Facebook's employees reckon with the social network they've built • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook's employees reckon with the social network they've built

#101

Post by bhupy » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 6:13 PM UTC

nailer wrote: post #94

> a post from President Donald Trump that seemingly called for violence against people protesting the police killing of George Floyd. This seems very unlikely, and there's no link or screenshot of the actual post to support the statement. Twitter has previously taken statements that laws will be enforced as 'calls to violence' so it wouldn't be surprising if the same thing is occurring here.

The steel-man argument is that the President's statements practically amount to an indirect call for violence. There's no other way for the state to enforce laws except to use the messy apparatus of the police, which may result in collateral damage/violence.

Re: Facebook's employees reckon with the social network they've built

#102

Post by Izkata » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 6:14 PM UTC

tehjoker wrote: post #19

tomrod wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People trust the outcome generally, whether they like it or hate it. The folks aren't trusting the inputs. 2020 is not 2016. Polling is suggesting a large shift. That may cause distrust in the outcome itself if the outcome doesn't align to polling due to voter suppression efforts and other possible issues.

Just saying, only ~1/3 of the population votes. These elections are already illegitimate if you believe that they're supposed to express some kind of will of the majority. Additionally, the only areas of real contestation are suburban areas filled with reactionaries and relatively wealthy people. Dems have a lock on cities, Rs have a lock on rural areas. EDIT: Those of you downvoting, I think it's amusing that you th…

> Just saying, only ~1/3 of the population votes.

It's a little over 1/2 for presidential elections (over 2/3 in some states). Midterm elections are what's around 1/3.

http://www.electproject.org/home/voter-turnout/voter-turnout...

Re: Facebook's employees reckon with the social network they've built

#103

Post by sowellecho » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 6:14 PM UTC

"If a man is not a Socialist at 20 be has no heart, but if he remains one at 30 he has no head." I don't know who said this, but this is a great example of how our minds mature.

The probably unintentional ageism in tech has a major, quite literally civilization changing consequence.

We are creating power centers which have too many young people who haven't really thought a lot of things through, certainly not the unintended economic consequences, and who glibly dismiss people who disagree with their premises as some kind of "ism".

Re: Facebook's employees reckon with the social network they've built

#104

Post by kbenson » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 6:15 PM UTC

creato wrote: post #7

I feel like all of this debate is painfully missing the point. The problem is not some content moderation policy, the problem is that social media has changed social conversations from small local interactions into monstrous virtual fight clubs between millions of people simultaneously, and where the most extreme opinions are rewarded with the most attention. Boring level headed opinions used to at least have a chanc…

I don't think it's painfully missing the point, it's just studiously ignoring that they've let the cat out of the bag and focusing on ways to mitigate the problem.

Social media is a natural consequence of increased communication of larger groups, and as an emergent phenomenon based on everything else you aren't going to get rid of it. So instead we focus on how to mitigate the problems and live with it, because even if you shut down every single social network today, there would be new popular ones used by almost everyone a year from now.

Re: Facebook's employees reckon with the social network they've built

#105

Post by davidw » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 6:15 PM UTC

jerf wrote: post #50

dvt wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nobody actually wanted to foster such toxic behavior I think no one realized you could make disgusting amounts of money by fostering it. There have been plenty of flame wars on BBSes and forums, but the tension between "engagement" and "quality" always favored the latter in small, private communities (HN is a good example). However, when it comes to Facebook and Twitter, the former is always favored (due to market…

"BBSes and forums" Observe flamewars on BBSs and forums tended to drive people away, thus tending to confine them through natural mechanisms. Our current systems encourage and fan them, and by profiting from them, create a system that sustains them indefinitely instead of naturally isolating them to just the people who actively want to participate. As someone who has a low-grade hobby of kind of keeping track of this…

I'm always reminded of this quote from Larry Wall, the creator of Perl:

"The social dynamics of the net are a direct consequence of the fact that nobody has yet developed a Remote Strangulation Protocol."

It's tough to get all this right. Humans are ok at dealing with one another in person most of the time, but being behind a screen really doesn't happen in many cases.

I have no idea what the solution is... it's a people problem, so probably not a strictly technological solution.

