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Facebook's Little Red Book

by heshiebee on 12/2/24, 8:07 PM with 283 comments

• by dang on 12/2/24, 10:40 PM

  All: if you're going to comment, please make sure you're following the site guidelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).

  That means posting out of curiosity, not indignation. Internet indignation is addictive, repetitive, and boring (and there's already too much of it here).

• by paxys on 12/2/24, 9:42 PM

  I think people here are too young to remember the tech industry in 2012. None of the images and ideas conveyed in this book (printing press, cave art, fall of the Berlin wall, Arab Spring, particle accelerators) were outlandish for the time and space it was printed in. Tech was all about optimism and idealism. Everyone in silicon valley knew they were changing the world for the better, and tech was the missing piece all along. Silly people would finally all stop fighting and get along now that they had Facebook and Twitter and iPhones.

• by chucknthem on 12/2/24, 10:08 PM

  I remember this. Wish I'd kept my little piece of history. Written at a time when people were still optimistic and hopeful about tech.

• by bagels on 12/2/24, 11:01 PM

  There's propaganda slogans/posters like this all over the Meta offices. One of them is "This is now your company". When the layoffs started happening, I started seeing these mocked, "This is no longer your company", etc.

• by incog_nit0 on 12/3/24, 2:00 PM

  As a jaded 40+ year old developer this got me choked up.

  I remember that optimistic view we all had of technology in our youth.

  For me the optimism was a little earlier than 2012 so maybe it goes hand in hand with being young and less experienced (jaded?).

  I agree with some of the other commenters that a corporate structure makes altruistic goals like these impossible.

  Only Wikipedia and The Internet Archive for me carry that feeling of goodwill still. I think OpenAI going from non-profit to profit will similarly erode the product as market incentives push it further away from what benefits the user most.

  Perhaps we need a corporate structure between a non-profit and a for-profit.

• by ChrisArchitect on 12/2/24, 10:11 PM

  Ben Barry's page on the book from his website archive: https://v1.benbarry.com/project/facebooks-book

• by rokob on 12/2/24, 10:59 PM

  I still have my copy. I didn’t realize this was such a deep cut.

  My favorite part was the “Facebook was not created to be a business” quote being juxtaposed against Kevin Systrom saying “instagram was created to be a business” right after the acquisition.

• by oooyay on 12/3/24, 12:29 AM

  Since this election has unfolded I've been thinking a lot about narratives and what they mean. Progress is largely based on narratives. They're the stories we tell ourselves to stay focused, motivated, and aligned. The narrative doesn't have to be true, it just needs to be a convincing story grounded in some reality (as it would seem). That got me thinking about the function of narratives versus truths, how they're related, and how they're distinct.

  Products like this book are just an internal narrative. It doesn't discount other narratives, such as villain narratives, where FB could have the best or worst of intentions and the outcomes are what we know them to be today regardless.

  Truth, on the other hand, is reserved for when the dust has settled, the facts are seldomly disputed, and are corroborated. Truth doesn't even need to be precise, it just needs to be accurate. Narratives are powerful in the moment and for momentum, truth is powerful across time. That said, even to truths there is a narrative.

• by tsunamifury on 12/2/24, 10:49 PM

  I think this all can be boiled down to to a true axiom of modern power:

  "Expand the network at all cost, and increase its engagement."

  This went from a little flippant red book to a credo that has now changed elections and democracy as well as culture and view of the human self.

  At the time it was radical idealism and today its something different, but its worth seeing and truly understanding.

• by ricardobeat on 12/3/24, 11:13 AM

  > Changing how people communicate will always change the world

  > What happens when anyone can put their message in front of a lot of people?

  I think we’ve answered this question by now, and it’s not good. I wonder what Zuckerberg thinks of it…

• by emilfihlman on 12/2/24, 11:08 PM

  It's refreshing to see it said out loud today as an ideal, even if they didn't really believe it then nor today, the idea on page 24:

  "But what happens when everyone can put their message in front of a lot of people? When the playing field is level? When everyone has a printing press, the ones with the best ideas are the ones people listen to, Influence can no longer be owned, It must be earned."

  I wish people believe(d) in this still today, but we are in a jaded censorship world, and it seems that those who believe in it are labeled extremists.

• by Shank on 12/3/24, 12:22 AM

  I reconnected with a long-lost childhood friend that I barely remembered any detail other than her name via Facebook. It proved its worth to me that day, but the caveat is that I had to reach her mom, and that's because she actually stopped using it long prior. After we started talking (and eventually dating), she deleted her entire account / profile, which rendered her unfindable again. The main problem she had was that she wasn't benefiting from it, and they were sharing so much of her personal information that she didn't feel comfortable with it.

