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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?
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I think the alternative would not be that teenagers would not have social media accounts, but that they would all be on Tiktok (which probably is already the case)
TikTok is a much more positive platform than anything Facebook has come up with TBH. Almost all of the creators I follow are just... normal people, making normal jokes and doing normal things. They aren't heavily airbrushed or photo/videoshopped or whatever. The content itself is generally much more positive and much more focused around acceptance and (body-)positivity. As far as social media platforms go, TikTok is…
TikTok is incredible, in my opinion, it really is the best content-delivery platform... but that is actually quite dangerous because what people want to see is not necessarily what they should see. It's important for people to have broad perspectives and I don't think TikTok addresses that so appropriately.
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Facebook does not have any regard for human agency, neither the platform nor the corporation, anymore than fentanyl or its producers have. I agree that the sense of which you speak is a nonsensical perspective; I'm not interested in laying blame on a tool for how the tool is utilized. The Facebook employee isn't unethical because of their nebulous entanglement in nth-order externalities, whereby bad-person X did bad-…
Does that make me unethical if I contribute to free or open source software, then Facebook uses that software, even though I don't work for them? Why would the answer to that question be different for employees?
I take it as axiomatic that Facebook is an unethical actor. I believe I have good reasons for this. From there, I say that anyone who works to make Facebook more effective at its unethical goals is similarly unethical.
No, this doesn't include people that contribute to OSS that originated at Facebook. Improving OSS is a contribution to the community, of which Facebook is unfortunately permitted to benefit from. Facebook starting an OSS project does not make the OSS unethical, because the OSS is a tool.
The question is different for employees because of this community/Facebook divide. Facebook employees are not unethical because of the tools they use for Facebook, they are unethical for furthering Facebook's unethical aims.
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I'd be interested in seeing which set of ethical values helps someone reconcile the two notions of "I'm not a bad person" and "I directly enable human rights abuses on a scale never-before-seen in human history;" or, otherwise, which perspective a person can take that doesn't commit them to the second notion (precluding fundamentally self-deceptive perspectives, such as willful ignorance).
Historically it’s a pretty straightforward to argue that pretty well any technology directly enabled human rights abuses on a scale never before seen in human history. Radio, telephones, railroads, you can basically go back as far as you want…wheels, bronze, iron, fire, etc.
There is a very good discussion further down this thread. I do not mean "enables" in the sense that "a tool is used to violate human rights." I mean "enables" in the sense that "Facebook itself commits human rights violations, and employees of Facebook further the aims and means of these violations."
That is, Facebook employees are not unethical because they develop tools that are used to violate human rights. Facebook employees are unethical because they take direct part in the actual policies by which Facebook makes the world a more user-hostile place.
A parallel between Facebook and Big Tobacco had never occurred to me until I read this: > In a move straight out of big tobacco's playbook, Facebook downplayed the negative effects of its product and hid this research from the public and even from members of Congress who specifically asked for it What would our world be like if it were illegal to have a social media account until you were 21 years old? Interesting to…
> What would our world be like if it were illegal to have a social media account until you were 21 years old? Is that the question you take away? Mine is... What would our world be like if it were illegal to lie to or otherwise obstruct Congress?
Not only is it illegal to lie to Congress but it should be illegal for corporations to lie to anyone in public statements.
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Yes, but so did magazines and TV shows which also made teenage girls feel bad about their bodies. (Disclaimer: Facebook employee who thinks Facebook and social media is a net positive)
Can you support that belief with any evidence or a coherent argument? What good does FB do that offsets the great amount of evil it does? What offsets FB's choices that connected millions of extremists and gave them protected spaces to radicalize each other? [0] What offsets FB's decision to rush into regions it can't moderate, leading to FB being used as the platform that spreads genocide-inciting misinformation? [1…
But I’ll leave a short one here to respect your comment.
I believe social media empowers people, it makes my life better, it gives many people a voice where before it only belonged to a few. Those few also incited wars and genocides, and bred rage and mistrust (From NY Times supporting Iraq war to your local news stations to Fox/CNN concentrating on stories that outrage or warm your heart and get you back) from before Facebook existed and do so to this day. All of those nasty effects of social media existed before, they just moved to the most efficient media form.
I support people’s right to communicate and own their opinions, and I accept that giving a voice to everyone will always results in problems small and large. But Facebook does spend a lot of resources trying to make social media better. I’m an insider and swayed, but I think Facebook spends much more resources than TV channels and newspapers trying to address such issues.
The rest is a proper response really depends on a lot of arguments clumped against Facebook, and addressing them depends on the person: - Is the criticism against all social media? - Is it against ranking feed items? - Is it against monetizing through ads? - More rarely, is it against censoring, or because of data policies, or supposed negligence, or more. There’s such so many issues against Facebook, yet almost everyone keeps using the products, and the only countries that ban Facebook are not ones that come of as inspiring to me when you consider their reasons.
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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.
Weird. I know a lot of people who work in that space. None of them are morally corrupt. What kind of people are you seeking out?
I'm not asking this to be obtuse; I'm genuinely interested in engaging on this topic, so I want to be sure I'm not speaking past your meaning.
"Who are the people I seek to condemn?" The information workers that find employment with massive, human-rights-violating corporations. I condemn these people for their willingness to dedicate such talent and intelligence towards actively making the world a more user-hostile place.
"Who are the people I seek to speak with?" Generally, everyone and anyone, including you or any of your acquaintances that happen to be reading this thread.
With respect, I think this speaks to a difference in our ethical values. I 100% believe that Facebook employees are fundamentally compromised by their employment. Don't get me twisted: I'm not accusing them of being Nazis, nor any such equivalence; these specific condemnations are very prevalent in our modern discourse. I'm not saying anything like this.
I'm also not saying that such people are necessarily unpleasant, or that their company might not be enjoyable. However, at the end of the day, they are making the world worse for me, the people I associate with, and (in my opinion) the people of the world at large. For these reasons, owing to my ideological commitments, I remain firm in my position.
Facebook employees are ethically compromised.
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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.
How many people with prior experience at these companies have you worked with or know on a personal level that you're drawing this conclusion from?
I'm not making this judgment on a rational basis; my stance is based purely on my ethical values and ideological commitments.
If you find this silly, or think that it invalidates my opinion then: power to you! I do not believe that my ethical values are universal statements, nor that my ethics must be shared by anyone. I simply don't care to qualify every one of my statements with "it seems," "in my opinion," etc.
I genuinely wish to engage on this topic, so I welcome any further reply from you.
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I don't think this is quite it, I think you're underrating the social aspect of it, and the algorithm aspect of it. When I was in high school (livejournal and myspace era), I had a friend group where most of the hanging out occurred IRL. I hung out with the dorks, so there was not a lot of focus on being hot and stuff. And IRL, there aren't algorithms that constantly shove pretty people in your face. Of course you se…
Yea, I think the other aspect is this isn't just internet. When I was younger, going on the internet meant going to the upstairs bedroom, turning on the computer, waiting for it to boot up, then waiting for AOL to connect, then chatting with people. It would take like 5 minutes of effort. Now, most of the time when I go out, for fun, I just look how many people are hunched over staring and scrolling at their stupid r…
Now when I'm in a subway, every one is hunched on their mobile phone, no one is available to engage in conversation, to meet people. They're instead focusing on that tiny bright rectangle.
And I can see that I'm also guilty of the same. I'm always either on my kindle or my phone nowadays
I'm open to new thoughts on this but this seems like Facebook is being used a scapegoat. What would be a viable solution to this problem?
That the kids are specifically calling out Instagram and not, say, flikr or Twitter, is a big hint. Believe what the kids are telling you.