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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

#151

Post by tomrod »

cybernautique wrote: post #147
tomrod wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

"Seeking out" in which sense? As in, "who are the people that I seek to condemn?" Or, "who are the people that I seek out to speak with?" Or some other sense? 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-violat…

> Facebook employees are ethically compromised.

Again, I disagree heartily. I know FB employees who aren't ethically compromised, which serves as a counterexample to your claim. I can't think of any legal, large employer with whom people are ethically compromised simply by employment.

Also, your original claim was that they are morally corrupt. How do you distinguish between these two?

> they are making the world worse for me, the people I associate with

As a gentle reminder, a single person isn't the world, and your life being assessed by you as worse (without mention of baseline) is not a huge price to pay for free connections, central marketplace, and not to mention the groups that have been extraordinarily helpful for the marginalized. I've been in that place (marginalized), and finding support through groups facilitated by FB's platform was essential to my well-being. So again, counterexample to the totalizing claim.

Am I a fan of FB? No. But it's a really hard stretch to assume that everyone is compromised for being involved with them. Such claims aren't novel, but seem to be histrionics in most cases.

Re: Facebook under fire over secret teen research

#152

Post by Frost1x »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #25

I'm concerned that this whole narrative implies that research is the problem. It feels like a continuation of when people were shocked, shocked when it was revealed that Facebook was conducting experiments on people . Well, the issue wasn't the A/B testing exactly, but rather the publishing of the experiments in scientific journals. As you know, public outrage put a stop to that. (The scientific publishing, not the A…

The outrage, I hope, is that Facebook conducted research that made it aware of something negative it was doing that made it money but kept the information tight and continued acting in a harmful way because... it makes them money.

Ignorance is one thing and can be forgiven to some degree or treated as negligence. Wanton money chasing at all costs with no regard to damages you knowingly cause because, again, money, isn't forgivable.

A side effect of this is that it can create disincentives for publishing such research but let's be honest, FB as an organization would never knowingly allow such information like this to ever be published, even if the general public ignores most of everything. That's just stupid from a business perspective. It would be like cigarette makers creating their own surgeon general warning without a mandate to do so. They have every reason not to.

Research will continue because businesses understand the value of science and research even if they don't respect it. That research will only ever be used to their advantage though.

Re: Facebook under fire over secret teen research

#153

Post by mgraczyk »

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?

Hi, I worked there for over a year and am familiar with the specific research discussed in the article.

IG is a net good because even in this specific case, it did more good than harm. The numbers in the article are all less than half. On average users self-report increased well being when they use IG, as long as they don't use it too much.

But improving things on average isn't good enough. IG also wants to improve the situation for the users who self-report being adversely affected by their IG usage. IG has added features and spent a ton on research and product improvements to improve subjective wellbeing, and have been successful in measurably improving self-reported wellbeing, reducing objective measures like bullying prevalence and negativity.

Re: Facebook under fire over secret teen research

#154

Post by disconcision »

jakequade wrote: post #90
jetrink wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if this happened, would teenagers would be upset or relieved? There's a This American Life episode[1] in which several teenage girls explain the complex etiquette of Instagram. It sounds stressful, it sounds exhausting, it sounds like a full time job. Right now, anyone who opts out also excludes themselves from a major aspect of school social life. 1. https://www.thisamericanlife.org/573/transcript

They would be upset. 100%. Many of them just don't care about the inner workings of the app.

agreed, it just seems easier to make being on social media mandatory; then the kids would hate it

Re: Facebook under fire over secret teen research

#155

Post by Infinitesimus »

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #139
apeace wrote: post #62

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?

That would be hard to enforce given that politicians lie pretty often....

Re: Facebook under fire over secret teen research

#156

Post by ipaddr »

cybernautique wrote: post #81
ipaddr wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is whatabouttery to a fine degree. You start with "I don't know what an Ethical company means to you _or if it should matter_;" I'm a sincere egoist, so I declare: no! It shouldn't matter to you, or to anyone, what my or anyone else's notion of ethical is! Ethics isn't a universal, it's not endemic to the individual experience, and neither is ethics-having in the first place. I contend that ethics-having is vita…

That test doesn't sound simple or an ethical measure.

Apple taking away the right to repair is a company enforcing rules for a product be used in certain ways. On the other side facebook tries to get you to use the product in certain ways but rarely enforces it.

Re: Facebook under fire over secret teen research

#157

Post by invalidname »

apeace wrote: post #62

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…

You'd see a picture of a blackend facebook lung every time you launched the website

Re: Facebook under fire over secret teen research

#158

Post by black_puppydog »

doodlebugging wrote: post #140
brink wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been saying to my friends for some time that social media is the new smoking.

True. Except that smoking causes cancer in the individual and those unlucky enough to have to breathe that second-hand smoke. Social media causes cancerous decay in whole societies. and is a much bigger threat to all of us as a result. We could choose not stand close to a smoker, not to share a ride in their car, etc. but it is very difficult to avoid having to interact with someone whose world-view has been bubbled…

actually, the basis for most regulation to curb smoking is based on exactly the kind of societal argument you bring up for social media. The freedom of the individual to harm themselves had stood pretty strong, but the societal cost (mostly health care) eventually outweighed it.

Re: Facebook under fire over secret teen research

#159

Post by na85 »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #43
na85 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I mean... On one hand, I agree with your bemoaning,but then on second thought - compared to what? I don't think plumbers,electricians,lawyers, construction workers,car salespeople, you name it necessarily have inherently better average ethics (even once and if we define and agree on what those are or should be :)

> I mean... On one hand, I agree with your bemoaning,but then on second thought - compared to what?

HN software people love to call themselves Engineers with a capital E, but it seems all too often it gets forgotten that the practice of professional engineering requires adherence to professional codes of ethics.

Every accredited engineering program in the US and Canada requires that graduates have completed a Professional Ethics course, but of course the vast majority of "Software Engineers" aren't actually degree-holding engineers. They're by and large Comp Sci grads and to the best of my knowledge there isn't the same requirement for Ethics courses in computer science programs.

Re: Facebook under fire over secret teen research

#160

Post by black_puppydog »

modriano wrote: post #38
dr_dshiv wrote: post #25

I'm concerned that this whole narrative implies that research is the problem. It feels like a continuation of when people were shocked, shocked when it was revealed that Facebook was conducting experiments on people . Well, the issue wasn't the A/B testing exactly, but rather the publishing of the experiments in scientific journals. As you know, public outrage put a stop to that. (The scientific publishing, not the A…

What would stop the good Facebook employees from just memorializing evidence of the harm Facebook does to girls/society/the elderly/the conspiracy minded/the Rohingya/etc by emailing supervisors about it and then leaking the response or lack of response? Is Facebook just going to fire the good people that still work there?

Errr... Yes?
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