How WhatsApp Destroyed a Village
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How WhatsApp Destroyed a Village
1–10 of 158 posts
Re: How WhatsApp Destroyed a Village
#2This is terrible but blaming WhatsApp is misplaced. If it wasn't WhatsApp, it would have been another service. Either it will be easy to communicate or it won't be. If it is, it can be used as a force for good or a force for evil. The real problem is so much more difficult that it's easy to try to find something you can do, block the technology, so you feel like you are doing something even if it's completely ignoring the root of the issue.
Re: How WhatsApp Destroyed a Village
#3I know this is going to be an inconvenient reminder for many folks, but: if you play any part in bringing software (or technology in general) into the world, you have an obligation to consider the moral, ethical, and political ramifications of what you are building at every single step of the way.
What happened in that village wasn't an accident – it was the result of careful "growth-hacking", design, product work, and engineering. It just didn't work as intended.
There is no such thing as a neutral line of code, feature, notification, design, business, or product. Full stop.
Re: How WhatsApp Destroyed a Village
#4This is terrible but blaming WhatsApp is misplaced. If it wasn't WhatsApp, it would have been another service. Either it will be easy to communicate or it won't be. If it is, it can be used as a force for good or a force for evil. The real problem is so much more difficult that it's easy to try to find something you can do, block the technology, so you feel like you are doing something even if it's completely ignorin…
That's the entire problem with this industry – we make the assumption that someone less ethical than us will come along and build the shitty product anyway, and use that as justification to do something we likely shouldn't.
Blaming WhatsApp is misplaced, in some sense – the blame lies with startup culture, and with each of us that choose to make that excuse.
Re: How WhatsApp Destroyed a Village
#5Its funny how sometimes you get a juxtaposition between 2 articles hitting the front page. This one reminded me of this article https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17947264 and in particular the author's comment
> do not underestimate the destructive power of lies
This seems to be much more of an issue than the fact they used Whatsapp to spread lies.
Re: How WhatsApp Destroyed a Village
#6Its funny how sometimes you get a juxtaposition between 2 articles hitting the front page. This one reminded me of this article https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17947264 and in particular the author's comment > do not underestimate the destructive power of lies This seems to be much more of an issue than the fact they used Whatsapp to spread lies.
The platform is what spread those lies – without the platform, those lies wouldn't have had the reach they did.
Re: How WhatsApp Destroyed a Village
#7This is terrible but blaming WhatsApp is misplaced. If it wasn't WhatsApp, it would have been another service. Either it will be easy to communicate or it won't be. If it is, it can be used as a force for good or a force for evil. The real problem is so much more difficult that it's easy to try to find something you can do, block the technology, so you feel like you are doing something even if it's completely ignorin…
Agree. As much as I don't like Facebook and by extension WhatsApp[0] I still think we should be fair.
[0]: to the point where I've encouraged (or rather tried to convince) groups moving to other channels.
Re: How WhatsApp Destroyed a Village
#8I know this is going to be an inconvenient reminder for many folks, but: if you play any part in bringing software (or technology in general) into the world, you have an obligation to consider the moral, ethical, and political ramifications of what you are building at every single step of the way. What happened in that village wasn't an accident – it was the result of careful "growth-hacking", design, product work, a…
What exactly is "growth hacking" in a chat app? There were no ads here, no algorithmic timeline, no perverse incentives, nothing that you could potentially consider as malicious.
What should WhatsApp have done?
Every single post about WhatsApp here has people pontificating about this and that but no one offers any suggestion of what should be done.
Re: How WhatsApp Destroyed a Village
#9Wow. That was some dark patterns.
When looking into the cookie dialog most of it says it is required.
There is a "Reject all" button and it seems to be live but doesn't work.
Re: How WhatsApp Destroyed a Village
#10I know this is going to be an inconvenient reminder for many folks, but: if you play any part in bringing software (or technology in general) into the world, you have an obligation to consider the moral, ethical, and political ramifications of what you are building at every single step of the way. What happened in that village wasn't an accident – it was the result of careful "growth-hacking", design, product work, a…
What exactly is "growth hacking" in a chat app? There were no ads here, no algorithmic timeline, no perverse incentives, nothing that you could potentially consider as malicious. What should WhatsApp have done? Every single post about WhatsApp here has people pontificating about this and that but no one offers any suggestion of what should be done.
Yeah, definitely no advertising, particularly overseas, that could have contributed to WhatsApp's growth. No features added like large groups that could be used to spread disinformation. WhatsApp chats are used to influence advertising, so that goes out the window. This happened because WhatsApp provided the means for it to happen – and you can speculate all day long about whether some other app would have made it possible, and whether it would have happened, but what you're saying is speculation, and what I'm citing are facts.
None of it was intentionally malicious – but not considering the moral, ethical, political ramifications of how your product will be used is negligent. This is negligence, not malice.
Platforms aren't neutral.