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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

#191

Post by LurkingPenguin »

pueblito wrote: post #157
LurkingPenguin wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Make stalking at scale the same as stalking by creeping in the bushes outside someone's house or following them around town. Tracking everything people do isn't a "business model"—it's a crime. But the government benefits from Facebook (and Google's) stalking ability. Another recent example from HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28747699

> But the government benefits from Facebook (and Google's) stalking ability. That doesn’t make it ok

Who said it did?

What this does mean is that it's highly unlikely the government is going to do what the OP suggested. Facebook et. al. are the honeypots of dreams for governments.

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

#192

Post by gorwell »

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?

The idea that authoritarians exist only in one wing has long been a misunderstanding and an ideological blindspot that is now smacking us in the face. The Atlantic recently did a good piece on this, noting that there are common traits between left-wing and right-wing authoritarians, including a “preference for social uniformity, prejudice towards different others, willingness to wield group authority to coerce behavior, cognitive rigidity, aggression and punitiveness towards perceived enemies, outsized concern for hierarchy, and moral absolutism.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/09/psychologi...

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

#193

Post by reilly3000 »

calrueb wrote: post #143

I 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…

Absolutely. Aggregates are the enemy of insights in many many cases.

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

#194

Post by titzer »

runawaybottle wrote: post #154
titzer wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most organizations do not like whistleblower types. No matter how right or noble you think you are/were, institutions hate accusations of malfeasance and scrutiny and will just pass on you. It's definitely a career-limiting move to go up against any big thing.

She’ll get a book deal, it’ll be okay. I’m certain she thought this through and has political connections that she made deals with. Remember, attacking social media is the same as when politicians sit around and debate Abortion. It’s mostly a non-issue (in the way Roe v Wade won’t ever be overturned, but will always be a discussion point to pretend like you are doing something without doing anything). Politicians won…

I don't really disagree with what you wrote, but it is pretty defeatist.

> The business model straight works, and money talks.

Yeah, well, so did slave labor for most of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries in America. People had to rise up and demand change that went against money. Until our collective greed abates or society comes unraveled, I guess we'll have to just sit around glued to our screens like the helpless pawns they want us to be.

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

#195

Post by sam0x17 »

handrous wrote: post #163
LurkingPenguin wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Make stalking at scale the same as stalking by creeping in the bushes outside someone's house or following them around town. Tracking everything people do isn't a "business model"—it's a crime. But the government benefits from Facebook (and Google's) stalking ability. Another recent example from HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28747699

Oh, I know. Which is why it'll never happen, and why the "message" (as in McLuhan) of the medium of the Internet is authoritarianism.

Saying it will never happen and doing nothing to help it happen is the first step to ensuring it will never happen.

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

#196

Post by ryandrake »

colinmhayes wrote: post #82
roody15 wrote: post #31

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 an…

This was absolutely unknown to probably at least 90% of the people who use facebook. People on HN largely don't use facebook from what I can tell because they've seen all this stuff that facebook does.

Yea, I like to think of my [becoming elderly] parents. They didn't know any of this stuff. I've tried to explain the harms of social media to them but it's tough to do that without deep-diving into algorithm tech-talk, and without the recently divulged evidence you sound like a raving conspiracy theorist. Now, it's being explained in plain language in front of Congress, and on "60 Minutes" which targets their generation directly, and, although I haven't talked to them since, I guarantee they get it now.

Remember how long it took to mainstream the idea that cigarettes were bad for you? "We all knew it" for a long time, but it didn't become genuine shared cultural knowledge until long after it was well known.

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

#198

Post by ogaitnas »

epgui wrote: post #53

The comments section looks like a grade 11 class. Not everything is about “controlling” you, not everything is a “fake narrative”, the world isn’t out to censor you, and no, not every form of censorship is bad. Yes censorship is a slippery slope, but so is intellectual laziness.

Yea there is a ton of Facebook cheerleaders and apologists coming out of the woodwork today.

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

#199

Post by Leparamour »

nyolfen wrote: post #98
anonymouswacker wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strategically speaking, it may be wise for her career prospects & image to appear like she is still loyal to the Corp.

she was not a technical employee, and she will be set for life in ngo, media, or political career fields. facebook has many enemies. she has probably correctly calculated that she will not actually suffer any negative consequences for this; good for her

Book deal and Oprah interview likely coming soon.

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

#200

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

roody15 wrote: post #31

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 an…

In what way could this be possibly be “a fake story?” Do you not believe that it happened? Or is she making stuff up? Or do you just mean that people don’t really actually care about the topic? Or because it’s not previously unknown, it’s too late and public interest is supposed to move on to other topics now?

The initial bombshell was around instagram’s affect on teen girls mental health, so calling it an attempt to force FB to kowtow to the US on covid seems like some deep 4D chess conspiracy idea. And calling it fake is ridiculous rhetoric.

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