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Facebook's “see no evil” strategy

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Re: Facebook's “see no evil” strategy

#71

Post by splitstud »

Miraste wrote: post #19
the_optimist wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please tell us more about how telemetry can reveal the moral and intellectual value of a human being.

How could it not? What you click on, what you look at, what you read and for how long, what you write, where you go, what you buy, how you feel, what you like and dislike, who you know, who you talk to, what sites you visit... Facebook knows many of its users (and non-users) better than they know themselves.

Because said telemetry would be based on an assumption. Said assumption is at the very heart of what we consider morality.

Re: Facebook's “see no evil” strategy

#72

Post by splitstud »

thereisnospork wrote: post #27
hammock wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So my moral value is based on what I read? If I read the wrong thing I might as well be second-class citizen?

Do you think what a person reads has no predictive value on their 'moral value'? (An admittedly vague term) Trivially: someone who reads NRA's weekly newsletter religiously is more likely to be pro gun, pro republican, and pro 'life', for instance

Please continue. Explain how those beliefs intersect with moral value.

Re: Facebook's “see no evil” strategy

#73

Post by ksec »

potatolicious wrote: post #43
mullingitover wrote: post #8

I think the real problem that facebook leadership sees isn't that they're amplifying overly partisan posters, but that the popularity of these posters demonstrates that their userbase is increasingly low rent and heading toward an AOL/Yahoo style long goodbye.

It's frustrating that the discussion around technology's effects on society is still stuck between the extremes of: - "tech has a causal effect on society" - "society has a causal effect on tech, tech is a mirror" At this point it seems pretty patently obvious that the reality is both ? Technology is subject to pre-existing flaws in society, but also has the capability to amplify and worsen it. > the popularity of th…

>It's frustrating that the discussion around technology's effects on society is still stuck between the extremes of:

It is not just tech. It is pretty much everything else on the internet and media. No one is telling me the pros and cons anymore. After I read the pros I have to go and dig up my own list of cons or vice versa. No one is finishing the sentence with "having said that" and round off with some counter argument. Most are so consumed by their own ideology they fail to see anything else.

>It's worth considering if exposure to FB is what is causing the userbase increasingly "low rent". Yeah, FB didn't invent partisanship, misinformation, nor authoritarianism, but I think likely it is worsening it.

I would argue had any other Social Network raised instead of Facebook during the Web 2.0 era the effect would had been the same. I once try to make a smaller social network to force an opposite view on their feeds to try and balance things. Holly mother of god the backlash were insane. My conclusion was that this sort of extremism is a function of human nature. Before social media people would buy news paper they prefer or fit their own ideology.

"The only way to understand the Press is to remember that they pander to their readers' prejudices."

- Sir Humphrey Appleby

Internet "press" is no different to press in the 80s. Only at a much greater scale and fully automatic.

Re: Facebook's “see no evil” strategy

#74

Post by stouset »

Auracle wrote: post #70
eggsmediumrare wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is talking about censoring arguments about what constitutes reasonable levels of immigration, or whether the government is spending too much, or what rights states should have vs federal gov. IE conservative policy positions. The divide is on topics like anti-vax, nonexistent election fraud, et cetera. IE, actual lies.

This is a weird argument to make when the lab leak “conspiracy” was censored the same way. Also, there was election fraud. There always is. Was it enough to turn the election? Who knows. To say that people shouldn’t be able to discuss it is mind-boggling to me. The only way we can have trust in our election process is if we can ask questions.

> To say that people shouldn’t be able to discuss it is mind-boggling to me.

This is a wild misrepresentation of the opposing perspective. Nobody is arguing that we can't discuss election fraud.

The argument—which I'm sure you are actually aware—is that there needs to be some level of credibility to the idea that a) fraud occurred, and b) that it happened in meaningful quantities before we spend significant time, cost, and effort in investigating claims.

Simply having lost is not a credible claim to investigate widespread fraud. Finding one or two isolated cases in elections with margins of thousands or more votes is not a credible claim to investigate widespread fraud.

Further, fraud cannot simply be a claim that is made and then perpetually reinvestigated by decreasingly-reputable third parties until you are able to invalidate an election whose outcome you disagree with.

Re: Facebook's “see no evil” strategy

#75

Post by thereisnospork »

splitstud wrote: post #72
thereisnospork wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think what a person reads has no predictive value on their 'moral value'? (An admittedly vague term) Trivially: someone who reads NRA's weekly newsletter religiously is more likely to be pro gun, pro republican, and pro 'life', for instance

Please continue. Explain how those beliefs intersect with moral value.

Please explain how 'pro-life' isn't a moral position. Isn't the position fairly summarized as: 'it is immoral to abort a pregnancy under ? Emphasis mine.

