Ask HN: Current and former FB employees, what's the other side to the story?
131–136 of 136 posts
Re: Ask HN: Current and former FB employees, what's the other side to the story?
#132Most 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…
> 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…
> 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.
It's more than that. At its best (your phrase) FB helps marginalized people or those in rare circumstances (e.g. health-related) find others with similar experiences who can offer advice and support. It has helped people reach out to one another during emergencies. Yes, those are extreme cases, but you used the phrase "at its best" so let's not understate what the best is.
> somehow suspect that's not what the majority of FB engineers are actually working on.
Of course it isn't. Like at every other tech company, the engineers are mostly working on their own piece of technical infrastructure. They're not directly out there saving lives. Nor are they directly out there ruining any. Is it fair or useful to blame individuals at Facebook for the worst of what their company does, and simultaneously deny them any credit for the best, with no idea what role they actually play or what direction they're trying to push the company in?
Does anyone here suppose that oppressive governments around the world aren't also using RHEL and Hadoop to target their victims? Dell servers? Cisco switches? Who provides their cars, their guns, their bone saws? There are many companies at least as complicit in all of these awful acts, so why is the tsunami of self-righteousness only directed at one? Are people motivated by a desire for justice, or a desire for the approbation of others? Dopamine addiction isn't limited to Facebook users.
Re: Ask HN: Current and former FB employees, what's the other side to the story?
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a tool right, and from a usability, stability, security, and functionality perspective its second to none. No other program (for me) works more seamlessly between desktop and mobile. It's messaging app is first class. Tons of features. I can type a message on a pc, and carry my phone with me and pick up where I left off. It's groups allow people to self organize, at a scale I dont see anywhere else. It's newsfee…
Thanks for the critique of Facebook as a technical implementation. I was curious as to what societal good the company and its products have done. It sounds like "saved people a bit of time by doing all the things separate services used to do".
What about the millions and millions of small businesses across the globe that were able to grow, reach their customers beyond the borders of their cities, states, or even countries, create jobs, create stability, and bring goods and services to the people that want or need them.
What about the charitable giving products that Facebook builds that has collected billions of dollars for charities globally?
What about the first of it's kind Crisis Response tools that allows people involved in natural disasters, terrorist attacks, or other horrible situations communicate with their family and friends across the globe and let them know they're safe - for free.
What about the groups functionality that allows people come together to support one another through cancer diagnosis, or the loss of a loved one (grief counseling), or coach and help one another land jobs.
I could go on for a little while longer, but the point is the facebook isn't the only company or service that can do the things I've listed above, but it's the only one that does all of them and doesn't charge the end user. Let's not kid ourselves, building those products and the infrastructure that it rests upon is not free nor easy and requires tremendous talent and resources.
Facebook is a business like any other and it has to make money, and it does so through ads. So to judge it purely on your experience/use case that may not include any of the products/features I mentioned above, it may seem like it doesn't produce a net positive result.
But for those users that have and continue to use facebook in these ways, the benefits are obvious.
Re: Ask HN: Current and former FB employees, what's the other side to the story?
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
This should be the top comment. Let's take a current headline: "Facebook is facing criticism for not allowing users to opt out of a feature that lets people look them up using their phone number or email address." There are so many ways to explain how this could come to be and the vast majority of those would not be attributed to malicious intent. It's not like PMs at Facebook are sitting around wondering how they ca…
>It's not like PMs at Facebook are sitting around wondering how they can exploit people's privacy. I'd bet serious money there are. They won't let themselves think of it in terms "exploiting privacy", but use some friendly-sounding framing like "leveraging data collection" which is still inherently inseparable from the exploitation of privacy.
Meh .... the same could be said of virtually every job. You'd be hard pressed to find any company (including yours, or your clients if you freelance) who have squeaky clean operations.
By that example do you think everyone working at Nike are using friendly-sounding framing like "making high performance shoes affordable at scale" when really what they're doing is exploiting kids in developing countries?
There is a cost of doing things at scale and living a modern day life where you don't directly benefit from that is virtually impossible.
Re: Ask HN: Current and former FB employees, what's the other side to the story?
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I mean, those notifications everyone gets that have no actual pertinent info/are super blatant engagement hacks have been widely discusssed/experienced, and there's no strong argument that those make products better for users (and it's obvious what metrics they're attempting to inflate).
Re: Ask HN: Current and former FB employees, what's the other side to the story?
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I mean, those notifications everyone gets that have no actual pertinent info/are super blatant engagement hacks have been widely discusssed/experienced, and there's no strong argument that those make products better for users (and it's obvious what metrics they're attempting to inflate).
This sums up the advertising industry as a whole.