Facebook Loses Top Executives, Including Chris Cox • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook Loses Top Executives, Including Chris Cox

#291

Post by dosbre » Fri, Mar 15, 2019, 2:49 AM UTC

volundr- wrote: post #264

eeeeeeeeeeeee wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps, but that person is responding to another about the impact Facebook has on society, good or bad, and that person only highlights the good essentially. I do think it's important to remember that Facebook is really doing nothing technologically amazing to allow that communication -- voice or text -- across geographical borders. The internet forms the basis of this core technology and Facebook simply made it eas…

You say, "Facebook is really doing nothing technologically amazing to allow that communication," but you're kind of glossing over the immense complexity of building systems to support private and public communication (for free), and prevent an incredible variety and volume of abusive traffic. Can you name a single alternative at their scale with a business plan that is viable long term and not state run or state supp…

I am using e-mail since about 2000's. Passing throught MSN video calls; early Google Talk; then came Skype; even Whatsapp; finaly but not last Hangout. All "for free" +plus no-ads.

Re: Facebook Loses Top Executives, Including Chris Cox

#292

Post by adjkant » Fri, Mar 15, 2019, 2:49 AM UTC

kokokokoko wrote: post #270

yaseer wrote: post #168

Facebook is big tobacco. Intelligent people generating profits that knowingly harms society (even if you do get some joy from a cigarette, that doesn't justify working for a tobacco company). I really hope the smart people at Facebook see the obvious parallel, and choose another career. History will judge you.

If anything your comment speaks to the weird paradox of who is responsible for a corporation's actions. Is it the shareholders? Is it the CEO? Is it the employees? Is it the board? Is it the customers? It almost ends up that there are so many people with a thread of responsibility that everyone involved has someone else to blame. Resulting in there being no one to blame. Fascinating to think about.

> It almost ends up that there are so many people with a thread of responsibility that everyone involved has someone else to blame. Resulting in there being no one to blame.

They can claim this, but if everyone is responsible, everyone is responsible. If this structure is the case, everyone shares in a little bit of the claim. And then you get into collective action ideas, like recycling persay, where only by many people doing it is there an impact. Except in this case, everyone being complicit means a large negative impact.

I do also think that regardless, the people that allowed such a system of non-responsibility to exist, by whatever means, are inherently more responsible. Especially when they have the power still to change the system and choose not to. This then points to Zuck and other higher ups who kept steering the ship forward and refused to change course. No, Zuck's "omg I like privacy now" PR show does not count as changing course.

Tobacco and Facebook really are a good parallel. The top level leadership knows what they are doing. The rank and file employees take orders but are responsible still to an extent, particularly if they have other employment options. The shareholders are simply greedy investors who value profit over societal effects.

Re: Facebook Loses Top Executives, Including Chris Cox

#293

Post by adjkant » Fri, Mar 15, 2019, 2:52 AM UTC

matchbok wrote: post #247

yaseer wrote: post #168

Facebook is big tobacco. Intelligent people generating profits that knowingly harms society (even if you do get some joy from a cigarette, that doesn't justify working for a tobacco company). I really hope the smart people at Facebook see the obvious parallel, and choose another career. History will judge you.

Shaming people who work for tobacco companies is childish and myopic.

Why? If they have alternate employment options, they are actively choosing to support their company's work. The "someone else will do it" excuse doesn't mean you throw your hands up in the air and give up on ever caring about ethics, it means you acknowledge that it won't change the world on its own and still try.

I don't think you go attacking individuals publicly but yes, people should absolutely be forced to have conversations about the morality of their job, especially those well off enough to have freedom of choice in where they work. It's not an easy conversation, but we all need to be encouraging this more.

Re: Facebook Loses Top Executives, Including Chris Cox

#294

Post by adjkant » Fri, Mar 15, 2019, 2:53 AM UTC

matchbok wrote: post #275

GuiA wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is perpetuating an international public health crisis for short term financial gain any less myopic or childish?

People like smoking. People like drinking. Humans will be humans.

Some people like shooting themselves with guns sometimes. It doesn't mean I should manufacture guns and advertise their effectiveness for that task, or worse, use psychological tricks to sell guns to these people while hiding my motivations.

Re: Facebook Loses Top Executives, Including Chris Cox

#295

Post by arunv » Fri, Mar 15, 2019, 2:59 AM UTC

bobdole12345 wrote: post #269

arunv wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any other company in their shoes would have had a mass exodus. Chris was a big part of making employees feel like they shared a piece of the dream. Whatever your thoughts about Facebook, the fact that some of the smartest people have worked, and continue to work at a company "beset by scandal" should give you pause.

Smartest people? Their tech stack is a dated cargo-culting of Google, hell, their newest thing is just using kubernetes with a thin wrapper. Their AI platform is a also ran in pretty much every aspect. Where exactly are the smart people?

1. Judging how smart the people there are by their tech stack is like judging how much horsepower a car has based on how many miles it has.

