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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

#451

Post by jb1991 »

Socketier wrote: post #425
erlich wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YouTube is exactly the same. You have to install a browser extension to block politics from your suggested videos. Twitter is great because they have “blocked words”. I maxed out my 200 words though and have to constantly swap them. It’s undoubtedly true that they make huge money from hate and divisiveness. This is not whistleblowing though. They are not breaking laws. And everyone already knows this. People can choo…

Youtube isn't really the same. I've found that I can watch the things I want to fine without seeing a single political video being suggested.

Weird, I watch YT quite a bit but it only suggests things that are related to stuff I've watched before, and I don't recall ever seeing a political video on there show up.

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

#452

Post by roenxi »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #314
roenxi wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. Does that hoodwinking matter, though? If you're unsophisticated enough to be tricked by this, you have 0% voting power. And at best you expected "someone other than zuckerburg, I guess, but I didn't lo…

In principle, I have no argument.

In practice, it leaves open the question of why anyone felt the need for 2 classes of shares. Why have 1 class A and 9 class B, instead of 100 shares for the company owner and 9 on the market? One of those is much simpler to work with. Maybe there is just some tax loophole that is being exploited here, but it looks like someone is getting scammed.

Not the biggest crisis I've seen today, but something that should get tidied up.

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

#453

Post by roody15 »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #431
taurath wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hit the nail on the head there. It’s impossible to actually get what was the damn promise of Facebook to begin with, and instead everyone gets practically drugged with crap because it makes Mark more money.

Facebook was actually pretty good when it just showed me my friends posts and nothing else. But when they moved to their 'timeline' and started fiddling with algorithms that try to decide what I want to see, they got it all wrong and it became a chore to wade through it all. I don't understand how they think an algorithm can decide better what I want to see than me myself (by adding friend and blocking the ones that…

The end goal is money. To make money they sell influence. They control the narrative with these algorithms. My two cents

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

#454

Post by nverno »

k4lk wrote: post #230

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 g…

Everyone is entirely in control of their own thoughts and opinions- these being about the only things in life that are fully under our own control. Facebook, by itself, is zero threat to democracy, it neither votes nor stops people from voting for what they believe.

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

#455

Post by johncena33 »

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…

The whole lab leak debate had been deliberately tarred as conspiracy theory and is still being suppressed by mainstream media. [1] [2]

[1] https://www.bmj.com/content/374/bmj.n2003 [2] https://www.bmj.com/content/374/bmj.n1656

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

#456

Post by slowmovintarget »

peter_retief wrote: post #406
marton78 wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Protect your children from social media, no matter which company.

One can only teach values not protect children from social media. I have children.

This is the way to do it. When they're very young, it's by saying "No." When they're a little older, it's by explaining why. By the time they're a teenager, you have to trust them and make sure they know you're there for them.

You also have to model the behavior for them in the first place.

I'm also a parent. You begin as a shield and end as a foundation in your child's life. It is a process.

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

#457

Post by Gunax »

conductr wrote: post #352

It’s sad to me that so many people just can’t see this as common sense. Why do you need an insider to tell you FB is bad? Look at it. Look all around. It reminds me of when I was a kid any every smoking adult around me was hacking their lungs up. I didn’t need the surgeon general or some fancy research published in a medical journal to draw the conclusion that smoking was bad. I suppose many may be too young to remem…

Well I don't see it. No one thought Facebook was evil until Trumpnwas elected.

Funny how Facebook was hailed for being a paragon of access after Obama's win.

Is anyone actually reading these leaked docs? No, they're just seeing the headline and assuming whatever pet issue they have is true.

I don't see what's so evil about trying to be profitable. It's a corporation. They didn't start out trying to fix society of every ill.

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

#458

Post by rocketpastsix »

vimy wrote: post #123
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…

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.

I agree, which should also be terrifying.

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

#459

Post by rocketpastsix »

iammisc wrote: post #151
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…

The capitol police opened the doors. Nancy pelosi was offered help by the executive branch to help keep the protestors at bay. She refused.

uh... Nancy Pelosi has limited control with the Capitol Police. She can't call in the national guard, or DC police.

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

#460

Post by fieldcny »

jamestnz wrote: post #184
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…

> 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 rat…

There is no evidence that the media was part of the conspiracy, they just parroted the talking points and a few media outlets did heavily question the rationale.. the fact is both wars were hugely popular when they started so few listened.

This is not even close to a comparable situation to the social medial platforms, these platforms and democratized and weaponized mis-information. But it not just them, the ad-funded internet creates perverse incentives for views not truth, FB et al don’t care about truth they care about engagement, they know emotional touch points particularly angry drive engagement so their feeds optimize for that.

Our fractured society is just an emergent behavior from several complex systems with poor incentives, as such we need to find out a way to realign the incentives

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