Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#81

Post by dtech » Tue, May 26, 2020, 5:47 PM UTC

danharaj wrote: post #23

yumraj wrote: post #17

I've always wondered how such discussions go in company meetings where some product/feature has harmful effect of something/someone but is good for the business of the company. I cannot believe that everyone is ethicality challenged, only perhaps the people in control. So what goes through that minds of people who don't agree with such decisions. Do they keep quiet, just worry about the payroll, convince themselves t…

Capitalist systems sieve out people whose goals are at odds with the accumulation of capital. By the time you get to a boardroom, everyone has been tested hundreds of times for their loyalty to profit. All deviations are unstable: over a long enough period of time they will be replaced or outcompeted.

Yep, CEO's are sociapaths about 4-10x the normal rate [1] for this reason

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackmccullough/2019/12/09/the-p...

Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#82

Post by [deleted] » Tue, May 26, 2020, 5:47 PM UTC

yumraj wrote: post #17

I've always wondered how such discussions go in company meetings where some product/feature has harmful effect of something/someone but is good for the business of the company. I cannot believe that everyone is ethicality challenged, only perhaps the people in control. So what goes through that minds of people who don't agree with such decisions. Do they keep quiet, just worry about the payroll, convince themselves t…

[deleted]

Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#83

Post by nkozyra » Tue, May 26, 2020, 5:47 PM UTC

gabaix wrote: post #43

yumraj wrote: post #17

I've always wondered how such discussions go in company meetings where some product/feature has harmful effect of something/someone but is good for the business of the company. I cannot believe that everyone is ethicality challenged, only perhaps the people in control. So what goes through that minds of people who don't agree with such decisions. Do they keep quiet, just worry about the payroll, convince themselves t…

Facebook internal memo by Andrew Bosworth, VP June 18, 2016 The Ugly We talk about the good and the bad of our work often. I want to talk about the ugly. We connect people. That can be good if they make it positive. Maybe someone finds love. Maybe it even saves the life of someone on the brink of suicide. So we connect more people That can be bad if they make it negative. Maybe it costs a life by exposing someone to…

Even that is very handwave-y. It talks about "connections" and events, but not that the algorithm (in the broad, commonly-used sense) encourages and incentivizes that which builds "engagement."

Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#84

Post by eropple » Tue, May 26, 2020, 5:47 PM UTC

zelon88 wrote: post #72

yumraj wrote: post #17

I've always wondered how such discussions go in company meetings where some product/feature has harmful effect of something/someone but is good for the business of the company. I cannot believe that everyone is ethicality challenged, only perhaps the people in control. So what goes through that minds of people who don't agree with such decisions. Do they keep quiet, just worry about the payroll, convince themselves t…

I've typically found my employment via companies who deal with a variety of contracts, some of them for weapons or defense contractors. I could go down the rabbit hole of chasing down all those contracts and would probably find that many of the products my company makes get sold to groups and causes that I don't support. But in the end; I've gotta eat. Do I want to throw away my career which is 99% unrelated to the S…

Forgive me for the bluntness, but nobody with any set of technical skills "gotta eat" by supporting those kinds of efforts. I've worked to practice what I preach, too; I've consistently worked in do-no-harm jobs. I make rowing machines today and the worst you can hang on me from the past is that I had a daily-fantasy-sports site for a client for a while (which I'm not proud of but it's a pretty venal sin)--and I have made more than enough money to do very well for myself.

Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#85

Post by chongli » Tue, May 26, 2020, 5:48 PM UTC

renewiltord wrote: post #56

People always blame Facebook when the existence of Internet forums has always led to radicalization of individuals. Facebook's crime is making forums accessible to all. These are just your fellow people. This is how they are in the situation that they're in. So be it. Let them speak to others like them. The cost of that is many angry people. The benefit of that is that folks like me can find my people. That benefit o…

People always blame Facebook when the existence of Internet forums has always led to radicalization of individuals. Facebook's crime is making forums accessible to all.

If it were only that, I would have a hard time assigning blame to Facebook. However, it is not only that. Facebook exercises editorial control through its recommendation engine. Users don't see all posts in chronological order. They see posts ranked by Facebook based on invisible and inscrutable algorithms that are optimized for engagement.

It just so happens that making people angry is an effective way to keep them engaged in your platform. Thus it's not fair to call Facebook a neutral party if they're actively foregrounding divisive content in order to increase engagement.

Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#86

Post by eropple » Tue, May 26, 2020, 5:48 PM UTC

StillBored wrote: post #76

thomasjudge wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems very near the moral vacuity of the "just following orders" defense

For the beta roles (because I can't help mapping wolf/pack behavior to most corp meetings anymore) about all a person can do is mount a weak defense. Which gets ignored by upper mgmt as they justify ASPD with a framework that says the number one priority is the corporate profit statement. What percentage of people in these meetings are so wealthy they can risk everything over morally gray area decisions like this? Fu…

Few people in such a meeting are "risk[ing] everything".

