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

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

#201

Post by sumtechguy » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 3:57 PM UTC

papito wrote: post #101

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…

Ooh! "Fake story", "mainstream US narratives", "discourse"! All the greatest hits. You forgot "alternative facts".

It has some of the earmarks of a something is up. You do not go from nobody to 60 min interviews that quick.

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

#202

Post by runawaybottle » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 3:57 PM UTC

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…

To add to your point, there’s not a soul in tech that ever went ‘I wonder if the results of this A/B test are ethical?’. Our industry is just not built with this sensibility, the same way Finance is not self-aware of greed.

If it makes money in Finance and meets regulatory guidelines, all is fair.

If it’s the optimal solution in tech, and doesn’t break laws or cause a noticeable usage drop-off, all is fair. When the FB algos drop engagement, we’ll see quasi-ethics from the company (perceptively to us, to them, it’ll just be an optimization).

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

#203

Post by BashiBazouk » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 3:57 PM UTC

Free speech is ugly. 4Chan is toxic, the now defunct Craigslist Rants and raves was a huge directory of toxic ugliness. Both with minimal moderation and no recommended feed. I don't think the toxic is going to magically disappear but what effect does the algorithm on your news feed have for making the problem worse? Would these people find each other anyway in any sort of functionally large numbers without the feed? Or is the feed really the problem?

And the larger question: how responsible do we want to hold companies for their algorithms when they have undesired effects?

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

#204

Post by mandmandam » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 3:57 PM UTC

epgui wrote: post #111

hunterb123 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Have you ever considered the possibility that people just don’t think what you’re saying makes sense?

Well, fuck those people. The lab-leak theory always made sense, and censoring it before the facts were in was criminal.

Taking away people's ability to discuss the issue on FB and Twitter effectively stifled hope for a timely independent investigation of the origins of the virus. This was done on the basis of really shitty science, from people with extreme conflict of interest.

The fact that Facebook deleted millions of lab leak related posts is obscene, and seeing people defend it is just so, so disheartening. What the fuck.

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

#205

Post by sam0x17 » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 3:57 PM UTC

ouid wrote: post #160

CheezeIt wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lib means liberal, and not in the sense of classic liberal.

Not if you mean "as the kids say". Sorry.

If you're involved in far-left movements on twitch and elsewhere, the kids definitely do say this and use liberal synonymously with centrist / to the right of the far left

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

#206

Post by thepasswordis » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 3:58 PM UTC

papito wrote: post #142

thepasswordis wrote: post #86

Something 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.

Okay I want to test this. Which politician's profile should I click on to start seeing what you're talking about?

I started out by clicking on Marjorie Tayler Green, Matt Gaetz, and Ron Desantis (I think these are some of the most inflammatory at least).

SO far I am still just seeing...ads for baby stuff, pictures of my friends going on vacation, and a foodies group in my city talking about where to get the best tacos or coffee.

Maybe that stuff could be coded right wing? For the food and travel, nobody is wearing any masks or doing any quarantining or anything at this point? Is that what you're talking about? That's what my feed looks like all the time.

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

#207

Post by jelliclesfarm » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 3:58 PM UTC

spywaregorilla wrote: post #183

yodsanklai wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I do want Facebook harmed So much hate... Has Facebook really caused that much suffering to you? Seriously, just don't use it if you don't like it. For most people, it's just a social network where they post innocuous stories and stay connected with their friends.

And for others, it radicalizes them to conspiracy theories. "Just don't use it" isn't nice advice when you're mom's become an antivaxxer because facebook kept telling her about it and made it seem like local common consensus.

Ok. Maybe your mom shouldn’t use it.

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

#208

Post by AzzieElbab » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 3:58 PM UTC

jokowueu wrote: post #41

AzzieElbab wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Both are a problem

It is a recursive problem when you take into account how much power journalists have in shaping and vetting content on social media. As an example, this is why half of you in the US think that COVID has 50% hospitalization rate, while the other half thinks masks are entirely useless.

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

#209

Post by xeyownt » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 3:58 PM UTC

yodsanklai wrote: post #159

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…

> I do want Facebook harmed So much hate... Has Facebook really caused that much suffering to you? Seriously, just don't use it if you don't like it. For most people, it's just a social network where they post innocuous stories and stay connected with their friends.

It is not about the suffering that FB is causing to him, but more to people and democracy in general. You can be harmed even if you don't use FB.

Safe harbor is acceptable for websites whose social interaction is not the core business or is just a passive add-on, but FB must be held responsible of all the consequences of hate speech and disinformation on their platform because their algorithms are promoting them.

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

#210

Post by InsomniacL » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 3:59 PM UTC

Personally I believe this all boils down to 'Platform Lock-in'.

I have to use Facebook because everybody I know uses Facebook. Just like when I was younger I preferred Playstation but had to buy an Xbox because all my friends had Xbox.

Nowa days we have CrossPlay across platforms.

If I could use a social media platform which has an approach to Privacy I prefer, while still being able to view my friends social integrations (who care less about Privacy but prefer more customised content) on another platform, that would solve these issues.

Legal agreements could prevent the processing of data by platform owners by other platforms or even some sort of E2EE with metadata tags.