Live Q&As

Weingarten, like so many others, seems incapable of grasping Facebook in its entirety. All the things he points out about the banal tedium and idiocy of Facebook status updates etc. are fair points. But Facebook is a system being actively used by 550 million people--that means there are as many different forms of human behavior exhibited there as there are types of people. I wrote my book because in addition to all the silly stuff and "meet me at the mall," there are a huge set of "effects" that I was convinced people didn't understand, in the realms of politics, business, media, marketing, government, identity, privacy, etc. Facebook is far larger, far more impactful, and far more important than Weingarten realizes. He should read my book.

There is more or less the same reason to trust it as to trust any company that holds data about you. If they betray the trust that users have given them they would risk losing users--they know that. Just look at the furor that has enveloped them each time they expose slightly more user data. That said, I always say that anyone should realize that once data about you is in digital form there is not guarantee that it will not escape your control. That is more likely to be because of the behavior of one of your "friends" on Facebook than because of the policies and practices of the company itself, in my opinion. In the book I write at some length about the problem of "peer-to-peer" privacy violations. 

These are good questions, and you sound like a lawyer. I just base my opinions on the empirical evidence--people willingly reveal astonishing amounts of information about themselves on Facebook.

Practically, if a service like Facebook were to move entirely to opt-in it will reduce the amount of information shared. That's why the company will fight it, because it reduces use, which reduces page views, which reduces the number of pages on which to show ads, etc. 

Nonetheless, over time I believe that regulators and governments worldwide--because this issue is far more fraught in Europe than here, for example-- will require Facebook to move to an opt-in architecture. Yet I think even when they do the vast majority of users will simply opt in and continue behaving more or less like they do. For most of them they feel the benefits of disclosure are worth the tradeoffs--knowing what their friends are doing and gaining a much clearer window on the world around them.

There is. Facebook simply requires a period of time between the request and the action because so many users have tried to shut down their account and later had second thoughts and been mad when Facebook could not revive it.

No. This has never been possible, though many spam and hacking efforts rely on peoples' fear that this could happen. Don't ever join an application which promises to show you how to see who has seen your profile. It is almost certainly an effort to steal your password or do something else nefarious.

True-- and the profile photo is the least of it. If you're the kind of person who won't even post a picture of yourself, you should not be using Facebook. People like you are increasingly in the minority, however. 

Yes. I don't see why that wouldn't have succeeded. I think it was easier--and less fair--for them to take the real people and real events and conflate them with things that didn't happen. There are lots of things in the movie which are real and many that aren't.

Yes, and this is a problem on Facebook, but not as big as you might imagine. Most "fake" profiles are known to other users for what they are. That's because the only way to use Facebook successfully is to connect with other users. If you are truly functioning there anonymously you cannot get much done because you cannot connect with others. People assume fake names for playing games, or if they are a celebrity who does not want to be bothered by fans. 

There are several ways of authenticating that you are who you say you are on Facebook--the most important one is who agrees to make a bilateral "friend" connection with you. 

Sure-- the explanation is that the people who advocate for privacy rights are not the same ones who share so freely. There seem to be far more in the latter camp than the former. If there weren't, then 550 million people would not be sharing regularly on Facebook. 

Feel free not to use Facebook. But be aware that a lot more happens there than posting how fabulous someone is. This has become the de facto place where, for example, marketers are seeking to have a dialogue with their customers in order to sell their products and build better new ones. It's also where people in many places around the world, including the United States, express political views and effectively organize around issues. In countries like Egypt, Iran, Turkey, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Colombia, Mexico, and elsewhere Facebook activism has had an impact at the national level. 

Facebook gives each of its members the equivalent of a broadcast platform of the type that formerly was only available to professionals. So when they are upset and want to tell others about anything that concerns them, they are likely to do so on Facebook. Local issues around the country and around the world are being addressed and changed because of Facebook activism. There are plenty of other things happening on Facebook that have nothing to do with fabulosity.

You couldn't, so far as I know. You could join another social network like MySpace or Orkut or whatever Google is trying to cobble together, but it would take a very long time to induce all your facebook friends to join you there. This is one of the main glues that keeps Facebook intact and growing--it is hard to leave. One of the other main glues is the photo archives that members have created there. They are loath to give it up.

It is. But like I answered several others here, beware of oversimplifying what is happening on Facebook. Like anything in life, what you get out of it is proportional to what you put into it. 

There was a time when he was quite concerned about it--in 2008, mostly. Facebook went through a lot of changes aiming to replicate the features of Twitter alongside all the other things it does. With the launch of Facebook's Pages function, which enables any marketer or brand to promulgate messages to fans, Twitter's functionality had more or less been imitated. There is now little that you can do in Twitter that cannot be done--often with more flexibility and interaction, inside Facebook. However, a problem remains for Facebook--the most credible and influential voices--particularly in media and academia, even politics--still often prefer the simplicity of Twitter to Facebook. 

It's a good question, but I also think you have correctly pinpointed how Obama exemplifies exactly why Facebook is becoming so successful. Bill Clinton got in trouble for saying he smoked pot but didn't inhale. George W. Bush admitted smoking pot and it didn't hurt him. Obama pro-actively, or we might say pre-emptively, announced he had used cocaine--and nobody seemed even to care. This is exactly the kind of historical social dynamics that young people today have intuitively noticed and altered their behavior accordingly. People seem to care less and less about disclosing information about themselves. In addition, there is the interesting phenomenon that the more people reveal about themselves, the less remarkable are the revelations of any individual. It may seem embarrassing or overly revealing to have a photo of yourself drunk at a party on Facebook. However, if many millions of others also have drunken photos of themselves online it may be less problemmatic. And believe me, that is the way most 20-year-olds look at it.

