The article tries to make the reader feel bad about Facebook by pointing out how the site can create negative emotions. However, the author does not seem to be aware of the fact that he is doing the same thing.
It's nothing personal against journalists, but the economics of the business mean that they have huge incentives to make things seem more outrageous or nefarious than they actually are.
I did read the whole article, and that doesn't excuse the BS clickbait title of "Facebook deliberately made people sad."
I find the fact that the article is complaining about emotional manipulation by Facebook, while using a deliberately manipulative title, to be more than a tad ironic.
people who are upvoting anything that includes "facebook" in the title should read it first. it's a bad article full of dramatic language and hyperbole.
But at the same time it isn't. He's using "Facebook" purely as link bait and instead ranting about "people who got rich really quickly" and how they usually self destruct in some fashion or another. Facebook is never mentioned again after the first sentence. Rather pointless article, but then again, it is Dvorak.
I’ve read this short article carefully twice now and I still find myself trying to guess why Facebook would do this. I conclude it’s not a good article.
Sounds like the author's righteousness has worn off and now he regrets not negotiating with Facebook more. To make himself feel like he got something out of it, he posts a blog about how Facebook is the enemy, and not-so-subtly brags that his creation was wanted for acquisition by Facebook.
I think the article is very tongue in cheek! I'm pretty sure the author was trying to freak Mark out; I'm not certain this work would help to get him a job at Facebook either!
Pretty much all of the items (written as a sarcastic response to the article) were attempts at suggesting he's creating his own obsolescence by ditching Facebook. In the very first paragraph of the story, he's chided by a Silicon Valley CEO for not being a part of the site. Clearly people want to have him as a friend on Facebook. But he's not having it.
My problem is the gap he's creating for his magazine's journalism by doing this. It's the equivalent of covering the Washington Redskins when you have no real interest in football. It's like being a food columnist when all you eat is Taco Bell. It's like being a TV critic when you don't own a TV. It's like covering a city hall beat but deciding that you hate meetings. As an editor of Wired, he better get on Facebook, fast, because it's his job. That article isn't going to convince people to stop using it.
The article reads like a bad hit job it tries to paint facebooks position as bleak while ignore all its products have continued to experience amazing growth.
It paints a picture of what the author want the world to be like rather than reality. One of the biggest examples is how they view regulation as a risk to Facebook while Facebooks views it as a guarantee of market dominance.
The author has a point, but he's just going in the wrong direction (and should be focusing more on twitter and Facebook and less on Klout).
He should be holding up Klout and saying, "See, this is what's wrong with Facebook."
But this seems to be a hard message to convey. People want to like and use Facebook, and would rather blame a site like Klout than face the truth about what liking and using Facebook actually means.
To me it's like walking down the street naked and then complaining about how cameras work because people are able to take pictures.
Between the title and the first paragraph, there is a prominent 'like on Facebook' button, so the subtext is pro-Facebook no matter what is written in the article.
By the time I finished this article, I hated the authors' superior, paranoid, whining tone so much I found myself hoping Facebook does destroy the open web just because it would annoy them.
It feels like this article is trying to create a narrative based on the authors agenda. As if to say, if we can’t get Facebook to change let’s attack the reputations of the executives.
Just generally stop with the personality cult bullshit, both positive and negative.
As much as I think the best thing that could happen to FB is to just vanish, I can't "hate" this guy I never met who never ever seemed happy and now just looks tired. I doubt the author does, either. So why lie about it? That's both kinda pathetic and predictably unhelpful. It's not like the article doesn't contain information, but that framing sucks.
There's a lot to be said about the actions and words of Facebook as a whole, and of Mark Zuckerberg, but it does more harm than good if it's with the intent to make it about Facebook and Zuckerberg, instead of those things no matter who happens to do or say them, and our responsibilities not just in response, but in action rather than just reaction.
Seriously. Bad conclusions. Facebook's news feed algorithms mean what users put into facebook has very little to do with what users get out of facebook. The author doesn't want to live in an "enlightened literati echo chamber", but is resigning himself to living in a algorithmic clickbate echo chamber.
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