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Ask HN: Current and former FB employees, what's the other side to the story?

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Re: Ask HN: Current and former FB employees, what's the other side to the story?

#41

Post by docker_up »

zbuttram wrote: post #33
docker_up wrote: post #8

Most of what the press reports is a distortion of the truth, or making something sound worse than it really is. Sure there are issues but all companies have them, just like Google, Amazon, etc. There are a lot of good people doing good work here, and connecting the world for the better. You don't hear about the 99.99% of the good things because that won't encourage clicks for the news rags. If the press took an inter…

This may be true but its very easy to argue that an organization with the global influence of Facebook deserves that kind of scrutiny. The average Joe may look like an asshole under the same lens, but I would also say the potential effects of his assholery are generally far more limited by comparison.

Never said that Facebook doesn't deserve scrutiny. But it should be fair scrutiny, not unfair, biased scrutiny that gets incentivized to only show the negative.

I think that if the scrutiny were fair, perceptions would be drastically different and much more favorable (and the news reports would be more boring). Yes, people make mistakes. But there's no global conspiracy, and Facebook is operating on a level that no other company has ever done before so for the most part we are learning as we go along as well.

Re: Ask HN: Current and former FB employees, what's the other side to the story?

#42

Post by rifung »

JeremyBanks wrote: post #4
taytus wrote: post #2

I don't see the complexity here. They pay competitive salaries and people don't give a fuck about what FB does and accept the gig. Simple. Being able to say: "No, I don't work here because of principles" is something really nice but not everyone can afford to do.

99% of their engineers could afford to do the right thing. They have plenty of alternatives that pay very well, but they'd rather sell their soul for a few more luxuries. They are choosing to be bad people.

I don't work at FB but I don't agree with this.

Is it really better in the long run that people who disagree with privacy intrusions leave? I'd argue that it's better they stay and are part of the conversation to improve things.

If all that's left at FB are people who are solely motivated my greed, and I am sure there are certainly enough of those people to run FB, isn't this only worse for the users?

Re: Ask HN: Current and former FB employees, what's the other side to the story?

#43

Post by simonebrunozzi »

badfrog wrote: post #30

I worked at FB for three years as a software engineer. The people I worked with basically believed: 1) The core product is good and useful to people/society 2) Most of the negative articles about Facebook are based on some piece of truth but go out of their way to make things seem worse and more sinister than they really are 3) Zuck generally wants to do the right thing, but of course makes mistakes 4) Yes the compan…

And what did you believe, or currently do?

Re: Ask HN: Current and former FB employees, what's the other side to the story?

#45

Post by untog »

ydnaclementine wrote: post #40
untog wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they're written by the same journalists who are focused on maximizing revenue for their own companies? That's a pretty huge accusation to casually throw out. Where is the actual evidence that a journalist writing an article critical of Facebook is doing so because they are focused on maximising revenue for their own company? Most journalists have nothing to do with the business side of their company, and this feels…

>Where is the actual evidence that a journalist writing an article critical of COMPANY is doing so because they are focused on maximising revenue for their own company? recent example is bloomberg and their china chip hacking (did that ever turn out to be true?) https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-10-04/the-big-h... where the writers get compensated if their story moves stock prices https://www.businessinsid…

Well, you removed the word "Facebook" from the quote there, and the Business Insider article itself states that the practice is extremely unusual in the industry.

I'll agree that if Bloomberg was the sole reporter of a controversial story about Facebook that couldn't be proven I'd be very suspicious. But as far as I can tell, that hasn't happened.

Re: Ask HN: Current and former FB employees, what's the other side to the story?

#46

Post by badfrog »

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #43
badfrog wrote: post #30

I worked at FB for three years as a software engineer. The people I worked with basically believed: 1) The core product is good and useful to people/society 2) Most of the negative articles about Facebook are based on some piece of truth but go out of their way to make things seem worse and more sinister than they really are 3) Zuck generally wants to do the right thing, but of course makes mistakes 4) Yes the compan…

And what did you believe, or currently do?

Basically the same. My reasons for leaving were not related to company/product ethics.

Re: Ask HN: Current and former FB employees, what's the other side to the story?

#47

Post by EpicEng »

docker_up wrote: post #39
ForHackernews wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are a lot of good people doing good work here, and connecting the world for the better. What does that actually mean? This sounds like a stock phrase from a press release. At its best, I guess you could say Facebook helps you kinda-sorta keep in touch with old friends you don't see that often. But I somehow suspect that's not what the majority of FB engineers are actually working on. Your point about the pres…

There are millions of people in various Facebook groups that are connected, based on things like illnesses, concerns, etc. The ability to share information and experiences and support each other are unparalleled. Just because you only use Facebook to connect with friends doesn't mean there are billions of people using it for other extremely beneficial purposes.

Backdoors in your cell phone OS can be used to catch criminals. They can also be used to spy on innocents. Sometimes the cost isn't worth it.

Re: Ask HN: Current and former FB employees, what's the other side to the story?

#48

Post by badfrog »

Bhilai wrote: post #35

I don't work for FB but in my experience, such decisions are most often times are taken by Product Managers who do not understand privacy implications. They typically try to bypass security/privacy teams to avoid the hassle of dealing with them. Also, Engineering teams are sometimes siloed and do not realize that the data they are messing with is sensitive in nature (MFA phone numbers in most recent case.) Most of th…

> They typically try to bypass security/privacy teams to avoid the hassle of dealing with them.

The PMs I worked with at FB definitely wouldn't do that. Having those teams find a problem after you've built a feature is much more of a hassle than getting their help to do it right in the first place.

On the other hand, product teams would often fail to get those reviews just because they didn't realize there could be a problem.

Re: Ask HN: Current and former FB employees, what's the other side to the story?

#49

Post by iandanforth »

badfrog wrote: post #30

I worked at FB for three years as a software engineer. The people I worked with basically believed: 1) The core product is good and useful to people/society 2) Most of the negative articles about Facebook are based on some piece of truth but go out of their way to make things seem worse and more sinister than they really are 3) Zuck generally wants to do the right thing, but of course makes mistakes 4) Yes the compan…

Tangential question, do you consider yourself an environmentalist? For example have you reduced your carbon output on principle in some way?

Re: Ask HN: Current and former FB employees, what's the other side to the story?

#50

Post by noir_lord »

docker_up wrote: post #8

Most of what the press reports is a distortion of the truth, or making something sound worse than it really is. Sure there are issues but all companies have them, just like Google, Amazon, etc. There are a lot of good people doing good work here, and connecting the world for the better. You don't hear about the 99.99% of the good things because that won't encourage clicks for the news rags. If the press took an inter…

> Sure there are issues but all companies have them, just like Google, Amazon, etc.

Ahhh, what-aboutism I love it.

> If the press took an interest in your company, or even you personally, no one would look good from their constant digging to make you look as bad as possible.

Unless they straight lied they'd find a middle age developer working for a small/medium sized manufacturing company that treats it's staff and customers well.

Facebook operates at a scale where even if it has good intentions it's outcomes can be the same as someone intent on doing negative things, it's the nature of the beast.

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