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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

#141

Post by jboog »

bpodgursky wrote: post #93
1propionyl wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 t…

Defenders of the EIC at the time surely said "yeah some bad stuff happens but think about the squalor the average Indian lived in prior to the Englishman coming in and bringing great wealth to their country. Think of the untold famine and poverty we're helping ameliorate by bringing western Christian ideals and wealth to a primitive people.

How DARE you compare some unfortunate incidents of the EIC to the human misery that existed before the Brits arrived, you're being ridiculous!! "

People have always been able to use motivated reasoning to explain away the terrible externalizes of their choices when there's a shitload of money on the line.

FB has been a tool to aid genocide, they've contributed to incivility in societies throughout the world while they're cashing checks but don't want to appear "paternalistic" of course so it's fine.

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

#142

Post by pacala »

vtail wrote: post #100

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…

Predicting political preferences is a huge can of worms. Don't do it. Have the data scientist delete their model.

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

#143

Post by whatever1 »

nickff wrote: post #108
Hokusai wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I have read similar quotes about most modern aircraft development programs, yet aviation is quite safe. The fact you can find a few alarmists in a company of 160,000 is rather unsurprising. Those quotes would be much more convincing if those employees put every prediction they ever made on the record, not just the ones that turned out to be sort-of right in hindsight. From manager's perspective, you can't listen to e…

You cannot have it both ways. First you claim that no one spoke up and then you dismiss the ones who did as alarmists

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

#144

Post by tinco »

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…

Are you seriously arguing that consumers can't spend $5 less on a shirt so that instead of having "BALR." it was made under less shitty conditions? Consumers have plenty money for t-shirts, they just choose to spend it on fashion statements instead of thinking about working conditions of people half a planet away.

There's plenty of choice. It's not about choice, it's about what's on your mind, and what you put on your mind. If you want to look cool, you put the working conditions concern off of your mind. If you want to make money, you put the division concern off of your mind.

The buck stops at every stop.

edit: did a quick google, first result on a plain white t-shirt that's fair trade is $25, first result on 'fashionable' plain white t-shirt (by balr or supreme) is $60...

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

#145

Post by DataWorker »

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…

Nobody thinks they are complicit but in reality we all are. Some can accept this while others let the cognitive dissonance drive their behavior in convoluted and hard to discern ways. Redemption only comes after accepting that we’re born of original sin. Anybody who supports or uses non-free software has worked to finance the amoral tech decision making that you’re decrying. Even Stallman makes compromises. Welcome to modernity.

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

#146

Post by nickff »

whatever1 wrote: post #139
nickff wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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…

Wrong. Boeing engineers raised up concerns that were dismissed. “Frankly right now all my internal warning bells are going off,” said the email. “And for the first time in my life, I’m sorry to say that I’m hesitant about putting my family on a Boeing airplane.” [1] [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/30/boeing-engineer-raised-conce...

I didn't say that nobody raised concerns, I said:

>>"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'."

In large projects like the MAX, there are always people raising concerns.

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

#147

Post by dragonwriter »

crazygringo wrote: post #129
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 No, but it's not always clear what the ethical choice is. In philosophy, this is known as pluralism [1] -- the fact that different people have irreconcilable ethical views, with no way to find any "truth". That might seem like a lot of justificatory mumbo-jumbo, but there are genuine ethical arguments on all sides. For example, did you know that in the postwar…

> For example, did you know that in the postwar 1950's, the lack of polarization and divisiveness in American society was widely seen as a major problem, because it didn't provide enough voter choice between the two parties?

There was not a lack of polarization and divisiveness in American society.

The divides in American society and politics didn't map well to the two major political parties because there was a major political realignment in progress and the parties hadn't yet aligned with the divides in society.

The problem was the divide between the major parties not being sharp on the issues where there were, in fact, sharp, polarizing divides in society, preventing members of the public from effectuating their preferences on salient issues by voting.

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

#148

Post by crocodiletears »

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.

Honestly, this does give me much more confidence in Facebook's internal governance, even if the platform often bows to media demands.

Much to the Chagrin of many on HN, Facebook is, and has been a fairly open platform to people of all convictions, backgrounds, and political stripes. Even if it has been unsteady handed at times. This, as well as their sorting algorithm may well be contributing to the collapse of institutional trust and cultural balkanization of the western world.

To a progressive liberal or political moderate who directly benefitted from the economic and technological booms we've experience over the last 30 years this is upsetting, because the global order (and its associated stability) from-which they've benefited, which brought us to where we are is disintegrating around us.

To me, hand-wringing about Facebook's relatively hands-off approach the political dialogues on their platform is just resentment about the loss of a prescribed cultural narrative and familiar cultural coalitions, the collapse of-which has given every stakeholder in their nation's future an opportunity to speak up for their own convictions and interests, in hopes that theirs will be the dominant narrative of the new political landscape.

I wish these dialogues and factional aggregations were occurring on a more federated network. But so far as centralized platforms go, I can't think of any company more fit (that's not a compliment, but a lament) than Facebook to host them.

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

#149

Post by supernova87a »

I really didn't realize until perhaps the last 2 years that Facebook fundamentally tapped some hidden human need/instinct to argue with people who they believe are incorrect. Specifically, and more importantly, combined with the human inability to actively decide to not pay attention when things are inconsequential or not yet worth arguing about.

Sometimes, just shutting up about an issue and not discussing it is the best thing for a group to do. Not more advocacy or argument. Time heals many things. No app is going to help you take that approach -- and that's not what technology is going to help solve (or is incentivized to solve). Just like telling a TV station that's on 24 hours to not cover a small house fire when there's no other news.

People are not good at disengaging from something when that's the right thing to calm the situation. And Facebook somehow tapped into that human behavior and (inadvertently or purposefully) fueled so many things that have caused our country (and others) to get derailed from actual progress.

There is no vaccine yet for this.

And not to dump on the Facebook train, since others would have come to do it instead. But they sure made a science and business of it.

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

#150

Post by sjg007 »

toshk wrote: post #60
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…

From my experience there are very strong currents in a group that are very hard to go against as an individual. Only very contrarian people will go against the grain in formal meetings with high level executives or other individuals with status in a group. This is why often big organizations are able to produce decisions that the team behind it doesn't agree with and that look silly from the outside. Many people in s…

This dynamic is present in FB the website as well. You find clusters or groups of folks who re-amplify a point. It's so effective that you can find "Re-Open" rallies in your state driven by a shady "gun-rights" nonprofit. Even though polling largely supports the lock down and actions taken to curb the pandemic. You also find that outside the group people are a lot more nuanced and reasonable. It's fascinating. What is even more concerning is that a lot of bots drive this behavior.

I think the issue is that in the long term it dilutes FB. I know many people who don't post on FB, preferring Instagram etc... I know these are still FB platforms but it's a big shift. So FB will eventually become Usenet and effectively non-functional.

There's some type of social network that's between Instagram and FB that doesn't exist yet.

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