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Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

wsj.com

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

#151

Post by jbay808 »

I'm no fan of Facebook. But for what it's worth, back when I was still using it in ~2010, it helped me learn a lot about the worldviews of people on the opposite end of the political spectrum who I rarely if ever interacted with in person. The mechanism for this was Facebook Groups - I'd hang out in climate change denial groups talking to denialists and asking them questions. And although it didn't change my mind and I didn't change theirs, I (and my, err, opponents) both actually learned a lot and came to see the other side as more honest and less irrational/evil than we once thought.

I don't know if Facebook still serves this purpose today.

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

#152

Post by drchopchop »

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…

No. Why should the only desirable metric be user engagement?

Is the goal of FB engagement/virality/time-on-site/revenue above all else? What does society have to gain, long term, by ranking a news feed by items most likely to provoke the strongest reaction? How does Facebook's long-term health look, 10 years from now, if it hastens the polarization and anti-intellectualism of society?

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

#153

Post by babesh »

yumraj wrote: post #50
truculent wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't apply, don't get hired, or don't get promoted, depending on how effective their hiring processes are.

That leads me to another question: are there people/companies who will not hire someone who has been an employee of FB?

I have heard someone spouting that but it was all baloney since that person supported actions just as bad.

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

#156

Post by dfxm12 »

whathappenedto wrote: post #114
dfxm12 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I actually feel the opposite. Consumers have the ultimate choice -- their choice is not beholden to anyone except themselves. Then they can execute their choice unilaterally. A VP or even the CEO is beholden to shareholders, their employees, their advertisers, their own ethics, their users, various government regulations (and government interests that are not laws but what they prefer). So almost everything they do i…

What a cop out. You can't just pass the buck forever. You want to bring shareholders into this? Was exploiting the human brain’s attraction to divisiveness put to a vote? What does it matter when Zuckerberg has a controlling share of the company [0]? He answers to himself.

Facebook spent almost $17MM in lobbying efforts last year [1]. I wonder why governments doesn't exactly have an eagle eye on this...

The rank and file employees at Facebook have no say about this. Tim Bray leaving Amazon to no ill effect shows this.

We're talking about Facebook exploiting the human brain to increase time on the platform. The users have little to say about this, and as long as the users are there, advertisers have nothing to say to Facebook.

So that leaves Facebook answering to their own ethics. Yes. that's the problem.

0 - https://www.investopedia.com/articles/insights/082216/top-9-...

1 - https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/clients/summary...

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

#157

Post by [deleted] »

whathappenedto wrote: post #114
dfxm12 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I actually feel the opposite. Consumers have the ultimate choice -- their choice is not beholden to anyone except themselves. Then they can execute their choice unilaterally. A VP or even the CEO is beholden to shareholders, their employees, their advertisers, their own ethics, their users, various government regulations (and government interests that are not laws but what they prefer). So almost everything they do i…

[deleted]

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

#158

Post by phkahler »

seek3r00 wrote: post #127
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…

No, it would not be my job to decide which discussions should a user be driven to. If a user is driven to political discussions, so be it. Sure, this is good for the company because it means the user will spend more time on the platform, but it is a side effect really.

>> No, it would not be my job to decide which discussions should a user be driven to.

But facebook feels it's their job to drive certain thing to users. That's the whole point as far as they can tell. I disagree too.

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

#159

Post by cycloptic »

hackissimo123 wrote: post #117
forgotmypw17 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of thinking, looking behind the veil of money, has convinced me to stop using currency altogether, for now, for the most part. I still pay for web hosting and domains, I still buy bottled water for lack of better options, but for anything else like clothes, food, houseware stuff, etc., I've stopped buying altogether. Everything you buy carries a huge veiled cost of human health and lives, animal and plant h…

Where do you get free food?

It grows in the ground, or around the bones of other living creatures.

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

#160

Post by babesh »

shadowgovt wrote: post #107
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…

It's more that there were several meetings where issues were raised that would kill people if they occurred, and those in charge decided the risk factors were minimal enough that they could execute on the plan. Nobody planned to kill the astronauts on the Challenger. Such a systemic failure to anticipate and manage risk correctly is a team effort and heavily incentive-driven. Putting incentives in place that reward r…

More concisely, if you won’t do it, then you will be replaced by someone who will.
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