HN works fairly well because of the hard work of the moderators.

FB is kind of maddening to me. You can't just put it in a 'good' or 'bad' bucket.

Some things I get a lot of value out of:

* Being able to keep track of acquaintances from all the places I've lived. There are a lot of friends and family I have in Italy that I can't see often, and I do enjoy hearing what they're up to.

* As a tool for organizing it's been a very handy, low-friction way to get people involved in some political issues where I live in Oregon.

On the other hand, lately it has also been a source of stress. The sheer amount of anti-science, poorly thought out political comments and plain hatred is really depressing at a time when a lot of things are not going well.

Re: Facebook's employees reckon with the social network they've built

#106

Post by lallysingh » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 6:15 PM UTC

tehjoker wrote: post #19

tomrod wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People trust the outcome generally, whether they like it or hate it. The folks aren't trusting the inputs. 2020 is not 2016. Polling is suggesting a large shift. That may cause distrust in the outcome itself if the outcome doesn't align to polling due to voter suppression efforts and other possible issues.

Just saying, only ~1/3 of the population votes. These elections are already illegitimate if you believe that they're supposed to express some kind of will of the majority. Additionally, the only areas of real contestation are suburban areas filled with reactionaries and relatively wealthy people. Dems have a lock on cities, Rs have a lock on rural areas. EDIT: Those of you downvoting, I think it's amusing that you th…

Why does low voter participation de-legitimize the election?

Separately, if you're in a city, and are a D, why vote? Similarly in rural for an R?

Re: Facebook's employees reckon with the social network they've built

#107

Post by ciarannolan » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 6:16 PM UTC

ktrl wrote: post #95

I have been wondering why Facebook has become the only platform that tolerates right-wing speech. The other platforms took the convenient route and kicked out right-wing voices. Why exactly is Facebook risking both bad press and a revolt from its overwhelmingly progressive employees?

I had always thought it was to fend off DOJ and regulatory action from the Trump administration.

Re: Facebook's employees reckon with the social network they've built

#108

Post by dang » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 6:17 PM UTC

tijuco2 wrote: post #63

Social medias have been silencing every conservative opinion on their platforms, because most of their employees can't stand different opinions. These people are unmanageable and want to make activism using a platform they don't own. At the same time they look the other way when it comes to progressive comments. If he doesn't like different opinions, intrinsic to democracy, maybe we should ask Mr Wang's parents if th…

Turning this into a nationalistic slur and personal attack is no way to make your case. It also breaks the site guidelines and will get you banned here, so please don't go that route.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Facebook's employees reckon with the social network they've built

#109

Post by floatrock » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 6:17 PM UTC

maps7 wrote: post #72

creato wrote: post #7

I feel like all of this debate is painfully missing the point. The problem is not some content moderation policy, the problem is that social media has changed social conversations from small local interactions into monstrous virtual fight clubs between millions of people simultaneously, and where the most extreme opinions are rewarded with the most attention. Boring level headed opinions used to at least have a chanc…

I am developing a site where the landing page only shows news about topics from sources you have chosen to see. There will be some limited interaction with those news stories. On a shared page, everything is brought together and you'll see what news sources other people are reading. I am hoping this allows people to get the news they want, interact with it and see what news other people are interacting with... withou…

sounds like Reddit. Or Digg before that. Or RSS feeds before that.

Re: Facebook's employees reckon with the social network they've built

#110

Post by bhupy » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 6:18 PM UTC

ktrl wrote: post #95

I have been wondering why Facebook has become the only platform that tolerates right-wing speech. The other platforms took the convenient route and kicked out right-wing voices. Why exactly is Facebook risking both bad press and a revolt from its overwhelmingly progressive employees?

Facebook can afford to do so because they have higher margins allowing for more experimentation/risk-taking. Businesses in more competitive spaces are unable to take tough stands.

The New York Times cannot be the New York Times of New York Times v Sullivan anymore, because their ad monopoly has been decimated. But Facebook can be the NYT of NYT v Sullivan, because they have 40% margins on their ad business.

One thing I have been wondering is: why is Google so lacking in conviction?