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Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

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Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#73
> And if social media were as responsible for polarizing society as some people claim, then why are we seeing polarization increase in the US while it stays flat or declines in many countries with just as heavy use of social media around the world?

That's a point I've made myself before, and I think there is some truth to it. Social media can't explain the high and increasing degree of US political polarisation, because other countries (including other English-speaking countries) consume social media about as much and yet have less polarisation, and don't show the same degree of increase in it either. The real explanation must lie in other aspects of US culture, or the US political system

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#75

Honestly am I the only one that doesn’t think that Facebook is that bad? Some of those points that he makes really should make you stop and think.

Which points made you stop and think

For example:

> In fact, in 11 of 12 areas on the slide referenced by the Journal -- including serious areas like loneliness, anxiety, sadness and eating issues -- more teenage girls who said they struggled with that issue also said Instagram made those difficult times better rather than worse.

All the reporting has been about how the research found that Instagram was so terrible for teenage girls, but that seems to be a total mischaracterization. Honestly, it seems like if you ask teenage girls about anything (clothing stores, schools, television) there's going to be a mix of positive and negative experiences. Is the bar we are holding facebook to that no matter how much good they do that any negative experiences outweigh that? Is that a bar we would hold anything else to?

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#77
post #68

I'm having a hard time reconciling all this right now. On the one hand, from the outside, I can see the actions that Facebook takes and they seem awfully guilty of what they are accused of. But on the other hand, I personally know and have previously worked with some of the people who work on trust and safety, specifically for kids. Good people who have kids of their own and who care about protecting people, especial…

This is called the Banality of Evil. Look up Hannah Arendt. It is a well established idea.

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#78
Gonna be honest. This isn't a level playing field.

It's not like Zuckerberg sat there and wrote this. They have the money to find the best psychologists etc etc to write a response in such a way that resonates more with people vs a whistleblower that's taking on goliath, is stressed, etc.

What really should happen is calling a few random employees based on an organizational chart in and making them testify under oath what they're doing. No NDA, no right to fire the employees afterwards for at least a few years.

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#79

Has anyone trained a language model to generate these content-free apology / explanation blurbs from Zuck?

No, but I have an excellent compression algorithm that is completely lossless in the semantic domain.

Is this algorithm called '/dev/null'?

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#80

For me, it's the almost complete lack of guilt or awareness that his company has caused pain and even death. Yes, FB and its acquisitions have brought many many good things to my life and to the lives of others. They have also brought a lot of pain to me and to others as well. No service only provides good. He doesn't seem to say this. Instead of him trying to remind us "we do good things" I wish he would also say "a…

For me there's a useful distinction between guilt and shame. Guilt is where you fall short of your own standards and seek to rectify it. Shame is where you feel bad about falling short in the eyes of others.

Large corporations often perform shame, but they rarely behave as if key actors experience guilt. So they'll make reforms only as long as there's significant pushback.

If Zuckerberg actually cared, he would be writing letters like this even when the heat is off. He and they would have sincerely worked to fix these problems from early on.

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