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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?

#111

Post by adamrezich »

throwawaysow wrote: post #52
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.

Can we please stop using "gaslighting" as shorthand for "an opinion or perspective expressed by a single user that I disagree with?" I've seen it in several comment threads here in the past few weeks and it's getting really annoying.

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

#112

Post by hutzlibu »

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…

"3) Zuck generally wants to do the right thing, but of course makes mistakes"

Yeah, he does not mistakes like openly calling his users dumb fxxxx anymore.

https://www.businessinsider.com/well-these-new-zuckerberg-im...

But I have zero indications to believe, that he changed his believes in any way. Sad truth is, that he might be right. Mainstream humanity seems pretty stupid, to trust all their sensitive data to strangers who apparently have no respect for them. Does not make Zuckerberg a nice person, though.

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

#113

Post by muzani »

warp_factor wrote: post #74
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…

I disagree with all of those, but more specifically with >> 1) The core product is good and useful to people/society. Definitely not. If you had to put a numerical value on Facebook impact on society, it would be extremely negative I think. You grab attention of weak users, that end up spending so much time on your platform doing nothing instead of contributing in things that would benefit society. You create an illu…

Every generation has its own toxic time wasters. Things that people aren't willing to pay for, and wished they used less off. But the alternative is doing nothing, which can actually be painful to some.

It used to be TV, chat, radio. Netflix actually brings a lot to the table, in that people appreciate it enough to pay for it.

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

#114

Post by notacoward »

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…

> Most journalists have nothing to do with the business side of their company

Is that really true? It's the business side that pays their salaries, after all. Most people, in any business, are aware of where their employer's revenue comes from, who their competitors are, what threats they face, etc. This awareness is often heightened after being caught in a layoff, or working with others who have been. The news business has been pretty rough for a while so I'm pretty sure every working journalist has a pretty clear idea about these things.

There doesn't have to be a conspiracy here, and inferring one is a bit of a strawman. All that's necessary is plain old human cognitive bias. Availability bias: journalists are hyper-aware of Facebook because of how it relates to their lives. Confirmation bias: most journalists are predisposed to think ill of Facebook. These effects become even stronger when the journalists are all validating and reinforcing each other when they give negative stories about Facebook more prominence than they rationally deserve. Such stories are routinely repeated and exaggerated far more than other objectively similar stories that don't play into the same biases - not because of specific intent but just because journalists are humans.

Facebook is not the first company that has gone from media darling to media scapegoat. It won't be the last. Look at the extremely positive and extremely negative stories about any of Elon Musk's ventures. Or any celebrity. Anybody who denies that journalists play favorites isn't being very realistic.

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

#115

Post by fbemployee1234 »

121789 wrote: post #104
rwl wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

I think he's just saying that folks in developing countries get more value of the service (developed countries have much more competition), not that they benefit from tracking more.

This. Poor countries use Facebook for really valuable actions like talking to loved ones. In the states we have alternatives and can afford a few bucks a month for a service. But in poor countries, Facebook is often a lifeline (sometimes literally, in the case of crises)

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

#116

Post by fbemployee1234 »

warp_factor wrote: post #63
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…

Let me disagree on this. I think You joined Facebook, and they showed you the "Employee side" where everything is beautiful, with free food and free toys and you became convinced. Yes, they treat employees super well, nobody contradicts that. But how does it change anything related to how bad the product is (and all the bad things it does to people that use it a lot). It is easy to let the beautiful inner side of Fac…

I don’t think the product is bad, nor do I think it’s evil. The people who decide to use the service every day get value.

I think the negative fb news of late has really enabled people to strengthen their confirmation bias against fb.

For every super negative story that HN latches onto, there are a dozen internal projects that help the world in some way.

I guess I just see the intentions and a broader Perspective in some ways. When I saw how the sausage was made, I was actually impressed with the earnestness of peoples intentions.

Put simply, I don’t think anyone on HN has enough facts and measurements of outcomes to judge FB.

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

#117

Post by fbemployee1234 »

warp_factor wrote: post #79
basch wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"how bad the product is" What makes facebook so much worse than email? The fact that its default sorting algorithm is based on how relevant it thinks stories are to your interests? Any spread of false information could happen basically as easily through gmail. I dont see people getting mad at gmail and outlook for allowing chain letters to keep existing.

The utility_function of facebook (what it maximizes for) is for your attention grab. This in itself makes the product bad. They will hack the endorphin in your brain in order to keep you hooked. the utility_function of email is utilitarian. No email server wants to keep their user hooked on their emails.

How are you measuring this utility function? What is the evidence that facebooks objective is to hack endorphins?

All the conversations I’ve heard discuss how to make products better for users. Even if it hurts standard metrics.

For example, the goal of the feed team hasn’t been to increase engagement for a couple of years now. The metric of choice is meaningful interactions.

The outsiders perspective of FB seems to be a couple of years out of date, compared to what I’ve seen.

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

#118

Post by fbemployee1234 »

throwawaysow wrote: post #52
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.

I think you could also identify similar negative consequences from any entity the size of Facebook. I think it’s a side effect of being big, and fb is no different than any of the F1000 or just about any government on the planet.

What I do see internally — executives down through rank and file acknowledge the problems and work really hard to address them. I haven’t seen the same level in introspection elsewhere, even when I worked for the DoD.

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

#119

Post by notacoward »

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…

It is interesting how so many people (here and elsewhere) love to point out how Facebook loves controversy because it drives engagement, then immediately turn around and hotly deny that journalists also love controversy because it drives engagement. :eyeroll:

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

#120

Post by notacoward »

Current Facebook employee. I'll try to keep this short.

Some of the things Facebook has done have made me sad, or angry. I do wish we could evolve toward that perfect balance of privacy, authenticity, connectedness, etc. more quickly. OTOH, I do see a lot of good people around me, many who share those concerns, and I do see progress being made, and I know none of us will make a damn bit of difference from the outside.

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