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Mark in the Middle

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Re: Mark in the Middle

#151

Post by JamesBarney »

coldcode wrote: post #16
roenxi wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although a follow up would be the comforting level of maturity in Facebook's leadership, acknowledging that it isn't their role to bring politics into the workplace. It is distressingly refreshing to see a company in the news for taking a stance like "In my work with Joel, I’ve found him to be ... very rigorous and principled in his thinking [and therefore I'm happy to work with him despite being a Republican]". It r…

Nothing remarkable in a company that makes lawnmowers. Facebook is a company that uses its power to change what people think because so many view it as a source of truth. Doing it for money, or doing it for power, is essentially the same thing. If you are in position to manipulate the truth for benefits to you or your friends in high places you will, and he is. If I worked at Facebook and felt the CEO was twisting tr…

I've seen a fair bit of criticism of Zuckerberg, but all of the criticisms would probably be more true if there was a CEO appointed by a profit maximizing board instead.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#152

Post by josefresco »

jsiepkes wrote: post #3

> "The community we serve tends to be, on average, ideologically a little bit more conservative than our employee base." If I had to pick one sentence of the article which sums up the entire issue it would be this one.

"a bit more" lol

See this link if you're wondering what "a bit more" looks like: https://twitter.com/FacebooksTop10

Re: Mark in the Middle

#153

Post by bzb5 »

josefresco wrote: post #152
jsiepkes wrote: post #3

> "The community we serve tends to be, on average, ideologically a little bit more conservative than our employee base." If I had to pick one sentence of the article which sums up the entire issue it would be this one.

"a bit more" lol See this link if you're wondering what "a bit more" looks like: https://twitter.com/FacebooksTop10

That’s interesting, thank you.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#154

Post by carabiner »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #38

Premise: Diversity is good. Diversity means diversity of ideas. Ergo, you will disagree vehemently with people, and this is a good thing under the framework of diversity. Do not confuse disagreeing with someone as that person being morally sub-human, and if you are able to do this your life will be more pleasant. Disagreement is a good thing, it is society’s mechanism for decision making in complex circumstances.

[flagged]

Re: Mark in the Middle

#155

Post by JamesBarney »

pjc50 wrote: post #68

> "In my work with Joel, I’ve found him to be ... very rigorous and principled in his thinking [and therefore I'm happy to work with him despite being a Republican]" The set of people for whom this is true is shrinking by the day; remaining Republican requires an increasingly bizarre set of intellectual contortions. For example, you'd have to believe that appointing a Supreme Court justice right at the end of your te…

And every democrat thought the opposite and changed their tune too.

No one really has any strong beliefs about when the president gets to choose a supreme court justice, these beliefs just meld to fit whatever situation will get them a supreme court justice who will represent all the beliefs they do feel strongly about.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#156

Post by ntsplnkv2 »

notacoward wrote: post #104
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't Mark Zuckerberg have the final say on what Facebook algorithms show people?

Not really. Even the people who train the models and code the algorithms don't have a lot of control over how they respond to ever-changing inputs - and that's kind of the real problem IMO. There was a recent thing on Twitter, where someone discovered that it would consistently generate thumbnails focused on white faces when both white and black faces were present. At a gross level this is clearly because of inadequa…

If we don't understand how something works and it seems to be causing negative effects perhaps we shouldn't be using said algorithms in the largest social network.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#157

Post by jamiequint »

zimpenfish wrote: post #48
mensetmanusman wrote: post #38

Premise: Diversity is good. Diversity means diversity of ideas. Ergo, you will disagree vehemently with people, and this is a good thing under the framework of diversity. Do not confuse disagreeing with someone as that person being morally sub-human, and if you are able to do this your life will be more pleasant. Disagreement is a good thing, it is society’s mechanism for decision making in complex circumstances.

> Do not confuse disagreeing with someone as that person being morally sub-human If your disagreement with that person is about whether someone else is considered less of a human than they are (by dint of race, wealth, sexuality, whatever), it's probably ok to consider them morally bankrupt on that basis.

No, it's actually not, because people have different moral foundations, and many people value loyalty/authority/sanctity over care/fairness. It doesn't mean they don't care about care/fairness, it just means they don't make it their moral priority.

If you refuse to engage with these people and view them all as sub-human there's no path forward for society.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#158

Post by throwaway123x2 »

rswskg wrote: post #125
verdverm wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your first point is off, people have switched camps to the right since last election, despite how hard this may seem to believe. They look at how childish the left has become and have decided the right is less evil.

The burning of american cities by antifa could not have played into trumps hands any better. I almost wonder if right wing organisations are behind them sometimes.

What burning? I asked my friend in Portland about how the anarchy in Portland is, and he responded, "Eh, a bunch of people are pissed in about one city block."

Here in Chicago, things are completely fine and have been except for the day or two after George Floyd was murdered.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#159

Post by nemothekid »

roenxi wrote: post #6
jsiepkes wrote: post #3

> "The community we serve tends to be, on average, ideologically a little bit more conservative than our employee base." If I had to pick one sentence of the article which sums up the entire issue it would be this one.

Although a follow up would be the comforting level of maturity in Facebook's leadership, acknowledging that it isn't their role to bring politics into the workplace. It is distressingly refreshing to see a company in the news for taking a stance like "In my work with Joel, I’ve found him to be ... very rigorous and principled in his thinking [and therefore I'm happy to work with him despite being a Republican]". It r…

>acknowledging that it isn't their role to bring politics into the workplace.

This is very hard for me to square with Facebook. It's like working at the NY Times and saying "no politics in the work place." Almost any decision FB makes is by definition political. The top 10 most interacted pages on Facebook are political. COVID-19, in the US, is political.

It doesn't strike me as mature, it's deceitful. It's very easy to claim things are non-political when the outcomes do not affect you at all.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#160

Post by josefresco »

joejohnson wrote: post #2

Interesting how they reiterate over and over how right-wing media proliferates on the platform but imply that centrist/liberal propaganda does not. Is there evidence of this?

Yes: https://twitter.com/FacebooksTop10

US conservative content consistently dominates these rankings. Facebook is now primarily a US right-wing/conservative propaganda platform.

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