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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

#251
> Haugen will urge lawmakers to take action to rein in Facebook, because, she says, it won't do so on its own. "The company's leadership knows ways to make Facebook and Instagram safer and won't make the necessary changes because they have put their immense profits before people," she will say.

Very curious to hear what those necessary changes are.

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

#252
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

If it "didn't make sense" they wouldn't have to ban it. They ban simple questions when people are looking for answers. They banned the Hunter laptop story even when the emails were DKIM verified and his business partner came out against him. Look who they protect through these bans. They protect Biden, China, the establishment party. Do they ever try to protect YOU? No.

The premise that good ideas that make sense end up winning is unfortunately false. Many bad ideas tend to have a remarkably long half-life, and generally they can exhibit much greater virality at the network level.

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

#253
post #212

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.

(only explaining, not expressing any political beliefs here) Leftist internet slang for holding a centrist opinion at all costs based on the common belief that the current democratic establishment and its supporters spend too much time trying to please or listen to both sides and reach a compromise even when one side is expressing ridiculous or fascist opinions.

Put succinctly, "not being leftist enough"

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

#254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 choosing profits over public good, then cut off the profits. This is obvious. Bingo. Make stalking at scale the same as stalking by cree…

> Tracking everything people do isn't a "business model"—it's a crime. Um, no it's not?

I believe that handrous's point is that it should be illegal, not that it currently is.

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

#255

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…

This isn't even close to being true. For example, when we ran A/B tests at Instagram, we would often dig into the results with breakdowns by important protected demographics. Engineers and data scientists who cared about justice would go out of their way to build tools and spend time ensuring that "good" changes didn't adversely affect small groups which were hard to measure.

I personally ran analysis like this to detect high and unexpected latency on people with cheaper cell phones (disproportionately minorities in the US). The results of my analysis led to changes that reduced this disparity (although the changes were minor and helpful for other reasons).

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

#256

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…

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…

How would you stop prepaid debit cards? In this country a child can get one attached to their kids bank account, themselves, from the age of 11. Admitedly there's an audit trail, but I'm not sure it blocks as many kids as you think it would.

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

#257
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…

What is so fake about this story?

When was the last time that a 'whistleblower' was interviewed on prime time TV?

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

#258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 choosing profits over public good, then cut off the profits. This is obvious. Bingo. Make stalking at scale the same as stalking by cree…

> Tracking everything people do isn't a "business model"—it's a crime. Could you point me to a law that codifies this as crime? I have yet to see convincing proof of widespread or significant harm caused by tracking/retargeting. These arguments always seem to rely on hyperbole and redefining terms and norms. No, I don’t work at FB. No, I don’t work in digital advertising.

I think you are misreading the parent comments. The authors are saying they believe it should be a crime, that the action is bad enough that it should be criminal.

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

#259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 choosing profits over public good, then cut off the profits. This is obvious. Bingo. Make stalking at scale the same as stalking by cree…

> Tracking everything people do isn't a "business model"—it's a crime. Could you point me to a law that codifies this as crime? I have yet to see convincing proof of widespread or significant harm caused by tracking/retargeting. These arguments always seem to rely on hyperbole and redefining terms and norms. No, I don’t work at FB. No, I don’t work in digital advertising.

Congress can, and should, make it a crime.

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

#260
post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it "didn't make sense" they wouldn't have to ban it. They ban simple questions when people are looking for answers. They banned the Hunter laptop story even when the emails were DKIM verified and his business partner came out against him. Look who they protect through these bans. They protect Biden, China, the establishment party. Do they ever try to protect YOU? No.

The premise that good ideas that make sense end up winning is unfortunately false. Many bad ideas tend to have a remarkably long half-life, and generally they can exhibit much greater virality at the network level.

You fight misinformation with more information, not censorship.

Unless you're saying other people are so stupid we need to control their content so they can make the right choices?

At that moment, let's just keep everyone in a jail cell so they don't hurt themselves.

Who is the arbiter of truth? The government? You?

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