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

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

#431

Post by BoxOfRain » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 4:50 PM UTC

_ivvf wrote: post #184

ryandrake wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Each "team" accuses the other of being authoritarian. So, when blue team is in charge, the reds think of themselves as anti-authoritarian. When red team is in charge, the blues think of themselves as anti-authoritarian. Basically, it's a rhetorical ploy to gain a few cheap points: When the side in charge does something you don't like, just call them "authoritarians," and your cause, whatever it is, becomes more appea…

Except what you are saying is not really true. Most conservatives want to reduce government power, not extend it. The left, on the other hand, universally wants to extend government reach. I would recommend reading "The Authoritarian Moment" which goes into detail as to how the left are basically winning: https://www.amazon.com/Authoritarian-Moment-Weaponized-Ameri... To quote from the book's introduction: "There are…

There's entire schools of left-wing thought that are deeply anti-authoritarian, many types of anarchism for instance are deeply rooted in collectivist ideology. There's also all manner of socialist schools of thought that favour strong degrees of civil liberties. The kind of Enlightenment-era ideologies that many modern Western democracies build their very foundations on today would have been considered radical, uncompromising left-wing zealotry by the hereditary nobility and strict social elitism they attempted with various degrees of success to overthrow.

Political ideologies in general are much more varied and in my opinion much more interesting than that tiny slice of the political compass the American overton window occupies. Authoritarianism is a property that can be attached to any ideology, left or right wing. It's not really useful to view politics as a one-dimensional axis from left to right, I think at a minimum two axes are needed, a collectivist-individualist axis and an authoritarian-libertarian axis to adequately compare ideologies relative to each-other. You could add even more axes such as traditionalist-reformist, localist-globalist, and probably many more.

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

#432

Post by handrous » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 4:50 PM UTC

xibalba wrote: post #248

handrous wrote: post #84

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.

> Could you point me to a law that codifies this as crime?

The other posts that I meant "should be" aren't entirely wrong, but "crime", like most words, has more than one meaning, so that interpretation isn't necessary for my use to be correct (and isn't what I intended).

From Webster's 1913 for "Crime (n)":

2. Gross violation of human law, in distinction from a misdemeanor or trespass, or other slight offense. Hence, also, any aggravated offense against morality or the public welfare; any outrage or great wrong. "To part error from crime." Tennyson. [emphasis mine]

3. Any great wickedness or sin; iniquity.

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

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Post by jedberg » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 4:51 PM UTC

runawaybottle wrote: post #202

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…

Definitely not true. There were tests we ran at Netflix that would be considered "successful" based on metrics but were not implemented for social reasons, most often because they increased engagement with kids too much.

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

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Post by SavantIdiot » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 4:51 PM UTC

whimsicalism wrote: post #418

SavantIdiot wrote: post #197

The problem is that this issue has now become politicized, which means if you belong to one tribe, you must prevent anything bad from happening to billionaires and trillion-dollar corrupt corporations at all costs.

Sorry, which side is pro-FB?

Bingo!

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

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Post by commandlinefan » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 4:51 PM UTC

gibrown wrote: post #179

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…

> 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.

He said contemporary American society. MLK died 53 years ago.

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

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Post by SavantIdiot » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 4:52 PM UTC

Steltek wrote: post #238

SavantIdiot wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your personal ID contains public information.

My public information is not tied intimately to my behavior and social circles.

Unless you live in a shed in the Rockies, I got bad news for you.

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

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Post by runawaybottle » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 4:52 PM UTC

joelbluminator wrote: post #355

nullityrofl wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It’s hard to find the proper analogy since the phenomenon is so new. On a legal basis, it was actually hard to build a case against the Mafia until racketeering laws were passed. It was difficult to prove that it was ‘organized’ crime before then (where before the criminals could say these are all unrelated events, and there is no larger organization, there is no boss, there are no lieutenants, you are imagining connections that don’t exist).

I think Facebook’s mechanisms are in the realm of 20th century propaganda efforts across a variety of countries (Americans/Soviets/Nazis). Is anyone forcing you to believe propaganda? Is anyone forcing you use Facebook? Is Facebook forcing you to be altered by their efforts?

Yet, we know how insidious propaganda was, and how coordinated and deliberate it was, and most importantly, how effective it was.

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

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Post by hunterb123 » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 4:52 PM UTC

epgui wrote: post #321

hunterb123 wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> You fight misinformation with more information, not censorship. This is a flawed model. At some point, there is so much information that nobody can conceivably consume it all. A better mental model for this dynamic is that of pollution: can you fight pollution by making more "stuff", or at some point does it make sense to try and clean out the junk? > Unless you're saying other people are so stupid we need to contr…

> But yes, yes indeed. If people were smarter, propaganda would not work.

Okay, so you think you know better and the government knows better. We're done here. You're the useful idiot (not an insult, a historical term) for the powers who want to censor.

The propaganda is this event, you are the person they convinced. You are advocating censorship on their behalf for them. You are going against you and your people's inalienable rights of freedom of speech.

I support your freedom to speak this nonsense, you should support other people's speech, but you prefer to be a tool.

Shame on you.

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

#439

Post by commandlinefan » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 4:52 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?

> Isn't anti-authoritarian typically considered a leftist position?

It seems as though it used to be, maybe 30 or 40 years ago, but that's shifted pretty much 180 degrees.

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

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Post by inanutshellus » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 4:53 PM UTC

teucris wrote: post #343

handrous wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think you’re getting downvotes by saying “it’ll never happen” which I find unfortunate because I think the observation that the Internet’s fundamental mode (“message”) as authoritarianism is incredibly interesting and worth discussing. The internet wasn’t created with this goal and yet it seems there is significant evidence to support this idea.

> I think you’re getting downvotes by saying “it’ll never happen” which I find unfortunate

Fatalism is how Bad Things survive in a committee-government such as ours. :-\