…

  51. 51.

    Ruckus

    @Shalimar:
    Had a few friends who used fake names. One hasn’t been caught to the best of my knowledge. They used to make a big deal about that but with all the bots and them selling whatever they collected, I’d bet they really don’t give a shit about any fake accounts. I’d also bet they in some ways encouraged them, that made them look bigger and they had more data to sell. So what if it’s fake, it’s still worth money, especially if the people paying didn’t know/care. 2.2 billion accounts, that’s almost a third of the worlds population. I’m thinking that number can not all be real accounts. Most of the people I know right now, including a number on this post, don’t have accounts. Somethings fishy at FB. Of course it always has been.

  52. 52.

    Dan B

    Its great that the NYT has covered FB’s problems. There is fairly clear evidence that they’ve empowered authoritarians and that they’ve become a tool of genocide.

    They’ve learned how to manipulate popular opinion and are selling their services to the higher bidders. They can find out in real time how to manipulate and propagandize.

    It’s a dictator’s dream.

    Watch Frontline and Independent Lens’ most recent shows. They’re chilling.

    We need regulation and oversight with consequences.

  53. 53.

    Tenar Arha

    @Adam L Silverman: I was pretty sure. Some enterprising reporter right now is comparing the killer’s social media they pulled off the web with the information currently available just from this story.

    Also said earlier today that turns out that Zuckerberg belongs right next to Adelson & Netanyahu as bad for Jewish Americans; & on second review, Sandberg belongs there too, while Schumer is an enabler.

  54. 54.

    Humdog

    Wait. 2.2 billion accounts but today announced purging 1.5 billion fraudulent accounts? 66% fake, really?

  60. 60.

    Ruckus

    @Adam L Silverman:
    So now we know why he’s holed up in that embassy. He has good reason to be afraid of being out in the world where someone can get to him. If we want him, it’s a pretty good bet someone else might like to talk to him as well. Actually a number of someones.
    Brings to mind that old saying, “His life isn’t worth a bucket of spit.”
    What I like is that he’s put himself in jail, rather than have someone else do it. Wonder how long before his hosts literally just throw him out in the street, him being such a good house guest and all?

  61. 61.

    Yarrow

    @Ruckus: I read a funny suggestion that Ecuador could just decide to move its embassy to another physical location. Move everything but Assange. Leave him in the building that would no longer be an embassy.

  64. 64.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Yarrow: I’m doing much better, thanks. Am back in the gym, so now I’m sore from having had last week off. And you? Feeling better.

  65. 65.

    Ruckus

    @Yarrow:
    Be easier for two guys to just pick him up by an arm and his belt and throw him out the front door. Wanna bet that idea has crossed their minds?

  68. 68.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Ruckus: We’ll see. This may just be what the lawyer who tweets as SouthpawNYC thinks it is, a bizarre misstatement. Or it could be that he’s been indicted under seal and it has now inadvertently leaked.

  69. 69.

    Martin

    So AP called CA-45 for the Democrat Katie Porter. My first coworker in Congress. I have one in the White House, but we don’t talk about him because he’s a fucking idiot.

    CA-39 now has the Dem leading and should be called in a few days.

    Dems would have won a number of these seats just because of Trump, but the issue that put a fair number of households over the top was the tax bill’s treatment of state tax deductions. The GOP used to have an iron-clad rule they would go to (which was mostly a lie to begin with) which was to not tax the same dollar twice. Well, Orange County is not the confederacy and we aren’t culture warriors here, but this is the heart of the US bond market and money talks. This is the county that made Prop 13 real, and pushed the anti-tax line for decades, and out of spite for CA and a few other blue states, the GOP decided to tax our dollars twice. They used to argue that lower federal taxes could always be made up by higher local taxes, that putting the authority and interest closer to the voter was a good thing. And while we might disagree with it, it’s at least a good-faith argument. But they violate that one as well. So people here now get to pay taxes twice on the same dollar, while residents of other states don’t. That fucking infuriates a fair number of look-the-other-way Republicans and independents here.

  70. 70.

    Ruckus

    Facebook, living proof that nothing in life is free.
    Just that sometimes the cost is hidden or is one that you have to pay, like it or not, afford it or not.

  71. 71.

    Yarrow

    @Adam L Silverman: Coming along. I’ve been more functional this week but I run out of energy. Still coughing up gunk and only just getting my sense of smell back (I’ve been so congested I couldn’t smell or taste anything). I am wondering if I had a mild case of the flu since I did have a fever for about 36 hours and it is taking me longer than I’d expect to bounce back. I was really run down from taking care of my dad every day, though.

