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Facebook Whistleblower Leaks Thousands of Pages of Incriminating Internal Docs

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

#181

Post by woeirua »

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.

No recommendation algorithms for certain classes of websites.

News feeds must be sorted in chronological order only. Users may selectively filter their feeds if they choose.

No infinite scrolling.

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

#182

Post by mckirk »

asdff wrote: post #138
beaner wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ar…

The gaming industry would like to have a word...

In a sense, companies are right now incentived to develop the most effective 'digital crack', because anything that hijacks the reward pathway of the brain more effectively leads to more profit. It'll be quite interesting to see how the public discourse around this will progress, since digital entertainment isn't as easy to publicly mark as 'bad' as drugs were.

On the other hand, China is sending quite clear signals that it's theoretically possible to legislate against e.g. video games -- though only after you've already established an intrusive 'social credit' system, which I hope we won't see in the west any time soon.

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

#183

Post by jimkleiber »

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…

I really appreciate this point. I often see it as written rules (laws) and unwritten rules (ethics). If something breaks the unwritten rules we have about how people are supposed to interact with each other, then we often codify that rule into law. Many people will say "I didn't break the law" but where many people would say that person did break an unwritten law.

> There should be no question, that what FB is doing here, while not illegal, is highly dubious ethically.

At the same time, I believe some of the stuff FB has done is currently illegal, such as this example in one of the whistleblower's disclosures to the SEC [0]:

> Our anonymous client is disclosing original evidence showing that Facebook, Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) has, for years past and ongoing, violated U.S. security laws by making material misrepresentations and omissions in statements to investors and prospective investors, including, inter alia, through filings with the SEC, testimony to Congress, online statements, and media stories.

So it could be a combination of them both violating ethics and violating the law.

[0]: https://twitter.com/jason_kint/status/1445248400237244423?s=...

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

#184

Post by alistairSH »

RIMR wrote: post #120
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.

Freedom of speech also includes from being compelled to speak of things you don't want to, so forcing companies to make their recommendation and moderation systems publicly visible would be eve more of a free speech issue than expecting companies to moderate violent, hateful, or deliberately misleading content.

Can you cite some case law that bears out this argument? While I agree that your point is true in the most general sense, we compel companies to make their internal information public fairly regularly via various mechanisms (admittedly, none of which are 100% analogous to the FB/social media situation).

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

#185

Post by unsui »

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…

This is textbook ad hominem:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

> attacks the character, motive, or some other attribute of the person making an argument rather than attacking the substance of the argument itself

Question her motives or qualifications, rather than the claims themselves.

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

#186

Post by christkv »

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.

How about an age limit. You have to be 18 or above.

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

#187

Post by asdff »

parineum wrote: post #139
asdff wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)?

Curious, do you not wear seatbelts too? Opt for asbestos insulation since its better than anything on the market today? Plumb your home with lead since its more durable and flexible? Use leaded gas because its better for your older engine?

The state acts on the collective when the public is not making good decisions for themselves and causing net harm onto themselves, usually with the public paying the price. Sometimes thats overt like with death rates from accidents without seatbelts, or cancer from asbestos exposure. Sometimes its less overt like the behavioral issues, increased incidents of mental illness, and crime rate increases from leaded pipes and gasoline.

I'm willing to bet social media causes net harm. It hasn't enabled communication that wasn't possible before; if you can get access to a facebook account you therefore have email and access to irc. But it has cost probably trillions in productivity from people staring at it so much during all their idle time, and the cost to treat mental health issues that wouldn't have cropped up without toxic social media culture.

I say we have these companies pay for these externalities if they are forcing us to pay for them otherwise. By not passing a tax on externalities like this, the state is deciding that I need to pay for facebook's ills on society whether I use the service or not, which should anger you as a libertarian as much as it angers me as someone on the left.

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

#188

Post by gremIin »

jasondigitized wrote: post #153
ozzythecat wrote: post #141

I don’t personally use FB and don’t have a very favorable view of their products. I would, however, like to see the same level scrutiny applied to the general American media, especially the news media. FB has come in and started eating their lunch. There’s a deeper problem here, and it feels more like the powers that he want to take down FB. I’m not denying any allegation made against FB, but why is it that Fox News,…

Hey I said that. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28762415

When you phrase your argument like that, it comes off as whataboutism.

You are free to campaign against Fox News, CNN, and the like. I will even upvote and share those HN posts if you do.

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

#189

Post by hunterb123 »

VikingCoder wrote: post #169
hunterb123 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sorry for being pedantic, but you can absolutely change the ingredients of a cigarette. There's a ton besides the tobacco. And you can breed different strains of tobacco to have more or less of some chemical.

My point was a cig always causes cancer because it burns tobacco, so you need a banner to warn users.

A social media behemoth does not need to use doom scrolling or private algorithms to be a social media site.

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

#190

Post by MetaWhirledPeas »

malandrew wrote: post #157
thrwn_frthr_awy wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personalized advertising.

I personally find the personalized advertising great. A lot of the time I am shown things that are actually useful/valuable to me. I think a lot of the value really depends on the individual. If you're engaging in productive activities like hobbies, you get valuable targeted ads. If you're engaging in activities that are low value like signaling to others in myriad ways, you probably get adds for things like disposab…

> I personally find the personalized advertising great. A lot of the time I am shown things that are actually useful/valuable to me.

There are plenty of ways to deliver this value without secretly fingerprinting every user and delivering targeted ads at every corner. A search where you profile yourself, for instance; similar to how you provide search filters on Amazon.

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