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

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

#551

Post by parineum » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 10:58 PM UTC

ethbr0 wrote: post #491

parineum wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Curious, do you not wear seatbelts too? I wear my seatbelt, I don't smoke, I don't drink and I'm vaccinated. Everyone keeps talking about these "negative externalities" without being specific. Why not just make the societal harm illegal and let people hurt themselves without buying permission from the government?

Because making it illegal to accidentally kill someone with your car while intoxicated doesn't solve the problem.

How do we solve the problem of people accidentally killing someone with their car?

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

#552

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 10:59 PM UTC

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 attorneys general.

It appears she does not support antitrust inquiries. Heavy consolidation of "social media" with no meaningful competition is acceptable to her.

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

#553

Post by mike00632 » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 11:07 PM UTC

akudha wrote: post #220

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…

That is the problem of following the absolute minimum standards in life - we (the society as a whole) have accepted that as long as businesses follow the law, its all good. We've accepted that the sole purpose of businesses is to make money within the bounds of the law. While this makes sense logically, it isn't good for anyone in the long run, practically. Also remember that all kinds of unfair laws can be passed, i…

There is another aspect about how new the industry is. It will be some time before we have well-considered laws about things like digital privacy. Tech companies can either advocate for good laws based on their advanced knowledge or be greedy and exploit/promote lackluster laws.

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

#554

Post by kyleee » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 11:10 PM UTC

alistairSH wrote: post #489

idiotsecant wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These seem like awkward things to encode into law in a durable way. Laws are long-term blunt instruments, banning something like infinite scroll will have all kinds of unintended consequences.

That's true - these things might be better implemented as regulations out of the Executive branch - but that would still require legislation authorizing somebody to implement the regulations.

Interesting that the US governance model is devolving to "decrees from the king" thanks to exec orders

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

#555

Post by swiley » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 11:12 PM UTC

kyleee wrote: post #554

alistairSH wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true - these things might be better implemented as regulations out of the Executive branch - but that would still require legislation authorizing somebody to implement the regulations.

Interesting that the US governance model is devolving to "decrees from the king" thanks to exec orders

We'll see how much longer the states accept that for.

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

#556

Post by paulryanrogers » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 11:12 PM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #418

paulryanrogers wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it too little censorship or rather amplifying problematic things and suppressing heathier things because of perverse incentives? FB and Instagram timelines are not raw feeds from ones friends/follows. They are tuned by human calibrated algorithms. Kids need to eat vegetables and lean protein sources. But if school districts instead optimize for profit they may end up feeding the kids borderline poison like sodas a…

> Kids need to eat vegetables and lean protein sources. But if school districts instead optimize for profit they may end up feeding the kids borderline poison like sodas and candy. When companies come to dominate a public space, like huge parts of digital comms, then maybe it's OK to demand more responsible behavior of them. Adults are not children and social media sites are not school districts. The school district…

> Adults are not children and social media sites are not school districts.

> The school district analogy also doesn't really hold up on its own terms unless you're talking about boarding schools

Non-technical adults don't understand the minutiae of algorithms or the tuning of social platforms designed to manipulate them. These platforms control how over 2 billion people communicate. Once the networks become entrenched people can become essentially locked in, or risk becoming ostracized from support groups if they don't want to play along.

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

#557

Post by mike00632 » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 11:13 PM UTC

ashtonkem wrote: post #543

n8cpdx wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Facebook Groups have been host to many organized acts of violence. The Kenosha shooting comes to mind as a recent example where the Group was reported to Facebook and made it through multiple layers of review before being allowed to persist. To say that such speech is protected under the First Amendment is too much of a stretch.

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

#558

Post by itronitron » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 11:16 PM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #350

siruncledrew wrote: post #119

I don't care about Facebook, and am not interested in using it, but after reading the spiral of consequences Facebook has been in, it made me think: 1. To all the governments that want to tighten more control on communication, this is great kindling to show people "we the government should further control tech for your own good". 2. You can hardly get the US gov to agree on anything, but when it's about hating each o…

> 1. To all the governments that want to tighten more control on communication, this is great kindling to show people "we the government should further control tech for your own good". I'm genuinely shocked that the popular sentiment on HN leans toward more government intervention and control of internet communications. So many comments here are calling for more laws and regulation, but few people can even begin to e…

>> I'm genuinely shocked that the popular sentiment on HN leans toward more government intervention and control of internet communications

I'm not seeing that as the popular sentiment here. I think we just want FB to stop algorithmically boosting stuff in order to boost engagement numbers and to also start applying the rules equally.

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

#559

Post by jimkleiber » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 11:17 PM UTC

chacham15 wrote: post #363

jimkleiber wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I often see it as written rules (laws) and unwritten rules (ethics). I think this is a very dangerous line to walk. A common phrase in law is "the law often allows what honor forbids" and that is because there is a difference between the law and ethics and IMO that is a good thing. Is it ethical to eat all the cookies in the cookie jar and leave none for anyone else? No. Should it be illegal? No.

> that is because there is a difference between the law and ethics and IMO that is a good thing.

I feel confused because I didn't think I was saying that we should get rid of ethics by codifying everything into law. I thought my main point was that sometimes when people continue to break those unwritten rules, we will decide to write down those rules and enforce more strict consequences—not saying we should always do that.

I actually would prefer if we had fewer written laws and relied more on unwritten rules of interacting with each other. And when someone breaks those unwritten rules, we would apologize and forgive and work together to resolve the conflict and rebuild trust in each other, instead of pushing to punish people in a retributive system of justice.

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

#560

Post by m0zg » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 11:17 PM UTC

Not to defend FB, but could we please dispense with the notion that she's an actual "whistleblower" at this point? She retained an ultra expensive law firm (same lawyer as in Ukraine-gate), a PR firm, got 60 minutes interview, got verified on twitter within 2 days, got a congressional hearing within a week, and is currently organizing a PR tour in Europe. It's pretty clear this is being funded and directed externally, in a coordinated fashion, in an attempt to ensure Zuck's full compliance ahead of the midterms, without which they are going to lose. Greenwald wrote about this on his Substack earlier today: https://greenwald.substack.com/p/democrats-and-media-do-not-...

ShareBlue shills are out in full force: first downvote within half a second, a personal record.