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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

#581

Post by StanislavPetrov »

knzhou wrote: post #457

The degree to which “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” is in effect here is remarkable. If Facebook literally removes anything, then HN is outraged because it’s censorship, paternalism, all that. But if Facebook does not adopt an actively paternalistic attitude where it shows people content that they deem is “good for them” , then that’s outrageous too. Both complaints predictably rocket to the top of HN. Which…

Personally I don't think Facebook should censor anything except spam and posts that break the law like direct threats of violence and child abuse. However, I do think they have a responsibility when it comes to paid content and the algorithms they use to push content on people. Its one thing to have an uncensored forum where people might be exposed to things they seek out, and entirely another thing for Facebook to choose and collate what people are seeing. Once they do that, they share responsibility for the content people see, rather than just being a platform.

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

#582

Post by freeone3000 »

arihant wrote: post #484
a1369209993 wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The primary content no user wants to see any every user agent would filter out is ads. Not that you're wrong, but: that's the fucking point ! Advertising delenda est.

Pay for Facebook then. 1.5% of total YouTube users subscribe for YT Premium. I love how the smartest minds will ignore the most primitive economics. Ads work. For everyone. Except deluded.

I already don't get ads on youtube, so I don't see why I should pay for this when I can get all of the benefit with none of the expense.

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

#583

Post by pdonis »

kelnos wrote: post #560
pdonis wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Studies on persuading people out of prejudice The GP is not talking about prejudice; he's talking about a genuine difference in priorities. Calling that "prejudice" implies that one of those choices of priorities is simply wrong; it ignores the possibility that there is no one "right" choice of priorities.

I think "priorities" is a pretty good way of framing it, at least when considering the abortion debate. I'm pro-choice, but I don't consider my position to be any kind of moral right; I just believe that in this situation, the priority should go to the mother and her wishes, not the fetus. I don't think that giving priority to the fetus is inherently illogical or wrong, it's just not the choice I'd make. The problem…

> I frankly do not have many (any?) pro-choice friends

Did you mean to say "pro-life" here?

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

#584

Post by solarkraft »

2019-nCoV wrote: post #573
solarkraft wrote: post #571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except when it doesn't.

Such as?

Twitter shows me garbage I don't like, as does YouTube. They do this with very little regard for who you follow nowadays and give you no say in what types of stuff you actually want to be recommended. Sometimes they're nice enough to say why they recommend something (which should be standard), but most of the time it's just infuriatingly stupid.

I'm not against machine curation at all, mind you. I want the infrequent poster to have a higher weighed voice and such. But I want to be able to control the parameters.

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

#585

Post by closeparen »

knzhou wrote: post #457

The degree to which “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” is in effect here is remarkable. If Facebook literally removes anything, then HN is outraged because it’s censorship, paternalism, all that. But if Facebook does not adopt an actively paternalistic attitude where it shows people content that they deem is “good for them” , then that’s outrageous too. Both complaints predictably rocket to the top of HN. Which…

If Facebook followed some deterministic algorithm like "show all content from friends, in chronological order" then I don't think there would be such loud voices calling for it to also solve $social_problem.

But Facebook does exercise editorial control, in the service of engagement. It's fair to ask that this curation consider other objectives as well, or at least counterbalance the side-effects it's known to have (divisive content is more engaging and so is amplified; at least correct it back down to neutral).

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

#586

Post by Barrin92 »

smhinsey wrote: post #192
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…

This is why the liberal arts are important, because you need someone in the room with enough knowledge of the world's history to be able to look at this and suggest that maybe given the terrible history of pseudo-scientifically sorting people into political categories, you should not pursue this tactic simply in order to make a buck off of it.

You don't need liberal arts majors in the boardroom, you need a military general in charge at the FTC and FCC.

Can we dispense with the idea that someone employed by facebook regardless of their number of history degrees has any damn influence on the structural issue here, which is that Facebook is a private company whose purpose is to mindlessly make as much money for their owners as they can?

The solution here isn't grabbing Mark and sitting him down in counselling, it's to have the sovereign, which is the US government exercise its authority which it has forgotten how to use apparently and reign these companies in.

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

#587

Post by pessimizer »

arihant wrote: post #484
a1369209993 wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The primary content no user wants to see any every user agent would filter out is ads. Not that you're wrong, but: that's the fucking point ! Advertising delenda est.

Pay for Facebook then. 1.5% of total YouTube users subscribe for YT Premium. I love how the smartest minds will ignore the most primitive economics. Ads work. For everyone. Except deluded.

If everybody paid for facebook, it would have as many ads, if not more. That companies would leave money on the table with no incentive to do so is a bizarre self-justifying myth that people who live off advertising tell themselves.

You pay for cable. Paying customers are a better audience for ads than deadbeats.

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

#588

Post by gmax »

pwdisswordfish2 wrote: post #526
munificent wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fundamental flaw is this: The primary content no user wants to see any every user agent would filter out is ads . Since ads are the primary way sites stay in business, they are obligated to fight against user agents or other intermediary systems. The ultimate problem is that Facebook doesn't want to show you good, enriching content from your friends and family. They want to show you ads. The good content is just…

"The ultimate problem is that Facebook doesn't want to show you good, enrishing content from your friends and family." Well, it is someone else's website. What do you expect Zuckerberg has his own interests in mind. In 2020, it is still too difficult for everyone to set up their own website, so they settle for a page on someone else's. If exchanging content with friends and family (not swaths of the public who visit…

It may not be that hard to set up things for yourself, have been toying with something like that for messaging https://cweb.gitlab.io/StoneAge.html. The deeper question is how to sustain this kind of products and make them competitive without comparable funding.

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

#589

Post by specialist »

babesh wrote: post #483
specialist wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The profit maximizing (shareholder value) argument is fairly recent. At many other times, the concentration of wealth, and therefore power, was identified as a problem and actively mitigated. For example, the founding fathers of the USA were quite anti corporate and actions like the Boston Tea Party were explicitly so.

Nah. The founding fathers were the richest colonists and George Washington was the richest of them all. It was some rich people opposing richer people overseas that they were descended from. They didn’t want concentration of political power but they had the economic power. Interestingly the political power endangers them because it has the power to take away their economic power. That’s the real battle still going on…

How does one disprove the other?

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

#590

Post by TeMPOraL »

marcinzm wrote: post #563
ardy42 wrote: post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>> The ultimate problem is that Facebook doesn't want to show you good, enriching content from your friends and family. They want to show you ads. The good content is just a necessary evil to make you tolerate looking at ads. >> That is how it is today. But does it have to be like that ? What is the minimum revenue per user required for service like FB to run. > Minimum doesn't matter, the only question is if it's m…

Value to society is subjective and many horrors of the past (and current) were caused by trying to optimize specific definitions of that term.

And many horrors of the past and present were and are caused by optimizing for profits. So it's not like we get to side-step horror-avoidance.

I'd start with treating users as partners, and not cattle.

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