Whistleblower to Congress: Facebook products harm kids and democracy • Hacker News Board

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

#171

Post by titzer » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 3:52 PM UTC

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…

How about, reset market valuation to something reasonable, instead of speculators pushing the stock price to insane levels of overvaluation, justifying every dirty trick in the book to justify said price speculation? Do we really need to dump hundreds of billions of dollars into a couple of chat and picture-sharing apps? Especially when said pile of junk spies on your every move, every preference, and ultimately, every waking moment? It's almost as if the market did not deliver a good outcome for anything but investors.

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

#172

Post by kypro » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 3:52 PM UTC

thepasswordis wrote: post #79

meowface wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I find it weird for a whistleblower to be so "lib", as the kids say. What do you mean? I don't follow the latest slang, but I would've assumed this would mean "liberal", except I don't see what that would have to do with the rest of what you said.

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…

I think you're being downvoted because historically anti-authoritarianism has been associated with the left and that was where I always found myself politically. However, these days I would agree that a lot of people who consider themselves "anti-authoritarianism" are on the right.

I don't think this is what OC meant though, but I've certainly found over the last few years my anti-authoritarianism positions have had me accused of being right wing -- supporting the brexit vote, being in favour of freespeech, opposing mandated government lockdowns, etc.

I'd also add that there are probably two fractions of right-wing thought today: the "establishment/republican" right-wing and the new "right-wing", as you say, people like, Glenn Greenwald, Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, Russel Brand, etc. It's the latter group I think you're referring to specifically.

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

#173

Post by suzzer99 » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 3:52 PM UTC

jugg1es wrote: post #63

I hope that the conversation about this turns into a discussion about the business model of Facebook and most other social media sites that are designed around maximizing engagement for advertising revenue. I realize the difference between buying advertisements for extremely popular television (like the super bowl) and buying advertisements targeting specific demographics on facebook is very subtle. But there is a di…

Same here. I think in 10-20 years the world will have come to the conclusion that blind algorithms to drive engagement are just too dangerous. Perhaps similar to how we eventually came to the conclusion that all cars should be required to have seatbelts.

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

#174

Post by kbenson » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 3:52 PM UTC

ouid wrote: post #77

meowface wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I find it weird for a whistleblower to be so "lib", as the kids say. What do you mean? I don't follow the latest slang, but I would've assumed this would mean "liberal", except I don't see what that would have to do with the rest of what you said.

libertarian, I believe, but if OC answers differently you can ignore this comment. There's some downvoting that I don't understand here. If the parent comment is referring to modern slang, lib is a ray on the political compass "lib/auth" "righ/left".

"lib/auth" is very easy to read as a rephrasing of liberal/conservative to liberal/authoritarian (even after you say libertarian above) as that's a comparison some of the far left seem to be trying to promote, but I understand you mean libertarian/authoritarian. Such is the problem of shortened words in a domain where there are very similarly spelled terms.

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

#175

Post by arbitrage » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 3:52 PM UTC

InsomniacL wrote: post #114

chmsky00 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not “unknown” to technologists. How it all works is very unknown to the average parent. This thread seems to think the government needs to function with the logic of this thread in mind. Pretty entitled to believe you’re the only perspective worth listening to. Any individual is just “one of seven billion.” Shut the computers off and what perspective do you have that puts you above anyone else?

I found your post hard to follow overall. For example, who does this apply to and why? > Pretty entitled to believe you’re the only perspective worth listening to.

I mean it's fairly well laid out of a topic.

Which part specifically are you having trouble with?

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

#176

Post by Leparamour » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 3:53 PM UTC

lexapro wrote: post #113

thepasswordis wrote: post #79

Earlier 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?

Not necessarily. What you're thinking of is probably anarchism.

Leftists can favour authoritarianism just as much as right-wing types. The difference is usually just between MY "good" authoritarianism vs. YOUR "bad" authoritarianism. In my opinion this "whistleblower" and democrat donor's call for more censorship is anything but anti-authoritarian.

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

#177

Post by sobellian » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 3:53 PM UTC

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…

It seems to me that children "get" the problem with Facebook & Instagram better than their parents. To quote an 11-year old boy speaking with FB internal research, "Facebook is for old people."[1] Maybe we should implement an age ceiling on use of social media!

1: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/04/technology/facebook-files...

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

#178

Post by nly » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 3:53 PM UTC

Mizza wrote: post #45

I 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…

The thing in the way of getting what you want is that the US Government loves stalking its citizens. Facebook is a great resurce for them.

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

#179

Post by gibrown » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 3:53 PM UTC

thepasswordis wrote: post #79

meowface wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I find it weird for a whistleblower to be so "lib", as the kids say. What do you mean? I don't follow the latest slang, but I would've assumed this would mean "liberal", except I don't see what that would have to do with the rest of what you said.

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…

> To the people downvoting me here: can you list some figures who have been protesting authoritarianism who are left-coded in contemporary American society?

Martin Luther King.

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

#180

Post by kmonsen » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 3:53 PM UTC

willcipriano wrote: post #134

lexapro wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't anti-authoritarian typically considered a leftist position? So the opposite of what you are saying?

Depends on who currently is the authoritarian. Left wing authoritarians make right wing anti-authoritarians and vice versa.

I think this is obviously the right answer. There have clearly been left wing avd right wing authoritarians in history. These days in, western countries at least, most authoritarian are right wing. Trump and the conservative party in the UK being the clearest examples.

I define here authoritarian as someone who is decreasing democracy and transparency. Not caring if they do it for the right or wrong reasons.

Also clearly all leaders are a bit authoritarian, Obama did sine things as did Blair. But it pales in degree to the current leaders.