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Whistleblower to Congress: Facebook products harm kids and democracy

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Re: Whistleblower to Congress: Facebook products harm kids and democracy

#31

Post by roody15 »

To me this is a fake story being promoted as a way to further a political narrative.

Nothing the whistleblower has revealed is shocking or previously unknown. Yes facebook tweaks an algorithm on your news feed to drive engagement and make money.

Yes facebook allows some content that some would consider not to align with mainstream US narratives.

My two cents this is an attempt to force facebook to kowtow to the US and follow googles lead in stopping “unapproved” discourse on topics dealing with covid among others.

Re: Whistleblower to Congress: Facebook products harm kids and democracy

#32

Post by Broken_Hippo »

hunterb123 wrote: post #11
Joker_vD wrote: post #5

Wow, what a headline, "can someone please think of the children?" and "we must protect our democracy!" combined into one. Well, I guess it's a good tactics to say something like that to the Congress to kinda force them to do something.

Should have heard the "whistleblower" on 60 minutes. Facebook is causing ethnic cleansing she said, lol. I didn't realize Facebook was so popular in China, that's the only place I know of ethnic cleansing being carried out. This is clearly orchestrated to get FB to censor more. Twitter has already fallen in line completely, that's why they are off the radar even though they are 1000% more toxic and teenagers are more…

So, you missed the news about Myanmar? Or the stories about the First Nation children being found in graves outside of schools (and this is recent, not something from 100 years ago)? Or children being taken from their parents at the US border and 'losing' the records in order to reunite them?

I'm sure there are more, but these were the examples I could think of from the top of my head.

Re: Whistleblower to Congress: Facebook products harm kids and democracy

#33

Post by btmiller »

convexfunction wrote: post #21

The clearest take I've seen on this: https://www.piratewires.com/p/bombshell The money quote, in my opinion: > The thing is, we’re not really asking for Facebook to control itself, we’re asking Facebook to control other people.

But they are the ones that have enabled the mass accessibility of many-to-many communication. That should come with great responsibility.

Re: Whistleblower to Congress: Facebook products harm kids and democracy

#34

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

trutannus wrote: post #22
fighterpilot wrote: post #12

The two best ideas I've heard: - Require age verification by law and ban kids from using it. We ban kids from alcohol we should ban them from this. - Require ID verification by law but allow people to use a fake name. Fixes the bots issue and the kid depression issue. The market isn't going to get there by itself because of competition. If insta implements this then they lose market share to snap. So there's a strong…

> Require ID verification I'll pass on putting my personal ID in the hands of an organization that sells data as a business . No matter how many flimsy laws they put in place to ban selling my PII, you'd have to be born yesterday to think that won't just delay the sale this new treasure-trove of information.

>I'll pass on putting my personal ID in the hands of an organization that sells data as a business.

I see this as a win for society. The more friction we insert and the more people are discouraged to join these ad-ware social networks the better.

Re: Whistleblower to Congress: Facebook products harm kids and democracy

#35

Post by dylan604 »

fighterpilot wrote: post #12

The two best ideas I've heard: - Require age verification by law and ban kids from using it. We ban kids from alcohol we should ban them from this. - Require ID verification by law but allow people to use a fake name. Fixes the bots issue and the kid depression issue. The market isn't going to get there by itself because of competition. If insta implements this then they lose market share to snap. So there's a strong…

Kids are still able to buy alcohol by having other people do it for them. They also steal it. During a house break in, the police will often ask if any alcohol is missing which is a tell tale that teenagers were involved.

Kids are not simple, and will often out wit the adults in order to do things they want to do. It amazes me how adults seem to forget the things they did as teenagers, and maybe if they were actually goody two-shoe teenagers they had to have known what shenanigans other teens got up to. Pretty much the whole point of being a teenager is seeing what one can get away with by whatever means necessary.

Edit: some people are reading too much into this. no where did I suggest don't do x because of y. However, if you think x is a perfect solve, you need to be reminded that y can still happen. solving for y is always a problem

Re: Whistleblower to Congress: Facebook products harm kids and democracy

#36

Post by AzzieElbab »

option wrote: post #6
EricE wrote: post #3

Some "whistleblower" - seems to think big tech doesn't do enough censorship :p Talk about a wolf in sheeps clothing.

this isn’t about censorship. It is about newsfeed algorithms which optimize “engagement”. As it turns out negative, controversial and divisive stuff is more engaging.

you realize that most controversial, negative and divisive stuff is pushed by corporate media 24/7, right?

Re: Whistleblower to Congress: Facebook products harm kids and democracy

#37

Post by ratww »

endisneigh wrote: post #7

What's the solution tho?

I mean, just respecting users who don't want to use algorithms would be a start.

Does the chronological option still exist in Facebook? It was broken-on-purpose for YEARS, you'd set it and then it would get reverted in the next visit.

Re: Whistleblower to Congress: Facebook products harm kids and democracy

#38

Post by brendoelfrendo »

hunterb123 wrote: post #11
Joker_vD wrote: post #5

Wow, what a headline, "can someone please think of the children?" and "we must protect our democracy!" combined into one. Well, I guess it's a good tactics to say something like that to the Congress to kinda force them to do something.

Should have heard the "whistleblower" on 60 minutes. Facebook is causing ethnic cleansing she said, lol. I didn't realize Facebook was so popular in China, that's the only place I know of ethnic cleansing being carried out. This is clearly orchestrated to get FB to censor more. Twitter has already fallen in line completely, that's why they are off the radar even though they are 1000% more toxic and teenagers are more…

She was probably talking about the cleansing of the Rohingya people in Myanmar, where their military did use Facebook as a propaganda tool. Facebook is dominant in Myanmar and almost synonymous with the internet there.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebo...

Re: Whistleblower to Congress: Facebook products harm kids and democracy

#39

Post by hunterb123 »

option wrote: post #19
deft wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is about censorship. The Biden admin has repeatedly made it obvious they don't think FB etc are deleting enough and the feds will have to step in soon.

I agree that Biden admin is all about censorship. But, after watching her interview, it doesn’t look to me that this whistleblower is.

It seemed like that to me, that's why she spit out everything from harming girls self esteem to ethnic cleansing accusations.

She's not a "whistleblower", she's a planted pawn.

Facebook hosts user content, they should just come out and say they want to censor user content.

If this teenager study is so damning and sound, why aren't we asking ALL social media services to disallow children/teens?

Why only focus on the content? (because it's not about the children)

Re: Whistleblower to Congress: Facebook products harm kids and democracy

#40

Post by mrfusion »

fighterpilot wrote: post #12

The two best ideas I've heard: - Require age verification by law and ban kids from using it. We ban kids from alcohol we should ban them from this. - Require ID verification by law but allow people to use a fake name. Fixes the bots issue and the kid depression issue. The market isn't going to get there by itself because of competition. If insta implements this then they lose market share to snap. So there's a strong…

I keep saying this but it is so bizarre to me that our knee jerk reaction it to regulate and blame users.

Let’s try regulating the problem corporation first.

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