Live data from Hacker News

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

wsj.com

471–480 of 627 posts

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

#471
post #93
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Costco is my go to example. It seems to treat its employees really well.

How do you think Costco gets a fresh banana from South America to your local store for 20 cents?

By taking a cut of the sale price of the banana as margin to cover it's costs and profits, and then passing the rest down the supply chain to Some Banana Company?

Flipping your question around, why does the banana cost 20 cents and not 5 cents? Where do you think the upward pressure on the price comes from?

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

#472
post #448

>Frances Haugen: So, you know, you have your phone. You might see only 100 pieces of content if you sit and scroll on for, you know, five minutes. But Facebook has thousands of options it could show you. >The algorithm picks from those options based on the kind of content you've engaged with the most in the past. This is the primary reason I stopped using Facebook. I did everything I could to signal I did not wish to…

Have always been curious why people use Facebook. Personally I don't believe most of my life should ever concern most of my connections(to be clear, the people I know and know me too), so don't event mention those I've no idea who. I know quite a few people who will take pictures of what ever they are doing and share. They might think they are doing something fancy, I can get that. But, how does that concern other pe…

> Have always been curious why people use Facebook.

It used to be a great communication tool via "Facebook Groups", then people moved to other platforms and our groups lost their critical mass, and all gone silent. In these days I'm just occasionally sharing photos I'm taking with an international group of friends for showing each other nice things.

It also reminds some birthdays to me, so that's nice.

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

#473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is how i think of it: Put people in an fMRI machine while reading and interacting with the facebook feed of a celebrity, or person that they dont have personal connection with Then show people the feed of their friends or family Then force facebook to change its algorithms until the two fMRI readings show similar level of activation of key areas in limbic system The real power of facebook is that it exploits the…

You're putting a lot of faith in the accuracy of fMRI there.

could use other physiological signals, heart rate, nerves etc

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

#474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There are a lot of contradictory ideas out there, sometimes it is important to let children make mistakes, it is not easy as a parent to sometimes do nothing.

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

#475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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-funde…

> the fact is both wars were hugely popular when they started

That was the case in Afghanistan, but not in Iraq. There were significant protests against the planned invasion.

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

#476
post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aside from the mountains of odorless excrement I started seeing on facebook, this was the other reason I quit. It became unusable because once I scrolled past something it was next to impossible to find it again by either scrolling up or searching. Instead of seeing what people were up to I started seeing things they thought would keep me on the platform for as long as possible. Looking at it now, at least to me, it…

I'm curious if when most people say they "quit" Facebook they removed their account or if they just stopped using it. It feels like most people I know has stopped using it, except for messenger, but almost no-one has actually removed or closed down their account.

I, for one, naturally lost interest and stopped using it many years ago and deleted completey last year, along with Instagram and many other social platforms.

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

#477

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.

Well, same applies to YouTube. Most of the ads I get in the past 6 months are absolutely borderline scam.

Install ublock origin. No ads. Think of it as anti-malware for the web.

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

#478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Same with Twitter.

On Twitter you can just switch off the algorithm and see all posts from the accounts you follow in chronological order.

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

#479
post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let’s wait and see how that works in China before doing it ourselves, too.

I think we can maintain individual rights trivially while still sending people to jail who threaten to murder people. Other lines can be carefully drawn. The idea that if we regulate harmful behavior AT ALL we will suddenly enact 1984 seems thoughtless.

> I think we can maintain individual rights trivially while still sending people to jail who threaten to murder people.

Yes, we do that now.

> Other lines can be carefully drawn.

I challenge you to draw a careful line for what is considered “harmful crap”. If you think you can do this, you are most likely a person who sees everything in black and white, and we don’t want people like that enforcing laws or policies.

Post reply on HN