  It's an interesting juxtaposition, because had she not had a profile, I wouldn't have found her. But by that same measure, she found it invasive enough to delete her account.

  I think Facebook had a time and place for when connecting people was an innocent venture with largely altruistic goals. But like so many things, times have changed and the calculus for "maybe one day a special person will find me on Facebook" vs "creepily processing all personal information" has shifted. Most young people aren't on Facebook. The door has closed, and I'm not sure if it'll reopen any time soon.

• by Frummy on 12/2/24, 10:23 PM

  "complacency breeds complacency breeds complacency breeds complacency breeds complacency breeds complacency breeds complacency breeds complacency breeds complacency breeds complacency breeds complacency breeds complacency breeds complacency breeds complacency breeds complacency breeds complacency"

  So funny!

• by po on 12/3/24, 4:31 AM

  Historically, those who controlled the media controlled the message. If you're the only one with a printing press, you control what people read. Same with radio. Same with TV.

  But what happens when everyone can put their message in front of a lot of people? When the playing field is level? When everyone has a printing press, the ones with the best ideas are the ones people listen to. Influence can no longer be owned. It must be earned

  Man, Zuckerberg would be rolling over in his grave if he saw what happened in the following years and our current engagement/algorithmically-driven media ecosystem.

  I find this book to be a bit sad. I do believe they were trying to do all of this stuff but it definitely went off the rails.

• by Towaway69 on 12/2/24, 9:25 PM

  page 27

  > Zuckerbergs's Law: The amount each person shares doubles each year.

  I initially thought wealth, ideas and love was meant but no ... it's just data.

• by dluan on 12/3/24, 12:09 AM

  Facebook somehow acquiring 小红书 would actually be a prescient move, but even that era seems forever ago.

• by tills13 on 12/2/24, 10:40 PM

  When it was produces, this was probably inspiring and effective.

  Retrospectively, it's a bit creepy and ominous.

• by forth_throwaway on 12/2/24, 10:39 PM

  Facebook has usurped the legacy media that they mention in the Red Book. But their relationship to capital and government is the exact same as the legacy media they replaced, so instead of being disruptive they fill the same role --except this time with even more ruthless efficiency and profitability.

  "When education is not liberating, the dream of the oppressed is to become the oppressor."

• by cynicalsecurity on 12/3/24, 12:33 AM

  That books looks very cheesy.

  Seeing them claiming they had their focus on privacy is especially hilarious.

  Thanks for sharing it, but I'll delete it right away.

• by smnrg on 12/2/24, 10:24 PM

  Design and content references must have felt like a cute satirical reference at the time.

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotations_from_Chairman_Mao_T...

• by k310 on 12/4/24, 5:25 PM

  The flip side. (Turning the Sun Menlo Park sign around to say Facebook)

  Sad for me. As an S.E. (later called TPM) at Sun, I always busted my ass to meet customer needs technically, cost-wise (our group was Higher Educational Sales) and with dedication. I went to Sun after serving many years in computer support for Cal Berkeley, so I wore the customer's moccasins, so to speak.

  Our customers were indeed customers, not products. I loved it. Most of us, I think, were crazy for providing the best for customers, and I don't recall a book. We WERE the book.

• by alberth on 12/9/24, 4:42 AM

  The version linked below is of higher digital quality.

  https://spaccapeli.com/i-remastered-facebooks-little-red-boo...

• by whalesalad on 12/2/24, 8:59 PM

  page 17. android operating system on an iphone 4. i'm crying right now, particularly the way this is juxtaposed with so many critical moments in history.

• by nashashmi on 12/2/24, 9:50 PM

  Is there a version I can read without the pictures? Just the manifesto?

  I’d like to know how big this “book” is actually?

• by sirspacey on 12/3/24, 10:01 PM

  What a snapshot of history

  One of the things I’ve learned over the years is almost every company becomes the symbol of it’s anti-mission

  Root cause almost always seems to be trying to design PM performance around metrics

  Metrics are a poor framework for values

• by __MatrixMan__ on 12/2/24, 10:18 PM

  There's a lot of altruistic sounding stuff about connection in there, but it's hard to believe it's sincere when their product is a space where paid accounts don't have to bother with consent.

• by stogot on 12/3/24, 4:31 AM

  Was this copyrighted? I don’t see it in there, but can we print copies under US law if no copyright is present?