2. Even humoring that assumption, you’re conveniently forgetting React, Hive (+Hbase, hipal), presto, rocksdb, Cassandra, graphql, oauth 2, open compute, phabricator, hhvm, buck, and that’s just the open source stuff.

Re: Facebook Loses Top Executives, Including Chris Cox

#296

Post by manigandham » Fri, Mar 15, 2019, 3:01 AM UTC

Spooky23 wrote: post #290

manigandham wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to separate the communications medium from the corporation providing it. Facebook is not the only social network. There are hundreds of them and when one falls, another takes its place. Technological progress is unending. There's no use in trying to argue why something shouldn't be done when it inevitably will be and already has, what we need is to think of ways we can adapt as a species and society to handl…

Humanity doesn’t need to adapt to Facebook. Imagine if you said this about cars in 1919... we could put up traffic lights or evolve to leap out of the way of cars. If Facebook needs to enjoy an AT&T style monopoly on connecting people, they need to submit to being under a regulatory thumb.

As I just said, you're conflating the social network with Facebook the company.

Instant feed-based communications with varying levels of follower/friendship levels is a new technology provided by many organizations. Some are massive monopolies and others are indie apps, it doesn't matter but the tech is not going away so yes, we the people will need to learn how to deal with it.

Re: Facebook Loses Top Executives, Including Chris Cox

#297

Post by ulfw » Fri, Mar 15, 2019, 3:01 AM UTC

The rats are leaving the sinking privacy nightmare ship?

If the co-founders of your only significantly growing products (Whatsapp and Instagram) leave (publicly in disgust about product direction) and your Head of Product for similar reasons now too this makes me wonder what working in Product Manaqgement at Facebook is like these days.

It's the Zuck way or the out-the-door way? Why would any semi-creative person want to work under those circumstances?

Re: Facebook Loses Top Executives, Including Chris Cox

#298

Post by JKCalhoun » Fri, Mar 15, 2019, 3:02 AM UTC

passn wrote: post #143

mindgam3 wrote: post #61

I've known Chris Cox since freshman year of college and he was an informal advisor to my first startup. The NYT article referenced in hashberry's earlier comment includes a key quote: “For over a decade, I’ve been sharing the same message that Mark and I have always believed: Social media’s history is not yet written, and its effects are not neutral,” Mr. Cox said in a note to employees on Thursday. “As its builders…

"Zuckerberg's vision of Facebook as a good thing for the world was a lie" - That is such a broad generalization. In the developing world where I live Facebook gives me the opportunity to maintain contact with my family who live on the other side of the world, as I walk the streets of São Paulo, for free. There are hundreds of millions of others like me who keep in contact with their family because of Facebook (and th…

> "Zuckerberg's vision of Facebook as a good thing for the world was a lie" - That is such a broad generalization. In the developing world where I live Facebook gives me the opportunity to maintain contact with my family who live on the other side of the world, as I walk the streets of São Paulo, for free.

Both can be true of course. Zuckerberg may well have been driven by a less than altruistic vision but nonetheless still enabled some to benefit from the service.

Re: Facebook Loses Top Executives, Including Chris Cox

#299

Post by seba_dos1 » Fri, Mar 15, 2019, 3:11 AM UTC

spinach wrote: post #262

mindgam3 wrote: post #61

I've known Chris Cox since freshman year of college and he was an informal advisor to my first startup. The NYT article referenced in hashberry's earlier comment includes a key quote: “For over a decade, I’ve been sharing the same message that Mark and I have always believed: Social media’s history is not yet written, and its effects are not neutral,” Mr. Cox said in a note to employees on Thursday. “As its builders…

Can a for-profit company that even went public, that offers it's product "for free" to it's users really be good? I think at the heart of the problem is Facebook's business model. It can't be good and still sustain itself. I think, at the very least, it would have to be a not-for-profit organization.

There's something called Social Purpose Corporation, at least in some states, which would probably fit to this case (a for-profit, but not profit-maximizing entity that exists to "do good" for a specified clause instead).

Re: Facebook Loses Top Executives, Including Chris Cox

#300

Post by jinushaun » Fri, Mar 15, 2019, 3:22 AM UTC

saiya-jin wrote: post #151

mindgam3 wrote: post #61

I've known Chris Cox since freshman year of college and he was an informal advisor to my first startup. The NYT article referenced in hashberry's earlier comment includes a key quote: “For over a decade, I’ve been sharing the same message that Mark and I have always believed: Social media’s history is not yet written, and its effects are not neutral,” Mr. Cox said in a note to employees on Thursday. “As its builders…

WTF are you talking about? Facebook didn't became what it is today last week, but with great focus over last 10 years minimum. We're not in some wake up call scenario here. Those decisions happened very, very long time ago, in internet years an era ego. This now are just consequences of a carefully laid path.

I’ve been saying this since 2009. A lot of what’s wrong with Facebook started when it tried to copy Twitter in 2009: making posts public by default and preferring news articles over user generated content.