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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

#181

Post by speeder »

bjt wrote: post #140
mrxd wrote: post #104

I think misinformation and conspiracy theories on these platforms are a huge problem. A few years ago, some bad actors were successful in convincing Congress of a crazy conspiracy theory that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. The results were far-reaching. The US violated the UN charter and launched a disastrous war in Iraq where millions of Iraqis were killed, injured and displaced. They used a platfor…

> A few years ago, some bad actors were successful in convincing Congress of a crazy conspiracy theory that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction ... They used a platform called The New York Times to spread their lies. Citation needed that this was a knowing conspiracy as opposed to bad intelligence. Setting that aside, there's a big difference between an institution like the NY Times getting it wrong on occ…

I googled it and found some articles about it, link to one of them:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/03/22/iraq-war-...

Now for more context why I did this: Back then when Bush started pushing for the war, I immediately considered him a liar, I am not from US, and from my perspective and from many people where I live, it was blatantly obvious he was lying, for example some of the "evidence" he used was obviously bullshit, like his description of satellite photos on UN, or saying that WMD was found in certain places right after UN inspectors visited those places and said they found nothing there.

Sometimes I wonder how people from USA don't see how evil they country is, for example when Brazil said they would vote against the war in the security council, John Bolton just went and threatened his family (his exact words were: "I know where your kids live."), while the rest of the world was horrified by the lies spouted by US media, the US public was cheerily supporting the warmongers, in some cases even more than needed, for example some public polls done at the time found out a majority of the population were in favor of the wars, in Afghanistan case some people even agreed with the assertion that USA should "glass" afghanistan.

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

#182

Post by aemreunal »

yumraj wrote: post #168
jacquesm wrote: post #150

Facebook was beyond fixing the day it was founded. Zuckerberg is one of the least ethical operators of a large company that I'm aware of and the company reflects that in every way possible. Fixing Facebook would mean removing Zuckerberg and that's not going to happen, so I applaud the whistleblower stepping forward but I think they're hopelessly naive if they believe that this will really lead to meaningful change.

Exactly, it is naive to separate FB and Zuckerberg. FB is morally corrupt because of Zuckerberg. In fact it is quiet telling that none of the FB cofounders were there long enough, probably because they saw who he is early on.

I believe it was Ben Thompson who recently suggested that it's possible a platform like Facebook is fundamentally incompatible with human nature as well. Maybe, at least, incompatible with society as it exists today. I've been thinking a lot abut that.

Edit: Not a defense of Facebook. Regardless of what I said, I still don't think Facebook is trying to be a good company (morally and ethically) and I don't like them

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

#183

Post by motoxpro »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #158
scheme271 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To expand on the sibling comment, Facebook has two classes of shares. Class A shares have one vote and are the shares that are traded on stock exchanges. Class B shares get 10 votes each and are held by Zuckerberg and friends. Zuckerberg has enough Class B shares that he really can't be outvoted by other investors.

> Facebook has two classes of shares I had no idea companies could legally create vastly unequal schemes like that. How do people even find out about things like this? Is this information available somewhere? Impossible to make good investment decisions without this sort of knowledge.

Not just Facebook that is structured like this.

And as someone said, it's very public. You must be making investment decisions without looking at any corporate documents.

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

#184

Post by jamestnz »

bjt wrote: post #140
mrxd wrote: post #104

I think misinformation and conspiracy theories on these platforms are a huge problem. A few years ago, some bad actors were successful in convincing Congress of a crazy conspiracy theory that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. The results were far-reaching. The US violated the UN charter and launched a disastrous war in Iraq where millions of Iraqis were killed, injured and displaced. They used a platfor…

> A few years ago, some bad actors were successful in convincing Congress of a crazy conspiracy theory that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction ... They used a platform called The New York Times to spread their lies. Citation needed that this was a knowing conspiracy as opposed to bad intelligence. Setting that aside, there's a big difference between an institution like the NY Times getting it wrong on occ…

> Citation needed that this was a knowing conspiracy as opposed to bad intelligence

Within hours of the planes hitting the towers on 9/11, before any information was in, Rumsfeld's aides were drawing up plans for striking Iraq, despite zero evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the attacks. The number one priority for the White House, above finding out who the real culprits were, was to figure out how to use it as a rationale to invade Iraq. This is not really a controversial viewpoint, it is documented fact [1].

