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Facebook under fire over secret teen research

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Facebook under fire over secret teen research

#51

Post by whiskyant »

munk-a wrote: post #35
zffr wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look up the FAANG acronym. It’s a collection of companies that are supposedly the “best” to work for. Facebook is the F Edit: Here’s an example Reddit thread of what I mean: https://www.reddit.com/r/csMajors/comments/mnl4u2/why_does_e...

FAANG is composed of large companies - not great companies. Those employers rarely make it onto genuine lists of best employers and if you want real pedigree on your resume you'll want to come out of a small but successful company. You can be asleep at the wheel for two years and leave a FAANG with neutral or positive reviews because you were sociable - if you helped grow a tiny company into a small company recruiter…

Facebook is one the highest paying companies, the highest among FAANG. High paying companies = high demand = selective = high prestige. I would say Google and Facebook are probably the two most in demand companies (out of all companies) to work for among software engineers.

(I frequent career fairs, blind and cscareerquestions)

Re: Facebook under fire over secret teen research

#52

Post by gilrain »

throwaway10895 wrote: post #30
rozap wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a useful tool for hiring though. I wouldn't be able to hire anyone who worked there. At least at my current job, a functioning moral compass is required due to the impact our clients (governments) have on the general population. It's part of our interview process to figure out if someone cares about how their work effects people. Not that the pay scales overlap much anyway.

If Facebook was only full of people without a functioning moral compass then none of this research would have been done in the first place.

“Not all of them are bad” isn’t a very strong argument against the general heuristic.

Re: Facebook under fire over secret teen research

#53

Post by OJFord »

Tarsul wrote: post #19
1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #10

This is more interesting (Instagram response to WSJ, linked to in the article): https://about.instagram.com/blog/announcements/using-researc... "We're increasingly focused on addressing negative social comparison and negative body image. One idea we think has promise is finding opportunities to jump in if we see people dwelling on certain types of content." "From our research, we're starting to understand the types o…

I'd like to think that by "jumping in" they mean that they change what kind of content the algorithms shows their users... however, I'd guess that no such self-regulation could ever suffice (esp. because it would always be less important than ad money in internal metrics).

I expect so too, and was going to say the same, but it's not actually that different (to a pop-up, or message, or whatever invasive 'jump-in' alternative) is it? It just means most people won't know about it.

Re: Facebook under fire over secret teen research

#54

Post by discobot »

modriano wrote: post #45
discobot wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some believe that facebook is a positive force in the world, despite being hated.

If someone wanted to make the case that Facebook is a net-good force in the world, I'd read that. But I haven't seen anyone even try to lay out evidence of Facebook doing any good things. I like pytorch, prophet, and their decent job policing the pedophiles on the FB platform, but what else do they do that's good and responsible?

they enable communication for 3 billion people on the scale not previously seen in the history of mankind?

Re: Facebook under fire over secret teen research

#55

Post by poopypoopington »

modriano wrote: post #45
discobot wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some believe that facebook is a positive force in the world, despite being hated.

If someone wanted to make the case that Facebook is a net-good force in the world, I'd read that. But I haven't seen anyone even try to lay out evidence of Facebook doing any good things. I like pytorch, prophet, and their decent job policing the pedophiles on the FB platform, but what else do they do that's good and responsible?

connect and let 3 billion people communicate with each other every day help small businesses reach customers invest advance the SOTA in a lot of tech

Re: Facebook under fire over secret teen research

#56

Post by colinmhayes »

discobot wrote: post #54
modriano wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone wanted to make the case that Facebook is a net-good force in the world, I'd read that. But I haven't seen anyone even try to lay out evidence of Facebook doing any good things. I like pytorch, prophet, and their decent job policing the pedophiles on the FB platform, but what else do they do that's good and responsible?

they enable communication for 3 billion people on the scale not previously seen in the history of mankind?

WHy is that good? Seems like it just leads to 13% of teenagers just wanting to kill themselves.

Re: Facebook under fire over secret teen research

#57

Post by cybernautique »

gilrain wrote: post #52
throwaway10895 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Facebook was only full of people without a functioning moral compass then none of this research would have been done in the first place.

“Not all of them are bad” isn’t a very strong argument against the general heuristic.

I have one caveat: people whose immigration to the USA was conditioned on their employment in Silicon Valley.

Aside from that, I think _every single person_ that works at Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc. (the uncivil technology corps) is morally bankrupt. Every last one of them is fundamentally compromised by their work.

Re: Facebook under fire over secret teen research

#58

Post by colinmhayes »

na85 wrote: post #24
voidfunc wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like money. Not at Facebook but would join if I was looking again. Someone’s gonna get the money, it might as well be me.

>Someone’s gonna get the money, it might as well be me. Ethics are disappointingly rare in Software. Such a shame.

> Someone’s gonna get the money, it might as well be me.

Is a perfectly defensible moral argument.

Re: Facebook under fire over secret teen research

#59

Post by whiskyant »

modriano wrote: post #45
discobot wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some believe that facebook is a positive force in the world, despite being hated.

If someone wanted to make the case that Facebook is a net-good force in the world, I'd read that. But I haven't seen anyone even try to lay out evidence of Facebook doing any good things. I like pytorch, prophet, and their decent job policing the pedophiles on the FB platform, but what else do they do that's good and responsible?

Messenger and Whatsapp for communication

Re: Facebook under fire over secret teen research

#60

Post by ipaddr »

munk-a wrote: post #26
voidfunc wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like money. Not at Facebook but would join if I was looking again. Someone’s gonna get the money, it might as well be me.

No - nobody needs to get the money. You can decide to only work for ethical companies and by doing so you do contribute to the pressure from the labour pool for companies to act ethically. Yes - there are tons of developers, but a lot of senior devs won't nab offers from facebook due to their poor corporate profile and their hiring is, as a result, incredibly desperate at the senior level. Those folks who do consent…

I don't know what an Ethical company means to you or if it should matter. Would groupon be more Ethical then facebook? Apple? Pornhub? Sport betting sites? EA? Walmart? Amazon? Microsoft? Google? Well Fargo? Standard Oil? Starbucks? Blockbusters? Ancestry? Twitter? Reddit? The NBA?

You could debate and compare all of these companies and they come out the same.

NGOs are full of unethical practices hopefully with cover. Small business does unethical at a smaller scale.

More often the successful businesses are the ones willing to be an unethical. The dating company with fake profiles or that tricky sales funnel designed to catch grandma and sell her knitting needles using misleading text.

How ethical is the company you are working for?

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