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Facebook’s Safety Check is a stress-inducing flip of social norms

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Re: Facebook’s Safety Check is a stress-inducing flip of social norms

#81

Post by raleighm »

whatevthrow31 wrote: post #67
raleighm wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. If it's because OP's a facebook employee, that should be disclosed w/ the throwaway account.

I'll be honest and say that I'm a former Facebook employee. Probably should have disclosed that originally, but I think it gives even more credit to my Hanlon's razor statement. It's just safer/easier to use a throwaway. I have these opinions in real life, but I try not to be too controversial in writing.

Not sure I agree on the Hanlon's razor point. Your view of the intentionality of insiders is an insider's view. ;)

But in general, I don't doubt that these things are well intended and not malicious. In my case, my complaint isn't that Facebook is malicious or intentional. It's more of a negligence or gross negligence point.

[Edited for clarity]

Re: Facebook’s Safety Check is a stress-inducing flip of social norms

#82

Post by adrianlmm »

icanhackit wrote: post #71
adrianlmm wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't live the life of others, is not your problem.

> Don't live the life of others > is not your problem You're wrong on both counts. Having an opinion regarding a social media platform, particularly one that can affect the fabric of society, is totally reasonable on a discussion forum hosted on Y Combinator. It's no more living the life of others than having an opinion on war, politics or famine.

well, we dissagree.

Re: Facebook’s Safety Check is a stress-inducing flip of social norms

#83

Post by daveFNbuck »

fratlas wrote: post #50
kevinwang wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

are you serious? Which app/phone?

We both had our phones (one iPhone, one android) and macbooks on with facebook (web/app) open.

How did you ensure that no other apps were listening in the background?

Re: Facebook’s Safety Check is a stress-inducing flip of social norms

#84

Post by whatevthrow31 »

csydas wrote: post #79
whatevthrow31 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll be honest and say that I'm a former Facebook employee. Probably should have disclosed that originally, but I think it gives even more credit to my Hanlon's razor statement. It's just safer/easier to use a throwaway. I have these opinions in real life, but I try not to be too controversial in writing.

I had written a response to the parent comment on this considering an alternate possibility, but then saw this and deleted it. If you could update your original post, it would help curb some of the meta-discussion on your comment. As meta comment though, I don't think anything you said is necessarily controversial, it's just debatable. Obviously you need to gauge the potential fallout on your own life, but the commen…

Updated my original post to include my former employment.

It's just a habit of mine to make a throwaway for anything potentially controversial. It really wouldn't be too big if a deal if my identity was connected to any of my throwaways. It just makes me feel safer.

Re: Facebook’s Safety Check is a stress-inducing flip of social norms

#85

Post by mod »

daveFNbuck wrote: post #83
fratlas wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We both had our phones (one iPhone, one android) and macbooks on with facebook (web/app) open.

How did you ensure that no other apps were listening in the background?

I don't understand--how would other apps trigger related facebook ads?

Re: Facebook’s Safety Check is a stress-inducing flip of social norms

#86

Post by taneq »

bogomipz wrote: post #49
whatevthrow31 wrote: post #20

Ok, I had to make a throwaway for this because apparently its a heated debate. Why does everything Facebook do have to be so heavily criticized? Safety Check is a wonderful feature. If I remember correctly, it started off as an internal hackathon project that got turned into a full feature. They get shit if they turn it on (here), and if they don't turn it on (past tragedies where they failed to turn it on). Why does…

>"Ok, I had to make a throwaway for this because apparently its a heated debate." I am curious why do you feel the need to make a throwaway account because something is a "heated debate."?

Can't risk losing internet points, can we? Although it's also somewhat an indictment of the chilling effect of online lynch mobs on open discussion.

Re: Facebook’s Safety Check is a stress-inducing flip of social norms

#87

Post by [deleted] »

ghughes wrote: post #65
fratlas wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you up until the mic comment. I ran a few tests with friends. We talked about very obscure topics repeatedly (and nothing else) that we would otherwise would have never messaged, and after scrolling 2 mins, targeted ads appeared for those topics. Happened for multiple topics.

