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

#261

Post by gnicholas » Mon, Oct 04, 2021, 5:14 AM UTC

gnicholas wrote: post #134

JaggerFoo wrote: post #112

I heard that she may be the first billionaire whistleblower, when given a percentage of the fine assigned to Facebook.

Under what whistleblower statute? There are various statutes that provide different percentages, but there are strict rules for qualification. I haven't seen any indication that she is a qualifying whistleblower under any statute (though admittedly I am not deeply following these revelations).

update: sounds like these disclosures were made to the SEC under the Dodd-Frank whistleblower protections, which could yield 10-30 percent of the amount collected by the SEC.

The theory of the case is that FB is misleading investors by not disclosing this material information.

https://www.sec.gov/spotlight/dodd-frank/whistleblower.shtml

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

#262

Post by 3np » Mon, Oct 04, 2021, 5:15 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…

Who is "Blue Team" here?

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

#263

Post by chroem- » Mon, Oct 04, 2021, 5:21 AM UTC

cratermoon wrote: post #251

chroem- wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> You are posing restrictions on speech as a form of "freedom" I am? Can you give specific examples from the sources I provided where that applies?

I can refer you to your own past discussions on this topic. After all, you frequently post these same three links whenever freedom of speech comes up on HN:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28695826 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28698642 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28702976

Generally speaking, you typically post some variation of "free speech is oppression"/"outlaw harmful speech", to which other posters generally reply with sources debunking the core premise of your argument, ultimately followed by you either ignoring them and doubling down and/or breaking site guidelines by throwing ad hominems. This is a very low quality of discourse for HN.

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

#264

Post by rocqua » Mon, Oct 04, 2021, 5:22 AM UTC

Grieving wrote: post #210

rocketpastsix wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Susan Rosenberg was part of a group of former Weather Underground members that bombed the U.S. capitol in 1983. She was pardoned by Clinton and became involved with the company bankrolling the largest BLM organization in the world. In what way is a group of proles walking around, taking selfies, and breaking some glass comparable?

In the sense that they were there to lynch the vice president for certifying a fair election result.

In that sense, the capitol attack was comparable to your whataboutist example.

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

#265

Post by wcunning » Mon, Oct 04, 2021, 5:23 AM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #245

ageek123 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

Ford famously pioneered it over a hundred years ago to keep control in the Ford family, which is still true today, though the family is now spread out enough that they don’t necessarily vote as a block on all matters.

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

#266

Post by agrippanux » Mon, Oct 04, 2021, 5:27 AM UTC

donw wrote: post #234

aaomidi wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you expand on "His "Law and Order" tweets during all the rioting were absolutely pathetic."?

Sure, why not. During the riots, Trump kept tweeting out "LAW AND ORDER!", like a crippled old man furious at the neighborhood kids for trashing his roses. He's angry, but doesn't have the means to do anything about it. This made Trump look weak and impotent. All he did was hide in his bunker and shake his tiny fist on Twitter while chaos raged. The rioters placed Trump in a dilemma action. Smart. If Trump does nothi…

LOL, the chaos was the plan. It’s why Junior and the others were celebrating when shit was hitting the fan. The whole thing was an attempt to cause enough disorder that there would be cover for throwing the votes back to R-lead state legislatures - look at the Eastman documents.

The whole thing failed cause Pence wouldn’t play ball, the Trump rabble started hunting for him (and Congresspeople on both sides) in the Capitol building, and there was no backup plan.

The statement about how Trump was “like a crippled old man furious at his neighborhood kids” is hilariously off the mark. He was furious that Pence didn’t back him up.

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

#267

Post by nurgasemetey » Mon, Oct 04, 2021, 5:29 AM UTC

speeder wrote: post #181

bjt wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 ob…

> John Bolton just went and threatened his family

This is outrageous. You can be enemies but family is forbidden area.

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

#268

Post by fragmede » Mon, Oct 04, 2021, 5:30 AM UTC

elmomle wrote: post #180

Nevermark wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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”.

As Upton Sinclair said, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." When over a trillion dollars of value is on the line, history tells us that people will generally act poorly and come up with any plausible justification for why they're doing good. This isn't to excuse Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, or anybody else in a decision-making position. Th…

Is that most ethical? I can think of several people where the world would be worse off if they owned a controlling interest in Facebook. Eg Ergodan.

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

#269

Post by rocqua » Mon, Oct 04, 2021, 5:31 AM UTC

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?

Biological sex, ethnicity, culture of your parents, place of birth. To some extent, your religion.

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

#270

Post by slg » Mon, Oct 04, 2021, 5:35 AM UTC

chroem- wrote: post #172

cratermoon wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oppressive Speech: https://doi.org/10.1080/00048400802370334 Performative Hate Speech Acts. Perlocutionary and Illocutionary Understandings in International Human Rights Law: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334199177_PERFORMAT...

You are attempting to frame state controls on speech as some form of "liberation". This is quite literally 1984 "Freedom is Slavery" kind of thinking.

These are not mutually exclusive. One of the primary reasons for laws is to stop people from infringing on the rights of others. These laws are therefore state controls that can simultaneously yield freedom and liberation.

Defamation and libel laws are a classic example. They are an infringement on an individual's right to free speech. However we as society have decided that is justified when that speech is being used to infringe on the rights of another person. Hate speech laws are basically the same thing as defamation and libel laws except they are scaled up to protect groups of people instead of just individuals.

Whether these tradeoffs of one group's rights for another group's rights are worth making is certainly up for debate. However it seems pretty obvious that hate speech laws do serve to provide liberation and freedom for people who would commonly be the recipients of hate speech.