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Facebook whistleblower says she wants to fix company, not harm it

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Re: Facebook whistleblower says she wants to fix company, not harm it

#121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Committee did indeed release a bipartisan report making those assertions. Their assertions were bogus because no evidence is cited anywhere in the report. Claims of secret evidence are not evidence.

Considering the polarizing nature of the topic, it seems unlikely there would be a bipartisan agreement on the issue without classified intel to get people on both sides of the aisle behind it. That, of course, is not proof. But we have also had reports of activity traced back to Russia from other organizations. They could all be lying, but then that claim takes us strongly into the conspiracy theory territory at the…

>Considering the polarizing nature of the topic, it seems unlikely there would be a bipartisan agreement on the issue without classified intel to get people on both sides of the aisle behind it.

Congressional support for US global military empire has, unfortunately, always enjoyed complete bipartisan support.

>But we have also had reports of activity traced back to Russia from other organizations.

All sorts of organizations released conclusions, none of these conclusions come with any evidence that be scrutinized. Further, on the rare occasions when arms were twisted under oath, all of these conclusions turned out to be completely baseless. One of the most prominent debunked claims was that of Crowdstrike that the DNC servers were hacked by Russians. In fact, in December 2017 when testifying before the House Intelligence Committee, CrowdStrike President Shawn Henry admitted that not only was there no evidence that Russians hacked the DNC, they had no evidence that it was hacked at all, rather than leaked, or exfiltrated in some other manner. I was never a Trump supporter, didn't vote for him, don't like him at all, but I hate false propaganda even more. Whether it was the CIA and the DOJ doctoring documents in order to spy on US citizens or DNC lawyers feeding false information to the FBI (as detailed in the recent Durham indictment), all of the publicly available information (which after 5 years is voluminous) indicating a "Russian attack on our election" have all been based on lies and baseless assertions. Given this, and the documented record of lies and obfuscations peddled by our "intelligence agencies" for decades, its clear that the conspiracy theory here is the one being pushed by the Washington blob and not people who demand evidence for their wild and oft debunked assertions.

Re: Facebook whistleblower says she wants to fix company, not harm it

#122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But cars aren’t safe, many people die from cars every year.

Cars and Social Media is pretty hard to compare, but I’ll give it a shot: The equivalent here is not that a company produces cars, and that cars are dangerous. The equivalence is more in the line of a specific car manufacturer makes a car which they know is more dangerous to a subset of their customers, but still continue to push it to them.

Nissan knows that the Versa is more dangerous to their customers than, let's say, a Mercedes S500. Should Nissan then stop pushing the Versa in order to protect customers?

Re: Facebook whistleblower says she wants to fix company, not harm it

#123
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps I am of the minority opinion, but I damn sure was never worried about a bunch of selfie-taking unarmed rednecks destroying the United States of America. My faith in this country goes a little deeper than that.

I wonder if your opinion would be different if those unarmed rednecks were able to get to Speaker Pelosi, Leader Schumer, Minority Leader McConnell or VP Pence? Those "unarmed rednecks" were able to do something not even the various armies of the Confederacy couldn't: get inside the capitol. People are not terrified enough, because this group of people saw they could do it and I have a strong feeling they will try ag…

I watched the live stream. The capitol police opened the barriers in front of the building to let them pass. They seemed friendly towards the protestors.

Re: Facebook whistleblower says she wants to fix company, not harm it

#124
Whether or not what Facebook did was illegal and she technically qualifies as a "whistleblower", I salute her for what she has done and is doing by telling this story. People need to know about this, because it is harmful.

This doesn't mean it should be illegal. But it is something people should consider if they go to work for Facebook (or other companies), and hopefully it will inspire people to do something about the toxicity and divisiveness that social media is causing or at least feeding into.

Re: Facebook whistleblower says she wants to fix company, not harm it

#125
I had an experience with Frances in 2018 while at a company prior to her joining Facebook. She was somewhat unprofessional with me by abruptly cancelling a meeting without a very good excuse or much followup. I believe the CTO had asked her to take a meeting with me but she mostly disregarded that request.

I don't see much that is substantial coming out of this. She's brought hell upon herself while playing in a mostly liberal reform narrative. She significantly violated her NDA and probably violated some trade secret theft laws.

The company we both worked at was probably engaged in some forms of reverse discrimination.