When the 9/11 rationale for invading Iraq became untenable, it was replaced by the idea that Saddam had Weapons of Mass Destruction, that he'd definitely been procuring uranium from Niger. Except these were lies too (and the WH knew it, because they'd sent Joe Wilson to investigate and he'd reported back as such). When Wilson heard them saying it despite knowing it was false, he contradicted them in public [2]. In an act of retribution, the WH leaked his wife's position as a CIA agent, burning valuable contacts and networks, and endangering friendly lives.

Then they moved onto the argument that regardless of WMDs, the Iraqi people actually wanted the invasion anyway, US forces would be welcomed as liberators by gift-bearing citizens, etc. When that didn't pan out either, a final argument became that Saddam was a tyrant and that fact alone provided sufficient moral and legal justification for preemptive war (i.e. The Bush Doctrine) [3].

[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/plans-for-iraq-attack-began-on-...

[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49856792

[3] https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/truth/why/

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

#185

Post by _3u10 »

bjt wrote: post #146
thomasjudge wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do agree with this part of the statement from the company: "If any research had identified an exact solution to these complex challenges, the tech industry, governments, and society would have solved them a long time ago." The social costs of social media are complex, and solutions are not obvious. Unfortunately it's likely that if the companies can't meaningfully address these problems on their own, congress will…

If you're trying to optimize for engagement AND avoid rewarding divisive content or misinformation, then yeah, that's complex and maybe impossible. But as Haugen points out in her 60 Minutes interview, they don't _have_ to optimize for engagement above all else. They have tools to drive down divisiveness and disinformation. They just choose to leave them turned off most of the time.

wouldn’t turning down divisiveness require picking a unified POV?

What if the unified POV is not the one she wants, would she still support it?

People seemed pretty upset that FB was used to unify a majority for Trump, I mean that’s when all the complaints really started.

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

#186

Post by jacquesm »

aemreunal wrote: post #182
yumraj wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, it is naive to separate FB and Zuckerberg. FB is morally corrupt because of Zuckerberg. In fact it is quiet telling that none of the FB cofounders were there long enough, probably because they saw who he is early on.

I believe it was Ben Thompson who recently suggested that it's possible a platform like Facebook is fundamentally incompatible with human nature as well. Maybe, at least, incompatible with society as it exists today. I've been thinking a lot abut that. Edit: Not a defense of Facebook. Regardless of what I said, I still don't think Facebook is trying to be a good company (morally and ethically) and I don't like them

That may very well be true, but FB is clearly not built with the best interests of society at heart, and until a platform rolls along that is we are pretty much in the same situation as where we are with communism: it may well be a great system to base a society on but all known implementations were made by people that were in it mostly for themselves.

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

#187

Post by [deleted] »

xwdv wrote: post #38
1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #25

We have seen this story before. Person joins Facebook thinking they can "help". Then quits. Facebook is a public company whose purpose is serve advertisers. Online ads is the only way they can generate revenue. It is not some woo-woo about connecting the world, giving people a voice, or whatever. That's what the internet enables, not a single website controlled by someone else. Facebook tries to take credit for what…

They really need to filter out these kind of people in the hiring phase. Edit: And there goes the last bit of my karma. Incredible that I once had close to a 1000 karma, and then one day slowly but surely it dwindled down to nothing.

[deleted]

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

#188

Post by shimonabi »

It's not just politics. Like someone said on some podcast recently, you Americans get top tier content moderation, while the rest of the world is a "free speech" heaven.

A few years ago a young man was brutally beaten to death on a FB livestream in my country. I reported the thing on the first day, but it took at least a week for FB to take it down. You don't need ML for that.

I'm deeply convined that FB is directly responsible for the massive number of anti-vaxxers in my country.

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

#189

Post by ldehaan »

vln wrote: post #48
lukestevens wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a strange pattern [0]: [Sophie Zhang] joined Facebook in 2018 after the financial strain of living on part-time contract work in the Bay Area had worn her down. When she received Facebook’s offer, she was upfront with her recruiter: she didn’t think the company was making the world better, but she would join to help fix it. “They told me, ‘You’d be surprised how many people at Facebook say that,’” she remembers.…

I said the same thing. It's how I rationalized selling out for a company that does harm to the world.

A nugget of truth, it was nice, thanks.

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

#190

Post by _3u10 »

mrxd wrote: post #104

I think misinformation and conspiracy theories on these platforms are a huge problem. A few years ago, some bad actors were successful in convincing Congress of a crazy conspiracy theory that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. The results were far-reaching. The US violated the UN charter and launched a disastrous war in Iraq where millions of Iraqis were killed, injured and displaced. They used a platfor…

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