I just don't buy this theory until I see some evidence. It wouldn't be hard for a talented individual to reverse engineer the Facebook client app to find out if it's either a) continuously recording and uploading raw audio to their servers, or b) continuously recording and locally processing audio before sending information about the content to their servers. Until I see an analysis of their code that indicates eithe…

[deleted]

Re: Facebook’s Safety Check is a stress-inducing flip of social norms

#88

Post by jdietrich »

whatevthrow31 wrote: post #20

Ok, I had to make a throwaway for this because apparently its a heated debate. Why does everything Facebook do have to be so heavily criticized? Safety Check is a wonderful feature. If I remember correctly, it started off as an internal hackathon project that got turned into a full feature. They get shit if they turn it on (here), and if they don't turn it on (past tragedies where they failed to turn it on). Why does…

Imagine if one-fifth of the entire global population read the same newspaper every morning. Imagine if that same newspaper also operated the largest espionage network in the history of humanity.

Facebook doesn't receive nearly enough scrutiny and criticism. Western governments have been completely blindsided by the immense power that lies in the hands of Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook have a near-monopoly on social media in many countries. They have an incomprehensibly vast archive of personal data, alongside a EULA that allows them to do nearly anything with that data. Their algorithms profoundly influence how two billion people perceive the world, with practically no transparency or oversight.

Facebook are a hair's breadth away from any number of dystopian scenarios. We should be extremely nervous about the unchecked power that Facebook wields. We should pounce on any dubious decision that Facebook makes, but we should also be asking some serious and fundamental questions about the position of Facebook in our society.

Look at Zuckerberg's recent manifesto. He fully understands how powerful he is, and he has a clear vision of how he intends to use that power to shape the world. It's time that we (and our elected representatives) woke up.

https://www.facebook.com/notes/mark-zuckerberg/building-glob...

Re: Facebook’s Safety Check is a stress-inducing flip of social norms

#89

Post by rabboRubble »

bogomipz wrote: post #38
onewaystreet wrote: post #24

It wasn't long ago that Facebook was being criticized for not enabling Safety Check: https://techcrunch.com/2015/11/15/facebook-says-it-will-enab... >Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg committed to turning on Safety Check in more human disasters going forward, responding to criticism that the company turned on its safety feature for Paris but not for Beirut and other bombings.

The phrase "responding to criticism" appears twice in your link and "the criticism" appears once. There are no sources for the actual criticism or where it appeared, it's like an abstract thing. Such is Techcrunh

Here is a case where FB was criticized for not turning on their safety check feature. I've seen similar for events in Africa that went without FB's safety check feature being turned on.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/facebook-criticised-...

Edit: Found the African event:

https://qz.com/638428/facebook-is-being-criticized-for-not-a...

Re: Facebook’s Safety Check is a stress-inducing flip of social norms

#90

Post by databhishek »

austenallred wrote: post #12
bbarn wrote: post #7

I've said it before here, and I'll say it every time it's relevant: Stop using Facebook. Start telling your friends and family to do the same. As the "smart computer person" in many people's lives, you can be the voice they need to hear.

What rationale could I possibly give someone to stop using Facebook that would convince them to forgo all of the value they get from it?

Exactly this.

I don't understand why people on HN (Quora too) act all high and mighty and tell people to quit all social media like it's some curse. I understand that social media can be mentally debilitating, but not everyone has this problem. I'm 18, I use Facebook on a daily basis and I don't feel addicted to it.

And even if there is minimal value in using it, so what? I like using it and that's all that matters to me. The day Facebook takes over so much that my work is affected, I'll quit it. I already quit it once and I felt no big difference in life.

People still view the internet as some sort of external luxury that we have. It's not. It's a part of our culture right now and will remain so in some form forever.

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