Viewing profile — fakescience

Likely referring to this article [1]. However, the claim that they made "hundreds of thousands of people fall into a depression" is pretty exaggerated - FB demonstrated it could in…

Yeah, I think we have a fundamental difference in our beliefs about the effectiveness of violence (i.e. assassination via drones) to promote world peace. Hard to know what wars hav…

Yes, the arguments you outline would also be ways to reduce cognitive dissonance as well ("if we didn't do it, others would"). I don't think Google would stop all wars by not contr…

Do you think anyone in a position of political power truly thinks of themselves as a "thug"? I imagine, in their own ways, they think they are doing a "just" and noble deed. Much l…

To any Google Employees reading this. Don't worry! There are SEVERAL ways you can reduce any cognitive dissonance you might be experiencing as you read more about the evils your co…

Users are the only people who will be able to set limits on Facebook's power, and the only way to do that will be to form some kind of union to organize collective action. Feel lik…

never going to happen, unless users organize some kind of collective action. Imagine how quickly Facebook would start to make changes if a bulk of users deactivated accounts in pro…

agreed. Facebook users need to organize. Easy to do in theory, hard to do in practice. [1] https://medium.com/@oddbert2000/call-for-a-facebook-users-st...

Doubt that lawmakers will really protect users. Think the only way to lead to substantive change would be for users to take collective action through protests [1]. Imagine how quic…

you're correct that there's a similar process in real life as online. the issues are that online (a) these effects are more automated and distributed online than in real-life (Toya…

yes, and just like we would want people to design roads in ways that limit driver deaths, we should insist that people design facebook in ways that limit negative consequences inhe…

Call for a facebook user strike on May 1st. #May1FBstrike https://medium.com/@oddbert2000/call-for-a-facebook-users-st...

Read this earlier today. I was struck by the idea of "unionizing" users to help them take action against corporate interests who ultimately control user data. This makes particular…

It's not possible to be a "meritocracy" based simply on hiring "the best" without accounting for all the institutional problems when it comes to sexism and sex discrimination that …