Personally when I interviewed for the Fake News ML team at Facebook they had me interview with a guy who had a thick Russian accent. Anyone who works in big tech has experienced a litany of dysfunction. We also know what a self-promoting egoist looks like :)

This is just a media headline as meaningless as the congressional hearings that have been going on since 2017.

In my opinion and life choices, the difference between a bad actor and a bystander is often that they see the brokenness of their surroundings but they persist in rationalizing what's wrong with it rather than walking away. Becoming a whistleblower is just a masochistic way to walk away or it is a play for self-gain. The whole machine of Silicon Valley has stunk for almost a decade.

I suspect Frances sees something to gain with this, and unlike James Damore the same media machine Frances points the finger at will view her favorably on the mere basis that she is a "she".

So goes the crusade to right wrongs with double standards...

Re: Facebook whistleblower says she wants to fix company, not harm it

#126
post #119

I'm glad she shared what she shared. Facebook is a cancer on society IMO. In many cases, although perhaps not this one, whistleblowers have had an extremely active and political Twitter account when hired, or are literally being hired _because_ of their wokeness. Do silicon valley companies not screen for intensity of political views during job interviews in order to prevent issues like this? They certainly don't see…

It might be a good idea for companies to be up front about their significant moral choices.

Then regardless of disgruntled employees, they can defend and discuss their behavior and any mistakes with a majority of consistent internal and external communications.

And maybe avoid doing most really bad things.

This consistency of purpose and avoidance of causing surreptitious harm is called “integrity”.

Re: Facebook whistleblower says she wants to fix company, not harm it

#127
have they defined what "hate speech" and "misinformation" mean these days?

More often than not these terms are used by one party to silence & suppress opposing views of another.

Thankfully Zuckerberg doesn't give a damn, one would be hard-pressed to find a better CEO for social media company who can stand up to all this whining.

Re: Facebook whistleblower says she wants to fix company, not harm it

#128

This individual is not a 'whistleblower'. Nothing revealed is illegal or fraudulent.

No but what Facebook is doing is harmful, and what she is doing is embarrassing to the company and to those who work for them.

For all I know, what she did is illegal. But I'm glad she did it, it was very brave and she puts herself at a lot of risk by doing it. If Facebook goes after her, they will undoubtedly get bad press and encourage government regulation and possibly even antitrust action.

Facebook and other social media aren't inherently bad, but the incentives are certainly there for them to amplify the worst of human nature. This is most likely a problem that needs people outside of Facebook (and all these other companies) to solve. I am 100% in agreement with her that it is a solvable problem.

Re: Facebook whistleblower says she wants to fix company, not harm it

#129
post #119

I'm glad she shared what she shared. Facebook is a cancer on society IMO. In many cases, although perhaps not this one, whistleblowers have had an extremely active and political Twitter account when hired, or are literally being hired _because_ of their wokeness. Do silicon valley companies not screen for intensity of political views during job interviews in order to prevent issues like this? They certainly don't see…

> Do silicon valley companies not screen for intensity of political views during job interviews in order to prevent issues like this?

It would seem that they actively select for it.

> It would seem like it would be better for business to just not let people join the organization if they're relatively likely to one day go on a moral crusade.

To be fair: Blue Team straight up hit the panic button when Trump was elected in 2016.

From a non-US perspective, Trump was... grating? Talked a big game, but clearly didn't have the leadership chops. His "Law and Order" tweets during all the rioting were absolutely pathetic. Blue Team, however, has clearly gone quite insane.

At this point, I'm sort of politically homeless, which puts me in good company. Republicans talk hard about winding the clock back but don't actually seem to do much of anything, Libertarians pretend there is no clock, and Democrats evangelize that we'll finally escape the oppression of time itself once we've burned the clock to cinders.

What a time to be alive.

Re: Facebook whistleblower says she wants to fix company, not harm it

#130
post #3

If you want to save society, the mental health of our children, and preserve a sane and functional democracy, etc, etc. Stop working for Facebook. Quit working for that leadership. Let their talent erode and their technical debt lead to atrophy. Don't expend your finite life living and slaving for this empire of evil. The next best step is to pledge to not hire ex-Facebookers.

> The next best step is to pledge to not hire ex-Facebookers.

I actually agree with that, and not because of any personal agenda against FB, but because I don’t want the corrupted, unethical mindset of FB to permeate my organization. I just cannot trust ex-FB employees to make ethical decisions.

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