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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?

#51

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

untog wrote: post #17
sxp wrote: post #10

Disclaimer: I work for a competitor of FB. Opinions are my own, etc. There is an aspect of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect when hearing stories about FB. I've heard similar stories about various tech companies from major press outlets and the facts & opinions in the stories directly contradict my own first hand knowledge. Given this data, why should I trust press articles about FB when they're…

> 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…

The majority of people I've talked to about Cambridge Analytica think that Facebook just sent out a big pile of user data without asking anyone's permission. Which is a natural and reasonable interpretation of summaries like the one Vox provides in that article:

> Facebook exposed data on up to 87 million Facebook users to a researcher who worked at Cambridge Analytica, which worked for the Trump campaign.

What actually happened is that Facebook allowed a researcher to ask individual users to volunteer their data, and that researcher gave the data to Cambridge Analytica even though he promised he'd only use it for his research. There are ways Facebook could have prevented this, and I agree they should have - the UX implied a level of trust that Facebook wasn't properly vetting. But the popular narrative is almost entirely false.

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

#52

Post by throwawaysow »

fbemployee1234 wrote: post #36

Throwaway for obvious reasons. Opinions are my own. I joined in the last year. I had major issues with FB before, reflecting typical HN user stance. I joined because I was curious and their promises sounded like an amazing place to work. And it is. They treat us better than any other company in terms of autonomy and input. Everyone has a tea seat at the table. And what I’ve seen, the external perceptions don’t match…

This argument sounds a lot like gaslighting. You can put this argument for any unethical company and it would work.

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

#53

Post by fbthrowaway3 »

Going anon here, for obvious reasons.

People rationalize it two ways: 1. Whataboutism. Yeah, well, what about Google? What about Amazon? 2. Whatever, they pay me well and the perks are good.

My view is more nihilistic: Zuck is the same as he's always been. This is the same dude who said "They trust me, dumb fucks". Don't get it twisted: Facebook is about data collection and data sales. Everything else is a happy smokescreen diverting user and regulatory attention to that purpose. Connecting people and all of that handwaving is a means to that end.

You trusted him/us; dumb fucks. That's basically about it.

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

#54

Post by librish »

It does feel like a lot of the news are misrepresented or skewed. Take CA as an example. This was FB acting as a developer portal and the following happened (to the best of my knowledge) using Apple as a substitute.

1. Your friend downloads a slick email app from company X on the AppStore

2. The OS warns you with a big blocking screen that this app wants to read all emails from your address book, your friend clicks allow and company X uploads your friend's address book to their server for what they claim are some cool autocomplete and search features

3. Apple has also made company X to sign an agreement to not misuse the data in any way outside of what's needed for "core functionality"

Later it turns out that company X took the data from their servers and sold it to someone else which means that your email address and any emails your sent to your friend are now leaked.

Now you can be mad at your friend, company X, or Apple and I feel like so much of the focus has been on "Apple" ie FB when the main piece of criticism is that perhaps users shouldn't be trusted with a permission this broad (which had already been fixed 4 years earlier).

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

#55

Post by nkingsy »

untog wrote: post #17
sxp wrote: post #10

Disclaimer: I work for a competitor of FB. Opinions are my own, etc. There is an aspect of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect when hearing stories about FB. I've heard similar stories about various tech companies from major press outlets and the facts & opinions in the stories directly contradict my own first hand knowledge. Given this data, why should I trust press articles about FB when they're…

> 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…

My grandmother had her business destroyed by false newspaper stories paid for by a competitor. Till the day she died she wouldn’t touch a newspaper.

I’ve never been the target of a journalist before, but many who have seem to find their perspective profoundly changed by the experience.

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

#56

Post by badfrog »

iandanforth wrote: post #49
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?

What's the relation?

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

#57

Post by basch »

drngdds wrote: post #23
sxp wrote: post #10

Disclaimer: I work for a competitor of FB. Opinions are my own, etc. There is an aspect of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect when hearing stories about FB. I've heard similar stories about various tech companies from major press outlets and the facts & opinions in the stories directly contradict my own first hand knowledge. Given this data, why should I trust press articles about FB when they're…

This seems like really flimsy reasoning. Sometimes news stories are wrong, therefore 90% of what you hear about Facebook is false?

More like "the explicit fact laid out in the article is true, but its context, meaning, effect on the world, and interpretation are so sensationalized that the original fact becomes irrelevant to the narrative."

EG back in the day when the entire world lost its shit over the permissions an android app was asking for, not really understanding how a permission system for access to api's work. They seem to think they are legal permissions not technical ones.

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

#58

Post by untog »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #51
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…

The majority of people I've talked to about Cambridge Analytica think that Facebook just sent out a big pile of user data without asking anyone's permission. Which is a natural and reasonable interpretation of summaries like the one Vox provides in that article: > Facebook exposed data on up to 87 million Facebook users to a researcher who worked at Cambridge Analytica, which worked for the Trump campaign. What actua…

But... Facebook did expose that data, by allowing a researcher to gather data on 87 million users with no actual restrictions on what he could do with that data. The root cause here is Facebook. It feels like arguing semantics to say the narrative is "almost entirely false" because Facebook exposed that data to an individual who later exposed it to Cambridge Analytica. Arguably Facebook exposed data on far more than 87 million Facebook users - it exposed data on every single user it has.

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

#59

Post by badfrog »

librish wrote: post #54

It does feel like a lot of the news are misrepresented or skewed. Take CA as an example. This was FB acting as a developer portal and the following happened (to the best of my knowledge) using Apple as a substitute. 1. Your friend downloads a slick email app from company X on the AppStore 2. The OS warns you with a big blocking screen that this app wants to read all emails from your address book, your friend clicks a…

> the main piece of them criticism is that perhaps users shouldn't be trusted with a permission this broad (which had already been fixed 4 years earlier).

Agreed. This broad permission was also widely known well before CA. IMO the only reason the CA story blew up is that lots of people were upset about the 2016 election and wanted somebody to target their anger toward.

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

#60

Post by rwl »

fbemployee1234 wrote: post #36

Throwaway for obvious reasons. Opinions are my own. I joined in the last year. I had major issues with FB before, reflecting typical HN user stance. I joined because I was curious and their promises sounded like an amazing place to work. And it is. They treat us better than any other company in terms of autonomy and input. Everyone has a tea seat at the table. And what I’ve seen, the external perceptions don’t match…

> I just don’t see tracking online activity as more harmful than the benefit that people get from the service. (Not so much US users, but the benefits to people in very poor countries are very real, and wouldn’t exist if the service didn’t monetize so well)

Can't you elaborate on this? What's the difference between people in the US and poor countries? Why does tracking help the latter group?

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