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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

#661

Post by shadowgovt »

jelliclesfarm wrote: post #295
shadowgovt wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can quit Facebook. Maybe. If I quit Facebook, I can't messenger my loved ones anymore and my Oculus is now a lovely brick someone bought me for Christmas. At a certain scale, the power dynamics start to look very similar. Governments still generally maintain a monopoly on violence, that's a big difference. Generally. I think we can consider "Deported because your employer has no further use for you" a mostly-gove…

How did people communicate with their loved ones before Facebook? Are you hearing yourself?

> How did people communicate with their loved ones before Facebook?

Synchronously, without video, using an interrupting device. And after that, bifurcated across about a half-dozen messaging services.

Facebook is the first system I've seen that actually has 100% of my friends and family reachable using a common protocol supporting text, audio, and video messaging. If I were to leave, I'd lose touch with about half the people I correspond with regularly. It's a hard sell.

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

#662

Post by aeturnum »

gretch wrote: post #556
aeturnum wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this just goes to show how useful some kind of digital identity verification service would be. Giving your ID to a third party isn't that risky (as I hand it over to grocery cashiers all the time) but we certainly have the tech to do better. It would be great to have a system with a municipal agency where you sign up for an account at the DMV and then they will sign low-info attestations of identity ("this pe…

We have a lot of evidence that local/municipal agencies are a huge attack vector for hackers. You have the resources and talent pool of a small city who now has to defend against attacks from all over the planet. Consider the ransomware attacks against the city of Baltimore: https://www.govtech.com/security/for-second-time-in-a-year-b... I'd much rather my sensitive digital information be stored with FB (knowing how…

> I'd much rather my sensitive digital information be stored with FB (knowing how much they spend on cyber security) than the CA DMV.

I know what you mean and also my information is stored at the DMV if I want a drivers' liscence - we have no choice in the matter. I think we must improve public systems.

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

#663

Post by aeturnum »

trutannus wrote: post #574
aeturnum wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this just goes to show how useful some kind of digital identity verification service would be. Giving your ID to a third party isn't that risky (as I hand it over to grocery cashiers all the time) but we certainly have the tech to do better. It would be great to have a system with a municipal agency where you sign up for an account at the DMV and then they will sign low-info attestations of identity ("this pe…

Where on earth (quite literally) do you live where you give your ID to cashiers in the grocery stores? Even in alcohol sales, these ID records are not kept. The clerks just look at the ID.

It's quite common to scan IDs in California to verify age (I assume to guard against fakes). I believe it's also common in other parts of the US.

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

#664

Post by sreque »

godelski wrote: post #638
ddoolin wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just not true: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/21/us/politics/trump-democra... I don't think you're wrong but by the same token, more gov't overreach is really the Democratic platform and that is not a secret.

This isn't entirely true. While the Reps slash some programs they also extend others and extend the executive power. The only difference between them and the Dems is that, as you said, the Dems are open about their power grabs. I do think we have to stop talking as if we criticize one side that it implies we align with the other. We should be criticizing all those that hold power. I believe a major problem we are fac…

It's definitely too simplistic, and we could argue all day over which side is worse, but I think it's hard to argue against the fact that, right now the, left control the levers of power and are the most immediate threat to American liberty and constitutional government. If we are fortunate enough to vote them down to the minority, we can address the next immediate threat?

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

#665

Post by [deleted] »

sreque wrote: post #455
BoxOfRain wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, unco…

So you sound like you are probably a lot more educated about politics than I am, so hopefully I can learn something from you, but I think one problem in practice is that collectivist views always seem to end in authoritarianism. Even in the U.S., the unions that resulted from collectivism became authoritarian and corrupt in their own right, the teacher's unions of America being a prime example of corruption and autho…

[deleted]

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

#666

Post by [deleted] »

_ivvf wrote: post #581
NoGravitas wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Similarly, collectivist organizations always seem to result in top-down totalitarian regimes when they win the government. Substantially, that's a matter of history rather than ideology. Collectivist organizations that aren't top-down organized tend to be unsuccessful in overthrowing states and remaining in power in the face of more authoritarian opposition. The fact that the Russian revolution led to Stalinism is…

I have to say, I find your "survivorship bias" argument novel, but also a bit ridiculous, considering that Karl Marx openly called for violent, bloody revolution: “there is only one way in which the murderous death agonies of the old society and the bloody birth throes of the new society can be shortened, simplified and concentrated, and that way is revolutionary terror." So the ideology claims violent overthrow of g…

[deleted]

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

#667

Post by trutannus »

nonameiguess wrote: post #267
trutannus wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Not sure all states do this, but the Texas DMV already sells the information on your driver's license to marketers. Not much you can do when the agency that issues identification also sells your data, aside from totally withdraw and don't participate in modern life.

The world isn't Texas. I'd rather not give Facebook extra data to play with because "well, Texas already sells Texan's data".

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

#668

Post by _-david-_ »

epgui wrote: post #562
_-david-_ wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is sometimes these groups are wrong. It was misinformation to say that the virus COULD have come from a lab. Obviously we don't know for certain, but to even suggest it may have been from a lab was called misinformation. If you think that is misinformation than you are the one who is a victim of or participating in the dissemination of misinformation or disinformation.

> It was misinformation to say that the virus COULD have come from a lab. No, and in my experience this is not how things were presented. It _is_ misinformation to suggest that that is the likeliest explanation or to imply that we have a good reason to think so. At a higher level, there's also the question of context, and the question of what the appropriate forum for such discussion is, and what is productive or non…

>But it's not misinformation to float the idea and explore the possibility

Tell that to the fact checkers and the social media companies that display the fact checks.

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

#669

Post by spywaregorilla »

passivate wrote: post #615
rnd0 wrote: post #605

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does matter, because FB (social media such as Reddit and Twitter as well) create echochambers which amplify crackpot stuff and encourages people to act out in destructive ways (see basically all of the RL anti-mask agitation) in a way that was not happening before social media. Social media creates literal mobs, with literal (tiki) torches if not pitchforks. Yes, the difference between two cranks bitching over cof…

I disagree. We need to bring back personal accountability. "Facebook made me do it" is not an acceptable excuse for violence. Also, we need to inoculate the mind from these 'meme' viruses with a stronger foundation in basic science. I'm not syaing its an overnight or easy thing to do, but the IMHO I think it would address the core problem.

So in a different context, the problem is not con artists, its con artist victims?

Also, you can be accountable for your actions and still influenced by something else.

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

#670

Post by fighterpilot »

dylan604 wrote: post #35
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…

Kids are still able to buy alcohol by having other people do it for them. They also steal it. During a house break in, the police will often ask if any alcohol is missing which is a tell tale that teenagers were involved. Kids are not simple, and will often out wit the adults in order to do things they want to do. It amazes me how adults seem to forget the things they did as teenagers, and maybe if they were actually…

The incentive for kids to break the law will be greatly diminished since the network of their peers won't be at a critical mass and it'll no longer be a requirement for their social status.
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