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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

#351

Post by quotemstr »

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…

Let's be honest. What a lot of establishment types want out of FB is just censoring their political opponents harder. This business about algorithmic manipulation, once you pierce a few levels of narrative, is about only that: the establishment is pissed that FB's engagement algorithm is showing people things that the kind of person who edits major newspaper pages doesn't want the general public to see.

We live in one of those periods in history when elite sentiment has disconnected itself from the experience of regular people. (Martin Gurri's recent book "The Revolt of the Public" is a brilliant examination of this subject.)

I'm convinced that the recent animus against Facebook is rooted, deep down, in how FB disintermediates regular people from content and cuts out a class of elite gatekeeper who's accustomed to determining the truth.

This is a second Reformation, and all the seriously-worded editorials about the dangers of FB misinformation are just priests annoyed that regular people can now read the Bible in the vernacular. Everything old is new again.

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

#352

Post by mgraczyk »

calrueb wrote: post #323
mgraczyk wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked on the things you mentioned at Instagram, doing the tuning this-and-that for about a year on a few different surfaces including the home feed. You are right that for the most part, people look at metrics and make decisions about what to ship, and only the best engineers and data scientists spend time thinking about the actual product. However, you're wrong about what metrics are important. Since at least ear…

Appreciate the insights. It makes sense that this class of metrics have made it into the decision making process, and I am glad it is happening. The two concerns that come to mind without deeply understanding the problem is that: 1) Measuring a qualitative, nebulous metric like "wellbeing" (which could mean different things for different people) is likely very hard to do right 2) In my experience, things tend to move…

Yes, wellbeing is a very hard thing to measure. I didn't work on it directly so I can't really weigh in on the high level philosophy, but the general strategy seems to be to measure a lot of things.

As for the holdouts, people do revisit the holdouts extremely often. I'd say Instagram does holdouts better than any other place I'm familiar with (better than most of Facebook). For higher level engineers and product managers (5-6 +), the holdouts are one of the biggest signals for performance review.

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

#353

Post by GoodJokes »

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…

Yes, this is why I think this is another last ditch pr op for Facebook. Who seriously believes someone that says a something is harmful to kids and democracy and then also says, I want to keep this thing.

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

#354

Post by KingMachiavelli »

handrous wrote: post #84
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 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…

It's not the same at all. You are certainly allowed to give someone permission to 'stalk' you in exchange for money, a service, etc. Stalking is only illegal because that person "doesn't" have your permission. Lots of normal & legal activities are only illegal outside of a contract.

There is also a ton of precedent for 'passive' tracking. Security cameras, dash cams, etc. all record stuff that is in plain view. The issue is that browsers send identifiable fingerprints on purpose to websites you visit. Facebook isn't collecting anything you aren't legally sending it.

The issue is >90% of the internet uses this business model so there is no incentive or point to make a mechanism that actually just blocks websites that have this business model since it would be unusable for 99% of people.

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

#355

Post by joelbluminator »

nullityrofl wrote: post #342
joelbluminator wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where does it end though? Probably Brad Pitt and Elon Musk and Justin Bieber make a lot of people feel bad about their lives. Should media just stop reporting about them?

There have been a lot of people advocating for the death of the cult of celebrity and the narcissism it breeds in society, so maybe yes?

I am not against I am just saying there is no legal base to make an example out of Facebook when our entire culture operates the same way.

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

#356

Post by incahoots »

stickfigure wrote: post #94
incahoots wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dismantle social media entirely. Last few years have proven that we cannot function as a forward thinking society when memes are believed over proper sourced science. Warning labels are proof enough that folks cannot be left to their own devices.

> Dismantle social media entirely. You mean, stop allowing people to communicate with each other?

Solid reply by taking what I said to the extreme. Phone, text, email, etc aren't social media...but you knew that already.

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

#357

Post by gorwell »

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 had the same feeling that it doesn't quite add up. The use of the term `whistleblower` has been dubious from the start with little to no new information, she just admitted to only deciding to come forward after facebook dissolved her team, and it appears that she's being advised by a political firm.

"Frances Haugen, the former Facebook employee who has for the past 10 months fed internal documents to a top Wall Street Journal reporter, and who revealed her identity in a primetime broadcast on Sunday, is working with the political consultant and former Obama administration deputy press secretary Bill Burton and his consulting firm, Bryson Gillette."

https://freebeacon.com/politics/top-democratic-operative-bil...

Further, the media and government are fully onboard. Contrast all of this with Snowden.

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

#358

Post by apozem »

trutannus wrote: post #22
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…

> Require ID verification I'll pass on putting my personal ID in the hands of an organization that sells data as a business . No matter how many flimsy laws they put in place to ban selling my PII, you'd have to be born yesterday to think that won't just delay the sale this new treasure-trove of information.

I’m not a Facebook fan, but it is incorrect to say they sell data. They collect data, build a profile of you and your interests and sell access to your eyeballs to advertisers.

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

#359

Post by yawaworht1978 »

Every single non technical person I have spoken to has not the slightest idea about the data collection or even the business model. When told about it, the concern is minimal. The only ones who got infuriated were the ones where someone else logged into their accounts. Even showed some real data from breaches, like mobile numbers, still no concern, they'd typically say "well i gave them my number". The issue is so profound, there is no easy fix here, I am afraid.

Hilariously, they do sometimes ask me "what is this?" When an add pops up or they accidentally click on one. They also ask why they get this and that email.

I have also seen highly educated people buying into misleading propaganda or even straight up conspiracy theories seen on Facebook.

The only benefit these users have is to watch other people's images and upload some themselves.

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

#360

Post by tqi »

wolfram74 wrote: post #147
EricE wrote: post #3

Some "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.

"stop using algorithmic content discovery that optimizes engagement because it correlates so strongly with extremism"

Is there a meaningful difference between what Newsfeed is doing vs what the news director at say Fox News, MSNBC, et al?

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