Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

facebook.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 699 posts

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#161

Post by throwaway09223 »

jedberg wrote: 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…

I've been framing this whole thing as a universal property of human society and it seems to fit pretty well for me.

Outrage attracts attention in all group interactions. I can't think of a single large scale group forum where this isn't true. It's integral to an absurd degree in our news cycle. Howard Stern exploited this property in his rise to fame. It's a core element in state propaganda, well documented throughout human history.

I'm old enough to remember when the internet was a lot more free - when there generally wasn't some parent corporation imposing content censorship on what you put on your homepage, or what you said on IRC. All of the complaints regarding Facebook were true of internet communications back then too (on the "sex trafficking" issue, compare to Craigslist of yore!)

The big difference seems to be there's an entity we can point a finger at now. Communications on Facebook aren't worse than what was on the internet two decades ago. In fact, they're far, far more clean and controlled.

What I look to is whether Facebook is more objectionable than alternative forms of communication, and I can't find any reason to believe that this is the case. Is twitter better? Is reddit? Is usenet? No.

So why does Facebook draw such ire?

Are people calling for controls on Facebook also calling for controls on self-published websites? On open communication systems like IRC or email? Where is the coherent moral philosophy regarding internet speech?

To be honest, my biggest concern when I read the news surrounding this issue is that most of the internet might not be old enough to remember what it means to have a truly free platform, unencumbered by moralizing. Why are people begging for more controls?

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#162

Post by [deleted] »

SeanAppleby wrote: post #123
dannykwells wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Eichmann in Jerusalem is the book that coined the phrase for anyone passing through, and it's a pretty wild story. It's essentially Arendt, a Jewish exile from Berlin who fled the holocaust, wrestling with her realization that Eichmann, who reported to Hitler and organized major portions of the holocaust, wasn't a psychopath, but a completely mundane and thoughtless career focused bureaucrat who was trying to rise in…

[deleted]

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#165

Post by dogman144 »

skissane wrote: post #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, beca…

How would you categorize FB/whatsapp-driven genocide in Myanmar[0], polarization(+) or polarization-lite?

The semantic acrobatics in statements like this drive the discussion into pedantic details that successfully lose sight that on net, this is a cancerous product, with a pathology unique to each culture it touches.

like, there's been leaked FB PM discussions on this very topic and phrasing it like a product challenge versus the moral calamity that it is.

[0]https://gizmodo.com/facebook-still-working-on-the-whole-geno... [0.5] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebo...

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#166

Post by maybelsyrup »

dannykwells wrote: post #77
jedberg wrote: 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.

> It is a well established idea.

If by "established" you mean that it's well known, then yes, you're right. If instead you mean that it's agreed-upon or widely accepted, you'd be wrong. There's a lot of great debate / critique, both about how well the phrase actually applied to Adolf Eichmann himself (Arendt was famously only at the trial for like 5 days), and whether evil in general is ever, in fact, all that banal. Sadly the conversation around "the banality of evil" hasn't received a fraction of the attention that the phrase itself has.

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#167

Post by mr_pots »

I don't ever ( except this ) post here and don't use Facebook and trying my very best to get all my contacts to at least try something different other than whatsapp. I've not read the statement but I'm pretty much sure I know the gist of it. The easiest thing I/You can control is what apps are installed on your phone and I choose to not have them. I find Facebook and Instagram is incredibly toxic walled garden even just a lurker like me.It is fair to say that most people have Facebook/Instagram for fear of missing out on some event of some kind. I suppose why I posting is that no matter how much bad Media/press Facebook gets people will be people and just continue on. I even think mark Zuckerberg could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and still people would use Facebook. Anyway rant over.

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#168

Post by slg »

mbesto wrote: post #142
slg wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If we wanted to ignore research, why would we create an industry-leading research program to understand these important issues in the first place? I wonder why tobacco companies studied lung cancer and oil companies studied climate change. Was it because those industries thought those issues were more important than profit?

> Was it because those industries thought those issues were more important than profit? I take a more cynical view - they wanted to get ahead of the narrative before the public did. It meant a better PR angle, a more well thought out strategy to thwart external pressure, and a better forecast on how long you could milk the cow.

To be clear, I was being sarcastic. I agree with you and don't think it is in anyway cynical. It is the obvious reason. It allowed these industries to change the public discourse regarding these issues. For example, the oil industry was a big force behind the "personal responsibility" angle of fighting environmental problems trying to shift public perceptions from blaming the oil industry to blaming individual consumers.

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#169

Post by LordHumungous »

jedberg wrote: 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…

All I can suggest is look at the actual data and not the reporting on the data.

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#170

Post by SeanAppleby »

adolph wrote: post #121
mbesto wrote: post #47

> If we wanted to ignore research, why would we create an industry-leading research program to understand these important issues in the first place? > If we wanted to hide our results, why would we have established an industry-leading standard for transparency and reporting on what we're doing? This is HILARIOUSLY out of touch with reality. You don't call someone a whistleblower if the reports they leaked were TRANSP…

What “does his majority control over Facebook” have to do with the accusations about Facebook’s behavior? Would the behavior be ok if it were majority controlled by mutual funds?

The implicit assertion is that this behavior wouldn't happen if not for Zuckerberg personally causing the behavior.

As someone who has worked at large tech companies though, I find that to be an extremely questionable assertion.

FB has incentives. Zuckerberg didn't invent the dynamics surrounding their business, and I don't see how having a faceless bureaucracy in charge would lead to an organization that is more willing to reject its own incentives.

If anything it would seem like having more obscure and diffuse leadership would lead to less accountability, not more.

Post reply on HN