Re: Facebook's “see no evil” strategy

#76

Post by war1025 »

bigtex1988 wrote: post #61
war1025 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The divide is on topics like anti-vax, nonexistent election fraud, et cetera. IE, actual lies. It's funny that the party of "my body my choice" is so against people wanting a say over what goes into their bodies. I am personally vaccinated, but I think it's reasonable to let individuals make that choice. Also regarding election fraud, when on election night you see charts like [1] with enormous one party spikes, it…

Last I checked, pregnancy isn't contagious. Not exactly an apples to apples comparison. Who was told to "go to hell"? There were plenty of recounts in all of the close states. Even the recent farcical commission checking fraud in Arizona didn't find anything. As to the "spike" in that picture, a simple Google search of "Michigan spike voting" produces plenty of resources showing how the "spike" was not fraud. And if…

> You're being downvoted because these arguments are so bad as to almost clearly be in bad faith.

I'm being downvoted because some subset of people here view down vote as "I disagree". I used to be bothered by it. I don't think much about it anymore.

Edit:

I'm also fairly certain I've got some followers who take it upon themselves to go through my comment history and start downvoting other posts of mine just for good measure. You know, really sticking it to the man or whatever.

Re: Facebook's “see no evil” strategy

#77

Post by heavyset_go »

cs702 wrote: post #21

It's not so much that the key people at the top of Facebook "see no evil," but that they truly, sincerely, earnestly believe there is no evil to be seen, or if there is any evil, they truly, sincerely, earnestly believe they can subdue it with great engineering and great management. They fail to see what every outsider, and many insiders, clearly see. Paraphrasing Upton Sinclair: It is difficult to get people to see…

> they truly, sincerely, earnestly believe there is no evil to be seen, or if there is any evil, they truly, sincerely, earnestly believe they can subdue it with great engineering and great management.

That's hard to believe when they've responded to international catastrophes that they had a role in like this[1], and admitted this themselves[2]:

> Facebook admits it was used to 'incite offline violence' in Myanmar

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebo...

[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-46105934

Re: Facebook's “see no evil” strategy

#78

Post by cs702 »

benjaminjosephw wrote: post #59
cs702 wrote: post #21

It's not so much that the key people at the top of Facebook "see no evil," but that they truly, sincerely, earnestly believe there is no evil to be seen, or if there is any evil, they truly, sincerely, earnestly believe they can subdue it with great engineering and great management. They fail to see what every outsider, and many insiders, clearly see. Paraphrasing Upton Sinclair: It is difficult to get people to see…

That sounds like another way of saying "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity". Ignoring so many people asking them to examine their bias and human fallibility is definitely a form of stupidity. That is unless they believe the people are more flawed than they are and that they are better placed to judge what the people need. In that case, it becomes more malice than stupidity.

It's not stupidity, I think, but wishful thinking and unconscious self-deception motivated by profit:

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by wishful thinking and unconscious self-deception motivated by profit."

Re: Facebook's “see no evil” strategy

#79

Post by war1025 »

stouset wrote: post #74
Auracle wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a weird argument to make when the lab leak “conspiracy” was censored the same way. Also, there was election fraud. There always is. Was it enough to turn the election? Who knows. To say that people shouldn’t be able to discuss it is mind-boggling to me. The only way we can have trust in our election process is if we can ask questions.

> To say that people shouldn’t be able to discuss it is mind-boggling to me. This is a wild misrepresentation of the opposing perspective. Nobody is arguing that we can't discuss election fraud. The argument—which I'm sure you are actually aware—is that there needs to be some level of credibility to the idea that a) fraud occurred, and b) that it happened in meaningful quantities before we spend significant time, cos…

> This is a wild misrepresentation of the opposing perspective.

I think that's currently how the game is played. You can try to be better than that, but then the other side wins because they are still happy to play dirty.

Re: Facebook's “see no evil” strategy

#80

Post by cs702 »

heavyset_go wrote: post #77
cs702 wrote: post #21

It's not so much that the key people at the top of Facebook "see no evil," but that they truly, sincerely, earnestly believe there is no evil to be seen, or if there is any evil, they truly, sincerely, earnestly believe they can subdue it with great engineering and great management. They fail to see what every outsider, and many insiders, clearly see. Paraphrasing Upton Sinclair: It is difficult to get people to see…

> they truly, sincerely, earnestly believe there is no evil to be seen, or if there is any evil, they truly, sincerely, earnestly believe they can subdue it with great engineering and great management. That's hard to believe when they've responded to international catastrophes that they had a role in like this[1], and admitted this themselves[2]: > Facebook admits it was used to 'incite offline violence' in Myanmar […

My perception is that they think they can "fix" these horrifying problems with cleverer software, better policies, and new procedures without negatively altering or impacting the giant gush of money that flows into the company every day.
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