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

wsj.com

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

#241

Post by 3np »

robbrown451 wrote: post #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 t…

From where do you get the notion that something illegal needs to take place for someone to qualify as "whistleblower"? First time I encounter this idea.

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

#242

Post by rocqua »

seoaeu wrote: post #177
arthurcolle wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate Facebook, but your statement begs the question: "who defines what is harmful"

The "who defines" question isn't really much of a gotcha for laws. Either the legislature specifies when the pass the law, or courts get to decide when a case comes before them. Sometimes a jury is also involved.

It is a huge question, because leeway in the definition, or political disagreement about the definition, makes for a law that is impossible to know you are breaking.

Vague terms should be avoided in laws. Vague terms with obvious political wiggle room should be avoided at all cost.

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

#243

Post by JumpCrisscross »

snowwrestler wrote: post #87

Facebook is going to become a hollowed out shell of itself if they do not change. They’ll get hollowed out by litigation, legislation, investors, or all of the above. They need new leadership. The tactics that got them here will not carry them further. There are tons of examples of the positive impact of new leadership, on companies like Apple, Microsoft, Uber, Disney, Ford, etc. And there are certainly plenty of exa…

Does anyone track the premium Facebook has to pay to get people to close their eyes and work for them? Subjectively, it feels like it’s growing, but that’s from sampling a limited friend group.

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

#244

Post by baumy »

no_butterscotch wrote: post #233
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…

> Facebook is a cancer on society IMO. It's interesting, I know a bunch of people who work there as I'm sure many on this site do. Nonetheless, none of them have a problem with Facebook or its role in our society. I don't know what to make of it really.

$$$

It's really that simple. I also think Facebook is a net negative for humanity, but if I was willing to subject myself to leetcoding interviews and passed theirs, I'd work there in a heartbeat because they pay senior engineers with ~6+ years of experience about $400k as a baseline. Quite a bit more if you're particularly good, have competing offers and negotiate well. I have principles, but frankly I care about securing my and my family's future more than standing up for them. The same is probably true for most.

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

#245

Post by roenxi »

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.

Weeeeeell... it isn't a secret, that is true. And technically speaking there is no problem here.

But it is easy to imagine that this happened to be able to hoodwink someone with the "Zuckerburg only controls 10% of the shares!" style soundbites without being forced to point out that means control of the company.

Realistically this practice should probably be banned on the basis that Facebook could achieve a similar outcome with something like one class of shares and selling bonds to the public, or something. Allowing a "share" to break the one-share-one-vote principle is unnecessarily confusing and misleading.

Lawyers shouldn't be redefining words. These words are meant to mean something. Although this is unlikely to be a new practice, I think Berkshire had different classes of share.

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

#246

Post by BoHerfVIJrEsq »

cratermoon wrote: post #174
sayonaraman wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the whole concept of "oppression" in modern context holds absolutely no merit, it's a divisive racist view of American culture and it's been used for political gain again and again. Since it's published by supposedly reputable academics I think it's a perfect example of misinformation.

There has been oppression and struggle against it for as long as human civilization has existed and writing to record the struggles of the oppressed.

Of course, but when people use that word today they're often talking about something very different from actual persecution.

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

#247

Post by hibern8 »

judge2020 wrote: post #204
robbrown451 wrote: post #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 t…

The term whistleblower here is just a means to raise awareness for this information, which is good (not that it does much for the FB-reading population, besides those infatuated with following conspiracy theories).

No, she is an actual whistleblower. She went to the SEC with corporate documents.

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

#248

Post by mimikatz »

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…

What is the difference between bad intelligence vs the average conspiracy theorist? It is all just bad intelligence someone telling someone else "data" that they then "trust" reflects reality when in reality it doesn't.

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

#249

Post by BoHerfVIJrEsq »

baryphonic wrote: post #173
lovecg wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s simple really. “All X are Y” where X is an immutable characteristic and Y is something negative = hate speech. “Covid vaccines contain 5G microchips” is misinformation. Do you have any examples of what you’re alluding to?

What characteristics are immutable these days?

As far as I can tell, it's banned to be transracial.

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

#250

Post by depaulagu »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #220
sandworm101 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> it's just about speculation. As opposed to all the other reasons people buy publicly-traded shares?

I thought the power to affect corporate decision making was an important part of investing. Apparently not.

Definitely not for individual-saving-for-retirement investors IMO (altough there might be some that think that's important, but they can't affect nothing really).

What matters most to these (me included) is the growth of the nest egg, by dividends or capital gains (which FB has delivered handsomely on the last decade).

For large institutional investors, it may be important. For activist investors, it certainly is.

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