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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

#541

Post by int_19h »

vladd wrote: post #296
finfinfin wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like you are willfully ignoring Facebook’s own findings. They know that polarizing content is more engaging yet harmful… and they choose to amplify it anyway. The same old argument that it’s hard therefore let’s not do anything is not applicable. Facebook is not a neutral platform that just shows all posts from your friends in a chronological order. They are actively manipulating the stream and are fully respon…

Walmart is "manipulating" the placement of products on the shelf so that it's more likely for you to engage in bulk buying when you visit their stores. Both Facebook and Walmart have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to create value for them. The difference is that, with user generated content, the idea of black and white "bounds" of the law is no longer applicable and you have to devise a system of checks and b…

> Both Facebook and Walmart have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to create value for them.

I feel like the more this claim is repeated, the more pushback you're going to see against it - and rightly so.

We need to remember that corporations are themselves fictitious legal entities. They only exist because society wills them into existence, and it can do so with arbitrary strings attached - there's no natural right to form a corporation. So, if it turns out that "fiduciary duty to their shareholders to create value" inevitably leads to the abusive megacorp clusterfuck that we are seeing today, why should we be clinging to it?

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

#542

Post by ashtonkem »

philwelch wrote: post #295
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,…

The elephant in the room here is the First Amendment. The government, legally, cannot do anything to censor "hate speech" or "misinformation" on CNN or Fox News. They also can't do anything to censor "hate speech" or "misinformation" on Facebook, but they can certainly harass Facebook into doing it for them.

Breaking up Facebook would probably be the way to go; it has less troubling side effects than trying to regulate “hate speech” via a clever legal trick.

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

#543

Post by ashtonkem »

n8cpdx wrote: post #327
philwelch wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The elephant in the room here is the First Amendment. The government, legally, cannot do anything to censor "hate speech" or "misinformation" on CNN or Fox News. They also can't do anything to censor "hate speech" or "misinformation" on Facebook, but they can certainly harass Facebook into doing it for them.

Not completely true. Historically mass media was regulated. Lying also isn't legally protected if it causes injury (fire in a crowded theater being the canonical example, libel another). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine

“Fire in a crowded theater” comes from the Supreme Court upholding the criminal conviction of a man handing out pamphlets protesting the WW1 draft. Not exactly the precedent I’d reach for if I was trying to argue that governmental regulation of speech is not dangerous.

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

#544

Post by B1FF_PSUVM »

chmsky00 wrote: post #454
sarkron wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plato put it like this in his "Laws": “Laws are made to instruct the good, and in the hope that there may be no need of them; also to control the bad, whose hardness of heart will not be hindered from crime.”

I wonder how he’d speak of a supposedly even better educated society stealing the future of the next due to circular validation of our waste filled industrialism.

> stealing the future of the next

How would the next generation like having a pristine Earth, without any infrastructure whatsoever?

No roads, no buildings, no domesticated animals, no libraries, nothing but nature.

No pyramids, no poems, all the oil and coal in the ground, "noble savages" all around.

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

#545

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#546

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#547

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

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…

"In response, Congress passed the Sherman Antitrust Act in 1890 which subsequently prevented the actions that Standard Oil had used to conslidate the market."

This tech company employee (aka the "Facebook Whistleblower") is refusing to share the documents she stole with the FTC.

Although she did share them with several state attorneys general.

It appears she does not support antitrust inquiries. Heavy consolidation of "social media" is to her an acceptable status quo.

Needless to say, some would argue competition provides incentives for large players to improve their services.

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

#548

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#549

Post by finfinfin »

int_19h wrote: post #541
vladd wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Walmart is "manipulating" the placement of products on the shelf so that it's more likely for you to engage in bulk buying when you visit their stores. Both Facebook and Walmart have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to create value for them. The difference is that, with user generated content, the idea of black and white "bounds" of the law is no longer applicable and you have to devise a system of checks and b…

> Both Facebook and Walmart have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to create value for them. I feel like the more this claim is repeated, the more pushback you're going to see against it - and rightly so. We need to remember that corporations are themselves fictitious legal entities. They only exist because society wills them into existence, and it can do so with arbitrary strings attached - there's no natural r…

It’s puzzling how many people are so ready to mask their own responsibility by shifting it to a legal entity that apparently now has a duty to do whatever it takes to generate more profit. As if individually these people wouldn’t act in unethical ways but once they put on the “I am a corporation” mask anything goes.

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

#550

Post by Animats »

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 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.

Which, on good days, is why we have legislatures. To make new laws to cover new situations.

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