First-world notions of harm really need to be reigned in
Whistleblower to Congress: Facebook products harm kids and democracy
141–150 of 719 posts
Re: Whistleblower to Congress: Facebook products harm kids and democracy
#142Something about this just feels really "off" to me. This is a "whistleblower" who is blowing the whistle on facebook not doing enough to control how you think. I don't want facebook or twitter or reddit or anybody else deciding what it's okay for me to talk about or think about. I gather that this woman does, but the framing that she is just "whistleblowing" is absurd to me. It's also extremely weird to me that she's…
Facebook already controls what you think about. Just clicking on some Republican politician's profile will hurl you into the world of anti-vaxxers and sedition trutherism.
Re: Whistleblower to Congress: Facebook products harm kids and democracy
#143I like to imagine there are a bunch of Facebook Homefeed engineers out there who ran dozens experiments, tuning this-and-that, and found the ones that boosted revenue, and user engagement by X%. No one thought too deeply at _why_ some experiments were successful. Perhaps it was chalked up as "our new ML model is matching users to content they care about more efficiently". Then they shipped it, and everyone celebrated their success.
My theory is that experiment dashboards, data visualizations, and "metrics" allow employees to almost fully disassociate from their product, and the end users. Engineers at large companies don't need to use, or even be familiar with the products they spend all day building. Yes, leadership and small pockets (researchers) can see the full picture. Everyone else stays willfully in the dark, doesn't look too closely, and clocks out at 5 happy because their dashboards look good.
Re: Whistleblower to Congress: Facebook products harm kids and democracy
#144I find it weird for a whistleblower to be so "lib", as the kids say. She said she 'loves' Facebook, and wants to fix it, not harm it. I don't want Facebook fixed and I do want Facebook harmed. I don't want the government to meddle with what types of things people can say online, I want them to ban the business model of stalking people online and selling intimate details of their lives. If the problem is Facebook choo…
>I want them to ban the business model of stalking people online and selling intimate details of their lives.
I don't consider that harming Facebook specifically. Actually your position is more lib (assuming you meant libertarian) than hers.
Re: Whistleblower to Congress: Facebook products harm kids and democracy
#145The unity of coverage from every corner on this is disconcerting. Words like "Orchestrated" and "kabuki" keep battering at me as i look through the headlines.
Today:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/oct/04/facebook-...
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/10/05/technology/facebook-...
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/live/2021/oct/05/face...
https://www.npr.org/2021/10/05/1043207218/whistleblower-to-c...
Yesterday:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-whistleblower-frances-...
https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/3/22707860/facebook-whistle...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/03/technology/whistle-blower...
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/facebook-whistleblower-misinfor...
https://www.protocol.com/bulletins/frances-haugen-facebook-i...
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/04/facebook-whistleblower-revea...
https://thenextweb.com/news/facebook-whistleblower-frances-h...
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/facebook-whistleblower-frances-...
https://gizmodo.com/9-horrifying-facts-from-the-facebook-whi...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/04/technology/facebook-files...
...I'm not even trying to be comprehensive or anything.
If Jesus, John Lennon, and Richard Nixon performed a public gangbang in Times Square to announce the existence of an afterlife, it would probably not get this kind of press coverage. This is propaganda of the first water.
Re: Whistleblower to Congress: Facebook products harm kids and democracy
#146WhatsApp needs to be taken away from WhatsApp. It is more important to worldwide communication than SMS
Re: Whistleblower to Congress: Facebook products harm kids and democracy
#147Some "whistleblower" - seems to think big tech doesn't do enough censorship :p Talk about a wolf in sheeps clothing.
The recurring argument she makes is just that stop using algorithmic content discovery that optimizes engagement because it correlates so strongly with extremism. You could almost get rid of all moderation and just go to chronological and it would improve the public health dimension.
Re: Whistleblower to Congress: Facebook products harm kids and democracy
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
Whistleblowers are anti-authoritarian, which is typically a right wing/conservative position in contemporary politics. To the people downvoting me here: can you list some figures who have been protesting authoritarianism who are left-coded in contemporary American society? I'm thinking of wikileaks, edward snowden, glenn greenwald. These people have all been "accused" of being right wingers. The people protesting loc…
Isn't anti-authoritarian typically considered a leftist position? So the opposite of what you are saying?
Each "team" accuses the other of being authoritarian. So, when blue team is in charge, the reds think of themselves as anti-authoritarian. When red team is in charge, the blues think of themselves as anti-authoritarian. Basically, it's a rhetorical ploy to gain a few cheap points: When the side in charge does something you don't like, just call them "authoritarians," and your cause, whatever it is, becomes more appealing.
Re: Whistleblower to Congress: Facebook products harm kids and democracy
#149So, what happens when we replace "Facebook" with Rock n Roll, DnD, Witchcraft, "Free Love"
Re: Whistleblower to Congress: Facebook products harm kids and democracy
#150The 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…
There's an even simpler solution: ban free social media. Require each platform to charge a minimum of $x/user/year. You remove kids by default (no credit card/bank card), and the focus of product managers is less on driving addictive browsing, and more on driving renewals (presumably through quality features, content, and fostering community). The customer is no longer the advertisers (or shady Governmental data scra…
That would also drive many people into realizing that they do not need any social media at all. That's a good policy. However, foreign companies may decide that they don't care about US laws because they have no US employees or assets.