    I have yet to get a flu shot because I was so busy with my dad that I didn’t get to it. I had planned to go last week. Oh well. As soon as I’m recovered I’ll get one. They don’t give them to you if you’re sick.

    If you’re already in the gym you’re way ahead of me. I haven’t even had the energy to go for my usual walk.

  72. 72.

    Yarrow

    @Adam L Silverman: This story was also out today:

    The Justice Department is preparing to prosecute WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and is optimistic about bringing him to the U.S. https://t.co/VpCxcJF5j7— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) November 15, 2018

    @Ruckus: Oh yeah, for sure. The conversation I followed was that Ecuador maybe didn’t want to actively toss him out so they could passively move the embassy but forget to tell him. Just leave his room intact and let the UK know the building was no longer their embassy. Oops, sorry Julian. Our bad. I mean, that’s not going to happen but the thread was funny to read.

  73. 73.

    Martin

    @Adam L Silverman: If Stone and Corsi are being indicted, then I don’t see how Assange isn’t also indicted. It doesn’t make sense to go after the Russians performing the hack and all of the relays of that information other than Assange.

    My money is that Don Jr is also indicted, and that’s what’s got Trump freaking out.

  74. 74.

    Yarrow

    @rikyrah: That “listening tour” Zuckerberg did was so ridiculous. Trying to imagine him thinking he’ll run for president. What a joke.

  75. 75.

    Ruckus

    @Adam L Silverman:
    I’m going with “inadvertently leaked.” Wink, wink. IOW there is a reason behind it. I’m saying it wasn’t an accident.
    I can not imagine that anyone would spill the name that easily. This is not a name that a prosecutor would just pull out of thin air, it’s not a name they’d have on the tip of the tongue without reason. There are obviously people in the legal profession who really, really should not be there, for a number of reasons. Like being this stupid or careless. I doubt that anyone working on this entire legal quagmire falls into that low a level, especially not someone appearing in court.
    Nothing about this is simple, open and shut, without massive effects for every step of the way, either positive or negative for some entity. We seem to be getting to the nitty gritty, legally speaking of this entire matter. And yes I do believe that there are a lot of connections between some or all of the parties under question. From the top to the bottom.

  77. 77.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Jay: It’s in the New York Times reporting on the Facebook mess. Apparently Zuckerberg, Sandberg, and a third Facebook exec named Joel Kaplan hired a Republican aligned PR and oppo research firm as part of their attempt to push back on all the negative reporting and disclosures and that PR and oppo firm started pushing out George Soros conspiracy theory stuff.

  79. 79.

    Tenar Arha

    @Adam L Silverman: There’s more layers of blackest irony in this FB story.

    I’m thinking of it being written by the NYT, a newspaper founded by Jewish people & still in that family, yet the institution most responsible for injecting propaganda from the RW puke funnel like Clinton Cash into the mainstream. And likely part of the reason Clinton isn’t President today. They’ve never addressed their responsibility for “balancing” their coverage by flogging the nothingburger emails daily, & questioning the financial arrangements of the Clinton Foundation when right there in the city, was a great corruption story about NY real estate.

  80. 80.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Martin: I would expect the Cambridge Analytica/SCL folks too if that’s what this batch of indictments is. However, we really don’t know anything. Until Mueller does what he’s going to do, it is all speculation.

  81. 81.

    Ruckus

    @Adam L Silverman:
    Joel Kaplan. That name sounded familiar. Look up his wiki page and check out a few other sources.
    I wonder if Joel likes to make money, any way, for any body? Or just for total RW asswipes.

  88. 88.

    Mary G

    FB creeped me out from the beginning and I have a very minimal account to keep up with a small set of old friends and the thrift shop my mother helped found in 1964. I never post myself. They deserve to lose bigly in some class action lawsuits and it sounds like they will.

  89. 89.

    lgerard

    The transcript of trump’s daily Caller interview is hilarious. My favorite part, talking about Brian Kemp

    Well, I’ll give you another. You take Georgia. He was 10 points down when I endorsed him, he ended up winning by 40 points in the primary. He’s now in, but he was 10 points down. It was 70 to 30, something like that, 70-30 or 70-40, maybe 70-40. But it was an easy win.

    He has the best numbers!

  91. 91.

    sm*t cl*de

    Criticism of FB is part of the George Soros Rootless Jewry conspiracy. Also, criticism of FB is antisemitic.

  96. 96.

    Mandalay

    @Ruckus:

    If we want him, it’s a pretty good bet someone else might like to talk to him as well. Actually a number of someones. Brings to mind that old saying, “His life isn’t worth a bucket of spit.”

    Once Assange has been extradited Donald “I love WikiLeaks!!!!” Trump will arrange for Assange to tragically but fatally fall down the stairs in his 9 x 12 cell.

