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Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

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

#91

Post by 1propionyl »

AlexandrB wrote: post #18
contemporary343 wrote: post #6

Every platform ultimately makes choices in how users engage with it, whether that goal is to drive up engagement, ad revenues or whatever metric is relevant to them. My general read is that Facebook tries to message that they're "neutral" arbiters and passive observers of whatever happens on their platform. But they aren't, certainly not in effect, and possibly in intent either. To preserve existing algorithms is not…

It's pretty laughable for Facebook to claim they're neutral when they performed and published[1] research about how tweaking their algorithm can affect the mood of their users. [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/every...

Even if they hadn't done that, it would still be a laughable claim prima facie.

There's something of an analogue to the observer effect: that the mere observation of a phenomenon changes the phenomenon.

Facebook can be viewed as an instrument for observing the world around us. But it is one that, through being used by millions of people and personalizing/ranking/filtering/aggregating, affects change on the world.

Or to be a little more precise, it structures the way that its users affect the world. Which is something of a distinction without much difference, consequentially.

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

#92

Post by whatshisface »

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…

Products that may be sold to terrorists include canned beans and Toyota trucks. Your situation might actually be less morally compromising than the Facebook stuff being discussed, because in their case they are the "questionably motivated 'freedom fighters,'" (i.e. they're directly doing the morally questionable stuff) whereas you're just selling stuff to a broad market that may include questionably motivated "freedom fighters." It's sort of the difference between selling lockpicks that may eventually be used in a burglary or might also be used to get Grandma's safe open, versus breaking in yourself.

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

#93

Post by bpodgursky »

1propionyl wrote: post #73
renewiltord wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I, too, agree. Facebook is just an extension of the open society.

"The East India Trading Company is just an extension of the open seas."

Yes, a company which owns large chunks of India and has a well-used private army numbering in the tens of thousands, is a great analogy for a social-media company.

The East India Company was responsible, at least in part, for tens of millions of deaths in various famines, and to equate the two fails both by being ridiculous (Facebook is not a private empire with an empire), and trivializes the actual damage done by that institution.

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

#94

Post by crocodiletears »

ouid wrote: post #32
wtfno009887466 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ROFL, who's the worse privacy violator, Facebook or the NSA

Facebook. With absolute certainty.

NSA's a black box whose sole purpose is the aggregation and analysis of any information with potential relevance to US national security. It has the capacity to compel or infiltrate companies like Facebook to make them cooperate with its goals, and data sharing agreements with multiple nations. Privacy violation isn't a side-effect of its business model, it's its raison d'être.

I wouldn't dismiss NSA so offhandedly along this metric, even if it's ostensibly more constrained along legal boundaries.

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

#95

Post by throwaway894345 »

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 cannot believe that everyone is ethicality challenged, only perhaps the people in control.

Seems likely that social media as an industry selects more strongly for unethical executives, presumably because online advertising is the only effective way to monetize social media and it is more or less fundamentally unethical. I imagine the same effect can be observed among tobacco and fossil energy executives--these are industries where there is no ethical monetization strategy, at least not one that is in the same competitive ballpark as the unethical strategy.

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

#96

Post by peruvian »

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…

If you're working for defense or weapons contracts you're supporting the industry that has kept us in the Middle East for almost two decades.

I agree that it's often a moral grey zone but in this case it's pretty clear. If you're an engineer there's plenty of other companies to choose from.

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

#97

Post by Hokusai »

nickff wrote: post #55
Hokusai wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boeing 737 MAX killed 346 people. So, it seems that death is not a deterrent. The mails from the case are good to understand the internal discussions: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jan/10/737-max-sca...

> "Boeing 737 MAX killed 346 people. So, it seems that death is not a deterrent." I really don't understand your point, unless you're implying that there was a meeting where Boeing planned to kill those people. I am not an aviation expert, but what happened with the MAX seems to be a product of the certification process, urgent business needs, systems engineering issues, and bad internal communications at Boeing. I h…

> I haven't seen any evidence that someone specifically predicted the chain of events which would unfold on those flights, and clearly communicated the issue, then had executive(s) respond that it was 'worth the money'.

People understand the consequences of what they say. I doubt that most people will say that statements out loud, even when they know that are true.

But, people knew and money was involved.

* February 2018

“I don’t know how to refer to the very very few of us on the program who are interested only in truth…”

“Would you put your family on a MAX simulator trained aircraft? I wouldn’t.”

“No.”

* August 2015

“I just Jedi mind tricked this fools. I should be given $1000 every time I take one of these calls. I save this company a sick amount of $$$$.”

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

#98

Post by lmilcin »

The problem really is platforms that give people content to please them. An algorithm selects content that you are likely to agree with or that you have shown previous interest. This only causes people to get reinforced in their beliefs and this leads to polarization.

For example, when I browse videos on Youtube I will only get democratic content (even though I am from Poland). Seems as soon as you click on couple entries you get classified and from now on you will only be shown videos that are agreeable to you. That means lots of Stephen Colbert and no Fox News.

My friend is deeply republican and she will not see any democratic content when she gets suggestions.

The problem runs so deep that it is difficult to find new things even if I want. I maintain another browser where I am logged off to get more varied selection and not just couple topics I have been interested with recently.

My point of view on this: this is disaster of gigantic proportions. People need to be exposed to conflicting views to be able to make their own decisions.

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

#99

Post by lol636363 »

nickff wrote: post #55
Hokusai wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boeing 737 MAX killed 346 people. So, it seems that death is not a deterrent. The mails from the case are good to understand the internal discussions: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jan/10/737-max-sca...

> "Boeing 737 MAX killed 346 people. So, it seems that death is not a deterrent." I really don't understand your point, unless you're implying that there was a meeting where Boeing planned to kill those people. I am not an aviation expert, but what happened with the MAX seems to be a product of the certification process, urgent business needs, systems engineering issues, and bad internal communications at Boeing. I h…

Of course, no one planned it. But encouraging or demanding to take shortcuts is what caused it.

I have been in software industry for 15 years and this happens all the time, being forced to release unfinished features, asked to ignore security, backups, etc. I would imagine same thing happens in other industries.

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

#100

Post by vtail »

Disclaimer: I started working at FB recently.

Consider the following model scenario. You are a PM at a discussion board startup in Elbonia. There are too many discussions at every single time, so you personalize the list for each user, showing only discussions she is more likely to interact with (it's a crude indication of user interest, but it's tough to measure it accurately).

One day, your brilliant data scientist trained a model that predicts which of the two Elbonian parties a user most likely support, as well as whether a comment/article discusses a political topic or not. Then a user researcher made a striking discovery: supporters of party A interact more strongly with posts about party B, and vice versa. A proposal is made to artificially reduce the prevalence of opposing party posts in someone's feed.

Would you support this proposal as a PM? Why or why not?

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