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Facebook staffer sends 'blood on my hands' memo

bbc.com

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Re: Facebook staffer sends 'blood on my hands' memo

#91

Post by jentist_retol »

dazilcher wrote: post #78
jentist_retol wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We handle large amounts of sensitive personal information, and developers are tightly integrated into the product development process. We have successfully lobbied against products with serious spousal abuse cases. If you can't handle a 5-10 minute question section in which I bring up contemporary criticism about your current employer, in the context of that sensitive information that we handle, then the feeling is m…

Filtering for opinionated developers who proritize their political views and arbitrary moral compass over company policies sure sounds like an interesting strategy when it comes to handling sensitive PII.

I think you're reading into it too much and injecting politics. I don't know how else to describe it without de-anonymizing other than "it was actually bad and the PM who came up with it did a bad job designing the fraud cases".

Re: Facebook staffer sends 'blood on my hands' memo

#92

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

dlss wrote: post #9
captainredbeard wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think I've ever felt this strongly I'm sure that your employer loves your personal feelings interfering with hiring talent.

There's a great Warren Buffett quote on this: "Somebody once said that in looking for people to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. And if you don't have the first, the other two will kill you. You think about it; it's true. If you hire somebody without integrity, you really want them to be dumb and lazy."

This is actually based on a classification system for military officers first outlined in 1933 by a German general named Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_von_Hammerstein-Equord

Re: Facebook staffer sends 'blood on my hands' memo

#93

Post by secondcoming »

_t0du wrote: post #39
gabereiser wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly why we have interview problems in engineering. I respect engineers for having opinions and ethics and they should lean on them, but to bar one from employment because they were doing their job is wrong, immoral, and potentially illegal.

What if the job they were "just" doing exists in a legal grey area? Or, more realistically, is flatout illegal?

You wouldn't hire a former prostitute who put themselves through education to better themselves and get a mainstream job?

Re: Facebook staffer sends 'blood on my hands' memo

#94

Post by tantalor »

rStar wrote: post #11

when I went to university in 1999 it was my dream to work at a company like microsoft, then google. then i realized that big tech is just a way for those in control of society to control us more efficiently. i feel for those who just want to put their head down and do the work. nobody thought they were going to CS school to enable the exploitation of less lucky others. but now we have facebook, amazon, palantir, goog…

> just a way for those in control of society to control us more efficiently

OK QAnon

Re: Facebook staffer sends 'blood on my hands' memo

#95

Post by kyran_adept »

I find it repulsive that no one is discussing that the original author was doxed by a news organization and this was done after a "whistle-blower" leaked their memo to the news org. One person discussing something internally with their peers, and maybe trying to make things better, has their life ruined now because everyone on the internet knows their name.

Re: Facebook staffer sends 'blood on my hands' memo

#96

Post by [deleted] »

shmel wrote: post #58
jentist_retol wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in the security org now, and so I deal with a lot of exmilitary and exfederal employees. Considering that the military is a institution in this country that helps a lot of working class kids get education and training... It really comes down to choices and consent for me. If you're in the military, that may have been the option for an 18 year old and certainly I wasn't thinking about ethics when I was 18. But…

While you have a point about 18yo, it is very difficult to overlook the main job of the military: kill people. NSA flies below the radar or at least used to, but it is very difficult to not notice that the US military mostly come to foreign countries and kill people there. Even if you are a teenager. However, with FB it is less obvious due to their fancy talk about community and shit. I understand your outrage about…

[deleted]

Re: Facebook staffer sends 'blood on my hands' memo

#97

Post by jentist_retol »

triceratops wrote: post #73
jentist_retol wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in the security org now, and so I deal with a lot of exmilitary and exfederal employees. Considering that the military is a institution in this country that helps a lot of working class kids get education and training... It really comes down to choices and consent for me. If you're in the military, that may have been the option for an 18 year old and certainly I wasn't thinking about ethics when I was 18. But…

> i got downvoted. I'd like to know what I can improve on, I didn't downvote you but I suspect it's because you compared working in the military favorably to working for FB.

Well, frankly, there's a need on HN for "correctness" only. And I'm not sure what's correct. And I haven't faced some of the "hypothetical" scenarios posed here.

And if a resume came on my desk with something like what was posed, I would have to pause, and think. And think. And think.

Some of the posts in here actually worry me though. There's a real failing of ethical concerns and more importantly, ethical mentorship in our field. I'm a result of that. I'm not trying to "gotcha" FAANG employees or vets or anything.

Re: Facebook staffer sends 'blood on my hands' memo

#98

Post by input_sh »

themacguffinman wrote: post #82
input_sh wrote: post #7

Here's the original article, with more direct quotes from the memo: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/facebook... According to it, the full version isn't going to be released because it contains privately identifiable information.

I'm honestly confused. Doesn't the Buzzfeed article publish her full name and excerpts from her LinkedIn profile? Protecting the author's private info is a hard reason to swallow when they literally reveal the author's full name and LinkedIn profile.

The way I interpreted it is that she referenced private info on other people (or internal teams) in there.

Re: Facebook staffer sends 'blood on my hands' memo

#99

Post by Diederich »

jentist_retol wrote: post #46
Diederich wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A couple of honest questions coming in. I would very much like to engage in a good faith conversation with you. > ... unwilling to represent the failings your company has done to society, then I need to hear a justification before moving further in the conversation. I'm going to replace 'company' with 'organization'. Do you harbor similar opinions about people who have previously or currently work for a federal gover…

I work in the security org now, and so I deal with a lot of exmilitary and exfederal employees. Considering that the military is a institution in this country that helps a lot of working class kids get education and training... It really comes down to choices and consent for me. If you're in the military, that may have been the option for an 18 year old and certainly I wasn't thinking about ethics when I was 18. But…

Thanks for your considerate response. If you don't mind, I'd love to have you expand on it a bit further.

Specifically, how do you feel about other government positions, besides the military and intelligence?

Reading your response, I'm getting the sense that this line of conversation is more about senior people with recent employment, which is sensible.

My main point is that big organizations....all of them....do a lot of different things and have a lot of different impacts. And many big organizations have extremely large impacts.

Some of those will be good, and some of them will be bad. But one way or another, both the 'good' and 'bad' impacts will both be very large.

Case in point: the US Government is an enormous and old organization. Nobody can rationally deny that it has done an enormous amount of both good and bad, and it's a matter of opinion and discussion as to which pile is larger.

Another example: IBM is a tech company that's old and has had a huge impact for a long time, both good and bad.

Before I get to Facebook, I'll note that it's widely held that all creatures, and humans especially, tend remember and weigh the bad quite a bit more than the good.

Facebook has created an enormous amount of impact over a pretty short period of time, nobody disagrees with that.

I strongly suspect this won't be a popular opinion, but I believe that Facebook has created, on the whole, more good impact than bad.

Before the reader reacts too negatively to that statement, please know that I personally consider technology/communication technology/especially social media technology to be among the top two or three most likely existential threats to human civilization.

I personally believe that Facebook was the first to take the inevitable next steps toward the now obviously dangerous territory we find ourselves in.

So, that's a tiny portion of my personal context.

I admit that your opinions made me somewhat uncomfortable, though I do understand where you're coming from.

I also admire your (somewhat risky!) transparency here.

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