Ask HN: What do Facebook employees think about their company?

Post by teaneedz » Tue, Mar 27, 2018, 7:54 PM UTC

jacques_chester wrote: post #28

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #12

Imagine that software development / engineering was a profession along the lines of law or medicine - no one could "practise software" without belonging. Now imagine we are drawing up the ethics code for that profession - is what facebook did something that could reasonably be banned? Is there direct harm involved? In my (very personal) view Facebook is just an example of an externality - this loss of control over da…

The IEEE Computer Society and ACM jointly adopted just such a code of ethics. https://www.computer.org/web/education/code-of-ethics None of it gives Facebook engineers any comfort. They are responsible for the fruits of their efforts. Recent revelations are of degree , not kind . The consequences of engineering work were reasonably foreseeable and the consequences were not at arm's length. Facebook's business model h…

Post by RestlessMind » Tue, Mar 27, 2018, 8:03 PM UTC

feral wrote: post #14

cornholio wrote: post #11

I think the way this problem is framed succumbs to an outdated world view, an image of the samurai computer hackers that put themselves in the service of the corporate lords - but are ultimately responsible for their actions against society and can choose to rebel. They are rare and prized and thus their collaboration is valued by the lords. This is a romantic vision that the companies themselves like to perpetuate,…

Nonsense, at least today. If 'massive IT education programs' had made engineers disposable, then salaries would be a lot lower. (If you need 'data' on this, Glassdoor says FB SWE salaries are >120k, total comp will be a lot higher. Compare that to a job with an actual disposable workforce.) >In this economic war, developers are rich mercenaries, not noble freedom fighters. If you said developers were poor mercenaries…

Post by thisacctforreal » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 4:15 AM UTC

PunchTornado wrote: post #92

phaus wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in the rural South and although it may sound ridiculous to you, I've met more people here that believe all of the inflammatory, fake nonsense they read on FB than I have that don't. They use it as a primary source of news and they allow it to shape their view of the world and therefore their beliefs on certain political policies. While it's difficult to quantify with a specific percentage, there were absolutel…

Fake news is one thing. Targeted ads are another thing. I don't think that targeted ads can change that much. Fake news I agree, can be brainwashing, but fb does all it can to combat fake news.

Post by danpalmer » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 3:23 PM UTC

matte_black wrote: post #52

danpalmer wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I roughly agree with this in terms of the recent events, but Facebook has been doing creepy stuff that I think many people disagree with for a long time, and that seems to be getting worse. Advertisers being able to target so effectively, by salary, by socio-economic status, and by hundreds or even thousands of metrics. I think that's still bad, and I don't think I could work on a product like that.

I’m still amazed that people think really efficient advertising is creepy.

Post by danpalmer » Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 3:33 PM UTC

18pfsmt wrote: post #98

danpalmer wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Why do you think it's not creepy?

Because their finances depend on efficient targeting? I'd prefer to get the mainstream to back things like Masotodon (openSocial), Matrix, and Scuttelbut, than call for regulations, but we have to be educating folks about the benefits such federated/distributed networks.