Just as Thursday is the day we open up the pit of snakes to see how the vipers are doing, Tuesday is the day we have to check in on Facebook.
As recently as just a few weeks ago, Facebook’s pals were making the argument that Apple App Tracking Transparency (ATT) could be responsible for the recession.
No, really, they said that.
At least they’re consistent with the brand. You wouldn’t go to Facebook for an opinion that isn’t over-the-top and completely out of touch with reality, would you?
At the same time, the company and its friends are trying to portray Apple as an even conglomerate bent on destroying small businesses, the economy itself, your livelihood, and an adorable baby capybara, it’s also continuing to do everything it can to steal every last bit of your privacy.
Every time you follow a link on Meta’s Instagram and Facebook apps, they default to using their in-app browsers instead of opening the link in Safari. Lots of apps do this, but Meta’s apps…
… actively run JavaScript commands to inject an additional JavaScript SDK without the user’s consent, as well as tracking the user’s text selections.
IDG
Okay, sure, but what about THE ECONOMY?! The economy runs on injected JavaScript, you know!
A lot of people have been taking at face value the assessment of how much ATT is costing Facebook. Some of us going so far as to slather it on our schadenfreude sandwiches that we gorge ourselves on daily. But Daring Fireball’s John Gruber and Nick Heer of Pixel Envy both wonder if ATT is really having as big an effect as is being made out.
Facebook is a mature app that is facing increasing difficulty attracting younger users. Sure, it’s a great place for grandma to get radicalized so she can protest the space aliens that animal shelter volunteers are harboring in the basement of a local bagel shop, but how can we get kids into dangerous whack-a-doodle conspiracy theories?
The timing also doesn’t quite work out. ATT was introduced in the spring of 2021 and iOS users are famous for upgrading quickly, but Facebook’s only felt the crunch this year.
The Macalope can still enjoy his schadenfreude sandwiches, however, because whatever is causing the problem, Meta is still feeling the effect, like it did back in February when it had a record-setting feeling of effect.
“Meta erases US$252B in value, biggest wipeout in history”
[munch munch munch] Mmmmf. Oh mah gerd. [munch munch munch] So gurd.
Gruber believes that the reason Meta is looking toward the metaverse as its next big thing is precisely because it knows it can’t save Facebook. The demographics don’t lie and they don’t stop as they steamroll over you. If its metaverse hopes are in any way tied to its AI efforts then you can expect the same kind of nuanced socio-political effect that you see on Facebook.
Fun. At least it apparently also doesn’t like Mark Zuckerberg.
The Macalope has said it before and he’ll say it again: Meta/Facebook is a bad company. Cosmically bad and congenitally up to no good. Whatever it is that’s causing the company pain, the only thing the Macalope can say is keep going.
Author: The Macalope
In addition to being a mythical beast, the Macalope is not an employee of Macworld. As a result, the Macalope is always free to criticize any media organization. Even ours.