This is one of the great errors of the movie, whose screenplay opens by saying that Zuckerberg has "a very complicated and dangerous anger." That's just not true. He is among the least angry people I have ever met. I have never heard him shout, and I literally cannot recall anyone ever having told me of an incident in which he did. I'm sure he sometimes shouts--who doesn't?--but it is not a major part of his behavior or personal style.

haha

Read some of my other answers here...

No. I think I arrived at the project from the beginning with a deep conviction that what Facebook was doing was historically important and unique. That's why I decided to devote two years of my life to researching and documenting it. I am a big admirer of Zuckerberg and make no secret of that in the book or anywhere. Anyone who doesn't admire him has the onus of explaining how, then, he has led a company to grow to 550 million users in a mere 6.5  years.

        I criticize him and the company when I think it appropriate, and I have been increasingly critical lately, as I think the company has failed to properly address many of the problems with privacy, for instance. I think Facebook needs a radical overhaul of the way users can manage their friends in groups and insure that only certain people see certain information. It needs to be much easier to manage those processes.

      In addition, Zuckerberg personally has not--until very recently--begun to rise to the challenge of being the CEO of a company which by necessity has to explain itself much more aggressively to the world. With regulators and governments worldwide arguing for limits on Facebook, if he doesn't turn his attention more fully away from product development and toward serving as a public spokesman and face for the company, he should bring in someone else to be CEO. 

Places is an inevitable development for Facebook, because the kind of information people want to share about themselves will inevitably grow to include location data. So far I don't think it has been very successful, but I suspect it will grow more so over time. Like all Facebook features, it will likely evolve quickly. 

      There has been a Facebook phone in Asia for over two years. The way Facebook is spreading around the world is typically via mobile devices. Facebook has a hugely successful growth strategy called 0.facebook.com which enables users in many countries to use Facebook on their phones without incurring data charges. This is inevitably the only way that Facebook can continue moving towards Zuckerberg's goal of making his service available to everyone on the planet. 

Makes a lot of sense. It might more likely happen in partnership with Microsoft, whose maps are in many ways just as good, and often better, than Google's. And yes, the relationship or rivalry between Facebook and Google is going to be one of the most interesting things to watch in coming years.

Could be. The problems with The Social Network go back to its being based on the book Accidental Billionaires, which was marketed by Doubleday as non-fiction but which was, even by the author's own admisssion, partly made up. I think that is a dangerous and pernicious way to write about living people, and the moviemakers extended the problem by taking that as the basis for their movie.

I don't think everyone does. I am 57 and the majority of my best friends either don't use Facebook at all or are very light users. None of them feel they are missing out. 

     My own opinion is that Facebook is becoming such a central part of the times in which we live, and so defining of the social and daily experience of so many people, that not to be at least using it enough to check it out is to allow yourself to be somewhat ignorant of the time and place in which you live. That's a main reason why I wanted to write a book about it. People don't nearly enough realize the impact that this service is having--if not on their life, at least on the lives of others. This is even more true in many other countries than it is in the United States. 

He increasingly uses Facebook chat, but yes, chat and instant messaging on the phone are his two favored mediums of communication. He's not a big e-mailer. And in my opinion he doesn't even post that much on Facebook.

Companies often settle lawsuits in order to avoid the time and publicity of a public trial. Whether or not that was the motivation here I don't know, but it very well may have been. This is not something i have been able to get either Zuckerberg or the company to talk much to me about. My own opinion based on all the evidence is that almost none of the key ideas that led to Facebook came either from the Winklevoss/Narendra camp or from Saverin. And what ideas Zuckerberg might have gotten from them were ideas they got themselves from others. The movie makes far more out of this than it should--but that makes a great drama. 

No-- the movie is about the first year of Facebook, at Harvard and in Palo Alto. There isn't anything at all about his upbringing. In addition, it fundamentally misrepresents his relationships with others, because it portrays him as being desperate to win the attention of a girlfriend who spurned him, when in fact he had a serious girlfriend during this entire period.

Ask your local psychologist. I couldn't say, but I agree with you.

I am a serious journalist who believes in the importance of Facebook and who considers Mark Zuckerberg one of the most impactful people on the planet. I have spent alot of my time explaining why I believe that. I have never gotten a cent from them.

He uses lots of different devices to try them out and to experience Facebook on them, especially now that Facebook's growth is increasingly dependent on mobile.

I've seen it and it's a very entertaining and engaging movie. It's just not a true telling of the story of Facebook's first year.

good question. I remember for years my mother refused to use a telephone answering machine, and then later for years refused to use a cellphone. Now of course she has both. 

Yes. this story is in my book. I agree with you. btw this photo was posted by one of his "friends" on Facebook.

No. Facebook is NOT deeply in debt--it has excellent cash flow and could turn profitable any time it wants to slow down its growth--it may very well already be quite profitable, though the numbers are not public. I predict it will generate about $1.5 billion in revenue this year. 

      I don't think the issue is about money. I think the issue is about network effects and innovation. If you want to use a social network you are almost certainly going to use Facebook, in almost every country in the world, except Russia, Poland, China, Korea, Japan and a couple other countries. If something else comes along that gives us an even better way to communicate, as I think likely, then Facebook could ultimately be replaced by that. It could be this year or it could be in five years.

Yes. You say it rather strongly, but in general I agree with you. 

If Facebook were to offer better group controls so you could, for example, sequester your work friends from your close non-work friends, or your conservative colleagues from your liberal friends, then it would not be much of a problem. As it is, Facebook has not solved this very serious problem. So people like you (and me, in somewhat analogous ways, along with many millions of Facebook users) are reduced to only sharing information we don't care if everyone sees.