Facebook whistleblower says she wants to fix company, not harm it • Hacker News Board

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

#221

Post by Thorrez » Mon, Oct 04, 2021, 4:38 AM UTC

ageek123 wrote: post #170

matheusmoreira wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

This is always disclosed when a company files to go public. It's not secret. It's actually good for long term shareholder value in most cases.

On the other hand, the S&P500 will be excluding future companies that do this, so some powerful people in the finance community must think it's bad.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/01/sp-500-to-exclude-snap-after...

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

#222

Post by lakecresva » Mon, Oct 04, 2021, 4:39 AM UTC

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.

This information is required to be in the articles of incorporation which are filed with the secretary of state. For public companies you can usually just google e.g. "Apple articles of incorporation" and the sec's copy will show up.

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

#223

Post by hn_throwaway_99 » Mon, Oct 04, 2021, 4:41 AM UTC

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

Totally agree, though with a tad of nuance. I believe a Facebook could be at least marginally compatible with human nature if the feed was just your friends, new posts in chronological order.

But the economic incentives to make Facebook addictive, to traffic in outrage, and that demand that Facebook track your every move on and off the platform are just immensely strong. I mean, I think Facebook would easily be a far better platform for users if they could only see my actions on Facebook itself, instead of the god awful behavior of getting flooded with "retargeting" ads because I happened across some website somewhere, but look how bitterly Facebook fought against the iOS changes.

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

#224

Post by matheusmoreira » Mon, Oct 04, 2021, 4:42 AM UTC

manquer wrote: post #215

matheusmoreira wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is nothing to fix. Sure there is: advertising. It's the root cause of nearly all evils in the internet today. Facebook itself is merely a symptom of the advertiser problem. The web and the internet will never be fixed until we get rid of the advertisers. Either we ban advertising or we spread ad blocking technology far and wide.

More Ad blocking won't solve this in the long term, it will become an arms race. If ad blocking becomes pervasive then there will be more efforts to evade blocks, starting with technically ( operationally difficult) solutions like hosting ads first party etc. There is simply too much money today in it for the industry to go away quietly. Ad-blocking as a tool can help address the security issues with a trusted servic…

> it will become an arms race

It already is.

> starting with technically ( operationally difficult) solutions like hosting ads first party

Already happening. Those ads are still getting blocked.

> There is simply too much money today in it for the industry to go away quietly.

Agreed. We need to drive them out.

> issue of ad's itself can sadly not be controlled with ad-blocking only

Why?

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

#225

Post by Dracophoenix » Mon, Oct 04, 2021, 4:42 AM UTC

donw wrote: post #129

55555 wrote: 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…

What do mean by "libertarians pretend there is no clock" ?

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

#226

Post by chroem- » Mon, Oct 04, 2021, 4:44 AM UTC

cratermoon wrote: post #217

chroem- wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “Freedom Is Slavery” because, according to the Party, the man who is independent is doomed to fail. By the same token, “Slavery Is Freedom,” because the man subjected to the collective will is free from danger and want.

Ok but how does that relate to perlocutionary and oppressive speech?

You are posing restrictions on speech as a form of "freedom".

> By the same token, “Slavery Is Freedom,” because the man subjected to the collective will is free from danger and want.

The feigned ignorance is extremely tiresome.

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

#227

Post by JumpCrisscross » Mon, Oct 04, 2021, 4:45 AM UTC

55555 wrote: 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 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

Oh man, do I hope my entrenched competitors do this. Give me your crazy ones.

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

#228

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Oct 04, 2021, 4:45 AM UTC

55555 wrote: 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…

[deleted]

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

#229

Post by muglug » Mon, Oct 04, 2021, 4:46 AM UTC

worrycue wrote: post #207

muglug wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blank is fine. I don’t think anything really changed there — those of us who think their opinions are worth other people hearing about (and I’m generally in that camp) have been around since time immemorial, and I doubt we’re growing as a percentage. It’s just that social media has provided us a big new platform, much more visible than Usenet or whatever. I think generally companies don’t care what you write online a…

There is a difference between being heard and having your real name and a photo of your face attached to what you said like in some cases on Twitter. I was wondering if social media has become so ingrained into the lives of the younger generations (and maybe even the elderly) that it’s effectively as much a part of their public identity as their choice of clothes and academic/career accomplishments.

No — I know lots of young people who hate all public forms of social media, and worry constantly about having any sort of visible opinions — and these are people with socially-liberal political views. It really is just a personal preference, and outside of social media manager positions, employers don’t care.

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

#230

Post by k4lk » Mon, Oct 04, 2021, 4:47 AM UTC

It's an unfortunate but inevitable outcome of the attention economys race to the bottom. This area needs better regulation. The best approach is to stay out of technical implementation and focus on what principles companies should adhere to. As James Williams argue: it should be a civil right to have "freedom of chance". We already knew all too well what it does to our democracy that a large part of the public only gets their news from Facebook. Prefiltered by the monetizing interests that drives it. In such an environment there is no fair chance of deciding for one self - at one end it's one individual on a smartphone, but the other is the entire R&D of Facebook with just the one goal of keeping your focus, making you engage.