Facebook Whistleblower Leaks Thousands of Pages of Incriminating Internal Docs • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook Whistleblower Leaks Thousands of Pages of Incriminating Internal Docs

#131

Post by koheripbal » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 5:41 PM UTC

aardvarkr wrote: post #63

shmatt wrote: post #36

There is something that doesn't sit right with me about the whistleblower. Yes, she is a data scientist which gives her many many extra points. But, she was a PM for 2 years in FAANG. Her actual scope of the what was going on in FB as a huge org, as she's trying to comment on (the "I want to fix FB" quotes from 60 minutes) Everyone I know who works in FAANG, FB specifically, and PMs even more specifically, really hav…

What's your point here? This lady is a PRODUCT manger and heads up the entire product, in this case Civic Integrity, which was directly charged with tamping down hate on the platform related to civic engagement. She is not a PROJECT manager like what you deal with on your engineering team. She is by definition an expert on this segment of Facebook and you're dismissing her wrongly for being a "PM". She's a Harvard MB…

The issue is that her experience at Facebook did not put her in a position know the company strategy.

Re: Facebook Whistleblower Leaks Thousands of Pages of Incriminating Internal Docs

#132

Post by bellyfullofbac » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 5:42 PM UTC

colpabar wrote: post #72

q1w2 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect the reaction from a lot of companies is going to be to lock down internal documents under a need-to-know security model.

My tinfoil theory about the outage yesterday is that it was done on purpose, as a way to create an opportunity to "hide" as many internal documents as possible without anyone noticing.

First reaction: That really is tinfoil, if you don't include how the outage would help in that process..

Second reaction: Huh, employees were locked out of their offices, VPN was surely down, yeah if there was someone inside the data centre deleting files off their Intranet no one from outside the data centre would be able to notice, due to the lack of connectivity.

But it would have to be a very good scrubbing and people would notice things missing anyway, "Hey wasn't there used to be a PDF here..?". Hah, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_hole

Re: Facebook Whistleblower Leaks Thousands of Pages of Incriminating Internal Docs

#133

Post by dionian » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 5:42 PM UTC

The fact that the whistleblower has connections to the Democratic Party (donations, legal representation), and is calling for more censorship... makes me wonder about the possible ulterior motives

Re: Facebook Whistleblower Leaks Thousands of Pages of Incriminating Internal Docs

#134

Post by hunterb123 » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 5:42 PM UTC

asdff wrote: post #115

hunterb123 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To clarify, can you specify exactly what law you would like made? What do you want to be done exactly ? I would rather take the stance of feed algorithms and moderation logs be PUBLICLY available. Transparency instead of censorship.

Treat addictive social media companies like addictive cigarette companies. Lets see some huge warning labels about how mentally harmful it is to continue scrolling on facebook right on the first result where its unavoidable to see. Lets tax the hell out of social media companies to generate local revenue just like sin taxes. It won't be a huge change but it will be a great starting point and will come with revenue th…

Uhm a cigarette you cannot change the base ingredient of, it's tobacco. A cig by definition burns the carcinogen tobacco.

A site you can specify certain requirements like no doom scrolling or requirements like PUBLISH YOUR ALGORITHMS.

Why go full California with another banner? People will ignore it and you will have done nothing of substance.

Re: Facebook Whistleblower Leaks Thousands of Pages of Incriminating Internal Docs

#135

Post by nitrogen » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 5:42 PM UTC

aardvarkr wrote: post #85

alfalfasprout wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, yes and no. While as a PM (or IC) she'd be primarily working on a scoped area of work, the reality is also that she likely didn't come to learn all this on her own. At nearly any large tech company it's pretty easy to get in touch with someone on another team and learn more about their work, etc. The fact that she's been able to get all this context and significant supporting documentation points to her not hav…

FYI the lady was the Product Manager and ran the entire Civic Engagement group. She's not just a project manager working on a team of devs.

Every small engineering team I have worked on had its own product manager.

Re: Facebook Whistleblower Leaks Thousands of Pages of Incriminating Internal Docs

#136

Post by photochemsyn » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 5:42 PM UTC

hunterb123 wrote: post #93

woeirua wrote: post #77

I think a lot of people are choosing to ignore that a lot of companies have done things in the past that were not illegal at the time of action. However, those actions were later decided to be made illegal because the behavior was deemed to be antithetical to our values. For example, Standard Oil did not break any laws in its ruthless consolidation of the nascent oil industry. In fact, it exploited the law to allow i…

To clarify, can you specify exactly what law you would like made? What do you want to be done exactly ? I would rather take the stance of feed algorithms and moderation logs be PUBLICLY available. Transparency instead of censorship.

