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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

#491

Post by fullshark »

JamesLeonis wrote: post #186

I think Facebook, as well as other social media, are a grand experiment of Karl Popper's "The Paradox of Tolerance." [0] In keeping a largely hands-off approach to moderation they functionally provided the preconditions for such an experiment. > Less well known [than other paradoxes] is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to…

Considering most people consume fb/instagram via an algorithmic feed, hard to see either site as being "hands off."

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

#492

Post by yupper32 »

ziddoap wrote: post #367
jonny_eh wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why it's a 3/4 truth. They don't offer "pay us to see John Doe's religious affiliation", instead they offer "show your ad to Catholics". It's more similar to a Catholic TV station selling commercial slots. That said, it can be far more targeted and powerful than a TV commercial, e.g. "show your ad to 18 year old Catholics with post-secondary education in Flint, Michigan".

Thanks for replying and not simply downvoting and moving on. I can see what you (or the parent) was getting at and somewhat agree that it's not a "full" truth, and there is some nuance at play. Although, with just a few of those variables (age/gender/poltiics/religion/geography) you can likely narrow down your target audience to a few tens of people, making those people identifiable. I recall a few years ago a report…

You say it's nuance, I say it's a completely different situation and people either are ignorant or are purposely lying to push a narrative.

#1 If Facebook sold raw personal data to whoever came with a checkbook, I'd be pissed. Beyond pissed. The whole Cambridge Analytica thing was the closest they got, and it was really an issue with friends of mine giving away my personal information through FB. FB fixed this issue.

#2 If Facebook sells access to me via ads based on my personal data, then whatever. I don't really care. I gave FB my personal data. As long as they keep it to themselves them it's fine.

Using the term "selling your data" triggers #1 in the vast majority of the population, stirring people up.

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

#493

Post by dukeofdoom »

creature_x wrote: post #389
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?

I see your point but individuals living their sovereign lives isn't the issue; the issue is if Facebook keeps kindling the fires of division a day could come where we're knocking at the gates of a civil war. Is that too hyperbolic ? I don't know but if asking people in California what they think of Texas/Florida and vice-versa is a litmus test, perhaps some concern is in order.

The division seems to me leading more to a breakup of the united states, into smaller countries. If one believes in democracy, and local democratic will. Why would that necessarily be bad. The country is filled with red states on the inside, and blue states on the outside. Doesn't seem like the people in the middle are getting the kind of government they vote for. And the people in the blue states have to temper down their liberal pro socialism policies that have served them so well in big cities, to help them stop crime and end homelessness that don't necessarily apply on the inside.

Take gun control. If you live in the middle of nowhere, the police are hours away from helping you. Owning a gun is your only realistic means of self defence.

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

#494

Post by nyghtly »

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…

The whistleblower part is internal Facebook research showing that the algorithm is known to be harmful (for example, politically polarizing and hate-mongering) in it's current form. In addition to that internal research, she also revealed during the 60 minutes interview that Facebook used a "weaker" version of the algorithm during the 2020 election cycle in order to prevent disinformation. The weaker version was replaced with the high-engagement strategy after the election. Notably, the Jan 6 insurrection occurred when the high-engagement algorithm was being used.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-facebook-files-11631713039

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/facebook-whistleblower-frances-...

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

#495

Post by NoGravitas »

CheezeIt wrote: post #153
ouid wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

libertarian, I believe, but if OC answers differently you can ignore this comment. There's some downvoting that I don't understand here. If the parent comment is referring to modern slang, lib is a ray on the political compass "lib/auth" "righ/left".

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

In this sense, it does mean more or less "classical liberal": a supporter of market economies, and, more generally, the political dominance of the bourgeois class (as, initially, opposed to the gentry, and as, later, opposed to the working class). It's used today by Internet leftists to include basically all of the mainstream political spectrum, but especially to denigrate "progressives" who claim to have leftist values, but in practice support the status quo.

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

#496

Post by hunterb123 »

whimsicalism wrote: post #482
hunterb123 wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You ain't black if you don't vote for me" - Biden "You have poor kids and you have white kids" - Biden I don't know the context of the statement you mentioned, but I doubt it points to him being a white supremacist. Even what Biden says doesn't make someone a white supremacist (though his voting comment was bad), some things are just a slip of the tongue.

I wasn't discussing Biden, I'm sure he's said plenty of racist stuff (although the second one was clear a slip of the tongue). "Only black people could live like that" when describing Chicago does not seem like a slip of the tongue, and seems more blatantly racist than either of the two things you've mentioned. “He once asked me if I could name a country run by a black person that wasn’t a ‘shithole'", etc. etc.

That's hearsay from Michael Cohen, Trump's disgruntled, disgraced ex-lawyer. Trump has disputed the claim so we have no idea who's telling the truth. We should assume Trump innocent until Cohen proves it.

But we have Biden on tape and audio saying people aren't black if they don't vote for him.

One is a rumor, one is a fact. That's my point.

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

#497

Post by annexrichmond »

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…

Indeed, this is part of the reason why I left my last job. I called it EDD (experiment-driven development). That's all they did for several months. I was cynical about it for many reasons:

- the premise of the experiments were often silly, basically just growth hacking to see if we can move the needle a little

- I was hardly convinced that they were "valid" experiments: was it a valid sample? are we recording data correctly? are we querying data correctly? All of which was done by engineers with minimal statistics background

- as OP said, the dissociation with users. Users were just an aggregate numbers (ie., sum of clicks). I wanted a more tangible feedback loop, like knowing more directly what the user is thinking and how they are using your product.

Now I do Infrastructure.

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

#498

Post by oarabbus_ »

KingMachiavelli wrote: post #354
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…

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 i…

>Stalking is only illegal because that person "doesn't" have your permission.

Is this actually true? Are Private Investigators breaking the law and doing their job hoping they won't get caught and charged with a crime?

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

#499

Post by themacguffinman »

m_ke wrote: post #403
TameAntelope wrote: post #393

I fundamentally do not understand how we've gotten to a point where social media has become anything other than a completely optional indulgence that we engage with in our free time to gain not-critical ephemeral pleasure out of. This cultural addiction to social media has caused us to throw our beliefs and convictions right out the window. People on HN are talking about breaking up Facebook, passing new "social medi…

Because they worked really hard to become indispensable and get people "hooked". You could make the same arguments about cigarettes, oxycontin or gambling.

No, frankly, you couldn't. To start with, the scientific evidence for the medically addictive and harmful properties of nicotine, opiates, and gambling is on a different planet compared to the nebulous correlations and self-reported survey "X% of teens tell us they don't feel good about themselves" results that have been beaten to death about social media.

And on the most fundamental level, drugs and gambling providers are not platforms for speech, they are not very comparable. Restrictions to drugs and gambling barely overlap with any free speech issues that social media censorship advocates seem so eager to step over. And no, I'm not just talking about the USA's First Amendment that affects the government, I'm talking about the cultural principle of free speech that we figured out was a good thing at some point in The Enlightenment.

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

#500

Post by tqi »

wolfram74 wrote: post #408
tqi wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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?

whataboutism aside, the ehrlich quote "To err is human, but to really foul things up you need a computer". is salient, the news channels do eventually get okayed by human editors. Another salient point is how personalized the content can get with algorithms at the helm, everybody has a button that will set them off. Mass broad cast media is going to be further from the mark than something machine learning found. [0]…

My intention was less "what about this other bad thing" and more do we have an objective/consensus answer on what content should be promoted, or is it just who/what is doing the promotion.
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