• by aratno on 12/3/24, 4:24 AM

  Looks like this is slightly modified by the uploader: p94 says “Weaponize the cloud” with the Antimetal logo

• by swyx on 12/2/24, 10:34 PM

  are there any pdf printing shops that cna take this pdf and ship it to us as a book?

• by jmyeet on 12/2/24, 10:22 PM

  How far we've come in a little over a decade.

  If you're working for Big Tech now, you're basically working for a defense contractor. Amazon, Microsoft, Google or Meta are really no different to Boeing, Lockheed Martin or Northrop Grumman.

  Meta was culpable in the Rohingya genocide [1], builds AI for the military [2], silences content about Palestine (with deep ties to the Netanyahu government) [3] and Zuckerberg is cozying up to the incoming Trump administration [4].

  We're so far away from Sergey Brin's principled stance against China [5]. You can find similar lists to the above for Google, Microsoft or Amazon.

  [1]: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-faceb...

  [2]: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/nov/05/meta-allo...

  [3]: https://www.hrw.org/report/2023/12/21/metas-broken-promises/...

  [4]: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c87x98q8y08o

  [5]: https://archive.is/tOWfY

• by deadbabe on 12/2/24, 10:06 PM

  Anywhere to find an original copy of one of these?

• by worik on 12/2/24, 10:02 PM

  I find this terribly sad.

• by lbrito on 12/2/24, 9:54 PM

  Web 2.0-era peak hubris. A decade later, its hard to decide if this looks delusional or prophetic - they did change societies, but probably not in the ways they ostensibly wanted to be recognized for changing.

• by timkofu on 12/7/24, 4:46 AM

  Thanks for this.

• by gerroo on 12/3/24, 3:55 AM

  Thanks for sharing this :)

• by mawise on 12/2/24, 9:49 PM

  It's funny; as I've been working on Haven[1], one of my guiding lights is what Facebook _could have been_[2]. To that end the opening section is really inspiring. This is describing a world where digital tools enhance your friendships. I think that's still possible and still a worthwhile goal--I just don't think it can be done by an entity with a corporate incentive structure. Those incentives will always tend towards enshittification[3].

  [1]: https://havenweb.org

  [2]: https://havenweb.org/2022/11/02/facebook-lie.html

  [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification#

• by udev4096 on 12/3/24, 12:55 PM

  Zuckerberg is too good with manipulating the engineers into believing this bullshit. I guess you really need fake inspiration to gobble up a big fat salary which is usually derived from unethical standards

• by muddi900 on 12/8/24, 12:50 PM

  This definitely published before Silicon Valley aired.

• by Animats on 12/2/24, 10:12 PM

  Just read the whole thing. Not one word about ads.

  From the 2014 book:

  Remember, people don't use Facebook because they like us.

  They use it because they like their friends.

  Where that went:

  We have the power to cut them off from their friends.

  So we can control everything they see.

  Muahahaha!

• by mparnisari on 12/2/24, 10:15 PM

  Okay, so Facebook started as a way to interconnect people. But it's a business, so it has to make money to survive. So they added ads. And now my feed is 99% ads, 1% updates from my friends. Sooooo mission accomplished, right? Right?

• by ribadeo on 12/2/24, 10:17 PM

  There are STILL people drinking the techno-utopian kool-aid.

  Plenty of folks think Musk will do something smart someday, for humanity's benefit, despite all evidence to the contrary.

  I was here when the web showed up, and I can honestly state that we featured blatant techno-utopian rhetoric in nearly every aspect of the industry, as well as our underground nocturnal allegedly musical entertainment.

  I now feel rather dumb, aka a product of my time, but the notion that inventing tools would lead to them automatically being used for good was prevalent, if specious.

• by zoklet-enjoyer on 12/2/24, 9:58 PM

  This looks like an Instagram feed. Is it a coincidence that they purchased Instagram in April 2012?

• by projektfu on 12/2/24, 8:44 PM

  Good job with the scan. I started reading the book and began to feel rage so I stopped after about 20 pages. Is it the most self-unaware book or just people trying their hand at PR?

• by FactKnower69 on 12/3/24, 12:54 AM

  Truly disgusting juxtaposition between the marketing douchebags copy pasting pictures of the Berlin Wall and other vacuous feel-good pablum into the design bible of their MySpace knockoff, and the reality that said knockoff would later be best known for facilitating genocide in Myanmar

• by grahamj on 12/2/24, 9:22 PM

  [flagged]