I've quit jobs rather than doing sketchy things. For people in these industries, there's always a next job.

Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#87

Post by lol636363 » Tue, May 26, 2020, 5:48 PM UTC

dfxm12 wrote: post #68

torben-friis wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been there, obviously not to the level of a facebook board member. IMO the feeling is not really that different from making choices as a consumer ("was this shirt made by child labor?", "was the animal this meat comes from treated humanely?", etc). People tend to turn a blind eye to those questions unless something comes up that hits close to home. To be clear, I'm not saying that's justifiable or a good mindset…

I disagree and think it is significantly different. Facebook decision makers have way more agency in the directions their company takes than a consumer has in their choice of clothes to buy at Target (or wherever). Shirt consumers don't have much of a choice. They can only buy what's for sale (and in their price range). And then, how can they be sure if a shirt was or wasn't made by child labor? How would an individu…

As consumer, you may not be able to stop child labor but you can vote with your wallet.

Several of my friends buy clothes from a few vetted brands because of exactly this issue.

Then I have another friend who was huge cruise ships fan. He encouraged me to go on my first cruise too. But then there was a report about mistreatment of cruiseship employees, and he is totally against cruiseships now. His actions probably won't change anything alone but if enough consumers start to act like him, a change may happen.

Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#88

Post by megamittens » Tue, May 26, 2020, 5:49 PM UTC

LordHumungous wrote: post #33

> Facebook policy chief Joel Kaplan, who played a central role in vetting proposed changes, argued at the time that efforts to make conversations on the platform more civil were “paternalistic,” said people familiar with his comments. I think Joel was right.

Unless Joel is advocating allowing nudity on the platform then he is just blowing smoke. Facebook is inherently paternalistic and Joel Kaplan is right-wing hack.

Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#89

Post by robrenaud » Tue, May 26, 2020, 5:49 PM UTC

gabaix wrote: post #43

yumraj wrote: post #17

I've always wondered how such discussions go in company meetings where some product/feature has harmful effect of something/someone but is good for the business of the company. I cannot believe that everyone is ethicality challenged, only perhaps the people in control. So what goes through that minds of people who don't agree with such decisions. Do they keep quiet, just worry about the payroll, convince themselves t…

Facebook internal memo by Andrew Bosworth, VP June 18, 2016 The Ugly We talk about the good and the bad of our work often. I want to talk about the ugly. We connect people. That can be good if they make it positive. Maybe someone finds love. Maybe it even saves the life of someone on the brink of suicide. So we connect more people That can be bad if they make it negative. Maybe it costs a life by exposing someone to…

I read that discussion as it was happening on the internal FB@work. Oh man, there were so many true believers replying about how this was so wise and inspiring. As far as I remember, no one questioned him. I wish I had posted that in a biological context, something that grows without bound or care for its environment is cancer. There is Boz arguing that Facebook is cancer.

Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#90

Post by bjt2n3904 » Tue, May 26, 2020, 5:49 PM UTC

yumraj wrote: post #17

I've always wondered how such discussions go in company meetings where some product/feature has harmful effect of something/someone but is good for the business of the company. I cannot believe that everyone is ethicality challenged, only perhaps the people in control. So what goes through that minds of people who don't agree with such decisions. Do they keep quiet, just worry about the payroll, convince themselves t…

> I've always wondered how such discussions go in company meetings where some product/feature has harmful effect of something/someone but is good for the business of the company.

I mean, it's one thing if we're talking about something like an airbag, where harm can result from normal usage because of a design flaw. It's another thing to talk about the Ford Pinto -- where harm could happen due to accidental misusage.

Does Facebook encourage division? Do ice cream ads encourage obesity? Or alcohol ads encourage drunk driving? (I get that Facebook's "engagement algorithms" are designed to maximize profit, and has a side effect of showing you things that are upsetting and frustrating... but that isn't their design. I'm no fan of "the algorithm", and don't think they should use it, but I think they should be free to.)

In this instance, I don't think it's fair to say Facebook has a "harmful effect". The abuse, misuse, and addiction to Facebook can be harmful, for sure... but that's not Facebook's fault. That's the end user's fault.

Should Facebook come with a warning label, like cigarettes? I don't think so. (I also don't think cigarettes should be mandated to come with images of people dying of lung cancer when alcohol can be sold without images of people with liver disease... but I digress.)

Everyone wants to "mitigate harm". But you need to be able to separate "harm due to malfunction", "harm due to accidents", and "harm due to abuse". This seems to be firmly in the third category, which is the least concrete and most "squishy" category.

Especially squishy, when "harm" is considered to be people saying and/or thinking the wrong things.