I think that's the right approach. Legally you could require every social media company that collects and sells data on its users to advertisers to allow the users to access their internal algorithmic interface (for their own account).

Now, what controls are on the internal algorithmic dial? Apparently that's top secret, but a legal requirement to expose the interface to the users seems reasonable.

Note that this might not affect what ads you get served (that seems more on the private business side, although banning prescription pharma ads makes sense), but it would affect what shows up in your feed, what content you get served, etc. You could write your own exclude lists, for example (i.e. if you never want to see content from MSNBC, FOX, or CNN, that would be your decision - not the algorithms, etc.)

Re: Facebook Whistleblower Leaks Thousands of Pages of Incriminating Internal Docs

#137

Post by alfalfasprout » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 5:42 PM UTC

aardvarkr wrote: post #85

alfalfasprout wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, yes and no. While as a PM (or IC) she'd be primarily working on a scoped area of work, the reality is also that she likely didn't come to learn all this on her own. At nearly any large tech company it's pretty easy to get in touch with someone on another team and learn more about their work, etc. The fact that she's been able to get all this context and significant supporting documentation points to her not hav…

FYI the lady was the Product Manager and ran the entire Civic Engagement group. She's not just a project manager working on a team of devs.

Right, but my point is that even if she ran the entire civic engagement group it's naive to think she couldn't find out more about what's going on in other orgs if properly motivated. She'd have to go out of her way to do it and do a fair amount of digging but it's far from impossible.

Re: Facebook Whistleblower Leaks Thousands of Pages of Incriminating Internal Docs

#138

Post by asdff » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 5:42 PM UTC

beaner wrote: post #106

echelon wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> while not illegal While not currently illegal. Call your representatives and tell them you find this reprehensible. Let's make it illegal. We live in a representative democracy.

What is it , exactly?

There should be some laws about using addictive patterns imo. I'm sure that's fine and profitable and coca cola would continue to like putting cocaine into their drinks to make their customers want it all the more, but we have laws preventing that behavior in the meatspace and therefore we can have laws preventing this sort of evil behavior with technology companies too. Tie it into website accessibility laws that are already codified in law and can be used to sue certain companies today.

Re: Facebook Whistleblower Leaks Thousands of Pages of Incriminating Internal Docs

#139

Post by parineum » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 5:42 PM UTC

asdff wrote: post #115

hunterb123 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To clarify, can you specify exactly what law you would like made? What do you want to be done exactly ? I would rather take the stance of feed algorithms and moderation logs be PUBLICLY available. Transparency instead of censorship.

Treat addictive social media companies like addictive cigarette companies. Lets see some huge warning labels about how mentally harmful it is to continue scrolling on facebook right on the first result where its unavoidable to see. Lets tax the hell out of social media companies to generate local revenue just like sin taxes. It won't be a huge change but it will be a great starting point and will come with revenue th…

> sin taxes

How about we don't let the state decide what I get to do with my body (and mind)?

Re: Facebook Whistleblower Leaks Thousands of Pages of Incriminating Internal Docs

#140

Post by oarabbus_ » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 5:43 PM UTC

asdff wrote: post #115

hunterb123 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To clarify, can you specify exactly what law you would like made? What do you want to be done exactly ? I would rather take the stance of feed algorithms and moderation logs be PUBLICLY available. Transparency instead of censorship.

Treat addictive social media companies like addictive cigarette companies. Lets see some huge warning labels about how mentally harmful it is to continue scrolling on facebook right on the first result where its unavoidable to see. Lets tax the hell out of social media companies to generate local revenue just like sin taxes. It won't be a huge change but it will be a great starting point and will come with revenue th…

> Lets tax the hell out of social media companies to generate local revenue just like sin taxes.

Very interesting idea, actually. There is evidence Social Media causes harm to some individuals' mental health (in a widespread manner causing some measurable societal harm), so a proposed tax on all social media companies with revenue going towards mental health programs seems worth exploring.

Generally I'm not much in favor of implementing new taxes (would rather close existing loopholes) but if implemented reasonably and backed by scientific evidence this seems valid.