    Trump really doesn’t want Assange squealing like a piggy in a courtroom.

  102. 102.

    Ruckus

    @Amir Khalid:
    The cat will be better off without him? Odds seem pretty good. The embassy had to bring that bit about the cat up publicly. Seems maybe public shame is a necessary ingredient with JA. That or hard time.

  103. 103.

    Ruckus

    @Adam L Silverman:
    I keep hearing this name and it seems it is at odds with the beliefs of it’s members. They want anything but a federal society, well except one they can steal everything from.

  104. 104.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @Yarrow: I recall it all too well. I was one of the people who’s account was going to be shut down — it’s under my performer name, Thankfully, a friend knew a friend who worked there who was able to pull some strings to prevent that from happening.

    It was particularly traumatic because 1) there’s a number of fellow performers who I only know by their stage names, and don’t have other contact info for; 2) keeping the account would have meant putting my then-male name on it — and the performance world was one of the first places I’d established myself as a woman.

  105. 105.

    TS (the original)

    @Ruckus:

    Had a few friends who used fake names

    I’ve used a fake name from day 1. Only use fb to play some online games. No pictures, no friends, nothing. I think I said I was 99 when I joined so I’m probably the oldest person on facebook.

  110. 110.

    opiejeanne

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: I know! It’s really great. We lived in Loretta Sanchez’s district, in Anaheim. It had been B-1 Bob Dornan’s district but she liberated it in 1996, so that district has been blue for 12 years. She beat him by less than a thousand votes.

  111. 111.

    MattF

    Facebook management will respond if there is a NYT story that demonstrates they are the scum of the earth. Good to know.

    I have a couple of old friends and disappeared relatives on Facebook, so I’m still a member. And there are a couple of pages I monitor (cryptic puzzles and ‘Pearls Before Swine). But I almost never post– their information about me is a few years out of date.

  112. 112.

    gvg

    If we take Zuckerberg at face value, he seems clueless and to not even think he can control what he has built. That seems to me to be a sign they need a different CEO. It’s not uncommon for a new company to be created mainly by one leader with vision, who then turns out to be terrible at managing an established big company. Entrepreneur is not the same thing as really managing a company. I think that is being kind and the guy is a terrible person, but just from a business point of view, he ought to be replaced, and what’s her name too. Thanks for creating this company, but goodbye.
    My mom is currently upset with facebook because she posted to family some vacation photo’s where dad had grown a beard. facebook has been auto labeling them as pics of her and some other married guy she knows from church. She is in her 70’s and rather old fashioned and uptight. This embarrassed her. She corrected the label and it came back, so she is really upset. She used it to keep in touch with family.

  113. 113.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @gvg: In other words, Zuckerberg knows how to build a railroad, but not run it. I was at a small ISP 25 years ago just as the intertubes was about to open up that had the same problem; founder was quite the entrepreneur but kept misplacing checks from subscribers. No interest at all in sustaining what he’d built.

  115. 115.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Major Major Major Major: Late in the last millennium one of my friends relocating to NYC for work was excited to stumble upon a bargain basement apartment (no really, a basement apartment that was a bargain) in Brooklyn. As it happened, the landlord was very careful to show the place only on certain days of the week at certain times – times when the subway line that ran nearly underneath wasn’t in frequent use.

    (WHAT? YOU CAN’T HEAR ME?? SHOULD I TYPE LOUDER????) ;^D

  116. 116.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Martin: Technically, IIUC, it’s not a case of “paying taxes twice on the same dollar,” but paying taxes on that fraction of your income that is already going to the state in taxes (& which you never get to use because it’s either withheld or paid in advance quarterly).

    Thing is, that’s already happening with respect to all sorts of taxes, Federal, state & local, that you aren’t allowed to deduct from your income. E.g., within my taxpaying lifetime (& yes I predate dirt, thanks for asking) individuals were allowed to deduct state & local sales taxes from their income for Federal tax purposes.

    (It appears they can do the same this year, up to a limit, apparently $10K, if they itemize deductions – but they have to choose between deducting state income taxes or state sales taxes. Doesn’t affect my point.)

  117. 117.

    different-church-lady

    @eemom: Thanks for the offer, but Told Ya So’s ain’t really a thing for me. I’m just glad to know my creepy-detector is still properly calibrated.

  118. 118.

    cleosmom

    @eemom: @eemom:

    I will insist to my dying day that FB has been invaluable in enabling me to reconnect with many dear people I would otherwise have lost forever. It facilitates connecting with them in non-cyberspace, as well.

    Thank you for that; I’ve stayed on FB for the same reason. Not everyone is enthused over dismissing family connections with “That’s on them, not me.”

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