Statement from Mark Zuckerberg • Hacker News Board

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#311

Post by OpieCunningham » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 2:45 AM UTC

BobbyJo wrote: post #91

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 don't think it's an emergent property, I think it's a by-product of the constraints. It's all well and good that they want to make Facebook safe and healthy, and I honestly believe plenty of people working there are trying to do just that. However, they are operating under the constraint that they cannot move backwards on profits, and therefore engagement. Imagine if you were trying to fix climate change, but under…

Nice.

> I don't think it's an emergent property, I think it's a by-product of the constraints. > Imagine if you were trying to fix climate change, but under the condition that you weren't allowed to burn fewer fossil fuels.

There is one person who controls all the constraints: Zuckerberg. He even went so far as to enforce that through his stock classifications. It’s entirely understandable and acceptable to have empathy for those working at FB who are attempting to solve the problems. But Zuckerberg made the decision to be the single source of the constraints that bind everyone below. And his constraints are: profit over all else. He should face consequences for setting those constraints, just as anyone should who set a constraint of “address climate change without adversely effecting GDP”.

Separately, and as the “revelations” of Zuckerberg’s immoral behavior continues year after year, those who work for him but are attempting to solve the problems, should recognize at some point in the future, now, or in the past that the problems are insurmountable within the confines of the constraints. As that knowledge spreads, then the question becomes whether those idealistically earnest individuals are justifiably ignorant of the reality: that all their best intentions are moot in the face of the constraints as were determined by Zuckerberg. And when or if they are no longer justifiably ignorant, they become culpable.

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#312

Post by angelzen » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 2:46 AM UTC

zestyping wrote: post #127

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 exactly the point Frances Haugen is making, and it's why this is so different and so much more significant than the other Facebook scandals and leaks in the past. Haugen repeated over and over again her testimony today that Facebook is full of smart, thoughtful, kind, well-intentioned people, and that she has great empathy for them, even Mark Zuckerberg. Her point is that they have created a system of incenti…

"Facebook has created a system of incentives that are inexorably leading to harmful outcomes" Exactly right. The solution baffles me. "Force Facebook to reveal and permit research so we understand the system and fix it" Basically keep the harmful system in place, but pass the reins to an unspecified cabal hiding under the innocuous word "we". Hard pass.

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#313

Post by fighterpilot » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 2:46 AM UTC

dudul wrote: post #301

fighterpilot wrote: post #269

I don't get why Twitter always gets a free pass on the harms from misinformation. I have seen so much fake news around vaccines, election integrity on there not to mention that it's the nexus of woke cancellation mobs. I think it's because Twitter is seen as doing more (banning Trump, putting notifications on posts), but is that actually the case relative to what FB is doing?

Isn't twitter just some sort of tiny echo chamber? Don't we regularly see these studies claimg that only 2%of the users generate 99% of the content? Twitter is only harmful to businesses who hire marketing firms who think twitter is representative of the general population.

My anecdotal impression is that YouTube and Twitter played a big role in spreading election misinformation. The main basis of the Kraken conspiracy theory came from a YouTube video which was spread on Twitter and I remember numerous election integrity fake news tweets getting hundreds of thousands of retweets from a large right-wing echo chamber. It may have been worse on FB but I do think the asymmetry of attention and scrutiny is far out of whack.

I'm going to guess the reason is that congresspeople and journalists see Twitter as their domain of control now and benefit from the privileges of a blue check mark and the other side being kicked off. Probably Zuckerberg's lack of charisma and physical appearance isn't helping either, however unfair that may be. Another reason might be that the FB newsfeed lacks transparency unlike Twitter which contributes to distrust.

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#314

Post by vineyardmike » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 2:47 AM UTC

shkkmo wrote: post #245

TulliusCicero wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A rule more analogous to Facebook's presumed position would be, "you can fix climate change, but you can't do anything that would reduce GDP per capita". Which in practice means that while some useful tools would be on the table, others would definitely not be.

Not really since facebook revenue is much more directly tied to engagnement than GDP ia to fossile fuel consumption. To extens the metaphor, Facebook's "alternative energy" is non-advertising based revenue. I see zero efforts from facebook to move away from ad based revenue so there is zero chance that Facebook is going to make meaningful progress in changing.

> I see zero efforts from facebook to move away from ad based revenue

Portal hardware. Oculus + Game Store. Facebook Gaming.

Lots of projects, no stable hits.

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#315

Post by nikitaga » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 2:48 AM UTC

busymom0 wrote: post #190

kumarvvr wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is because most other countries have multi party systems. The polarization is still there, but spread thin amongst various factions. In the US, people are shoehorned into R or D. Edit : I would also like to point out that the OP is a bit confused between cause and effect. In the US, the effect is deep polarization. However, the cause is the power of mass communication, especially misinformation and blatant lies,…

Canadian multiparty system is a joke. All the parties are basically the same in Canada.

Because Canadian electoral system is also FPTP just like US and UK. Our election results already reflect this: decades upon decades of essentially only two parties ever being in government and almost no coalition governments.

Most European countries have functional multiparty governments because they have some variation of proportional representation.

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#316

Post by systemvoltage » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 2:49 AM UTC

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…

You don't need to go anywhere else to find polarization. Right here on HN, conservative points are downvoted, flagged and shunned despite of having excellent credibility, just a different perspective of core values. This was not the case, note the number of downvoted comments in this highly debated topic in 2016, they were very few: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12926678

It's one of those things that says a lot about the people on HN and their tolerance to wide range of opinions. And yes, we all agree that rude, disrespectful and violence has no place on HN. But, disagreeing on Tax policies? Property laws? Patents? Let people talk about it.

I really don't see it different than anti-liberal hostility on conservative forums. It's the same. Exactly the same.

Let's change this and exercise some restraint. Most people on either fence have good faith.

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#317

Post by shrimpx » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 2:50 AM UTC

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…

What I hear from Zuckerberg over and over is "we're good people and working on it, look at A and B things we're doing" with an implication that that's good enough, so what's everybody up in arms about? That's the core of his tone-deafness to me. If Zuckerberg is fully honest, it means he basically just doesn't have a grip on reality and he isn't fit to lead a corporation this big and impactful. And I tend to believe that, because he's ultimately just a college kid with a laptop who ended up in some circumstances that snowballed.

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#318

Post by quadrangle » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 2:51 AM UTC

spothedog1 wrote: post #205

The quality of this comment section is like Facebook or Reddit level. Practically no deep discussion of the actual topic at hand just dunks on Zuck.

I appreciate both you pointing this out AND the dunks on Zuck both here and on his post at FB. I'm surprised they didn't set up a custom algorithm to bury the most critical responses at his post.

Anyway, here's an attempt at some thoughtful nuance:

There's lots of wisdom readily available out there that describes how to most responsibly deal with critical feedback. For example Rapoport's Rules (via Dan Dennett). First you express the other's position so they can say "yes, that's exactly how I feel". Then, you describe where you agree and what you've learned. Finally, you can go into where you disagree.

Another framing is to ask "what is true in the feedback?" with the presumption that there is truth to be found.

This and other approaches are all about maximizing what to actually learn from feedback.

By contrast, Mark's post is a textbook-worthy demonstration of how to be politely defensive, even being candid about your emotional vulnerabilities, recognizing your frustrations, not lashing out in anger… all while admitting absolutely ZERO about anything in the criticism having any merit or opening any questions to really grapple with. At its best, his letter says "I'm really saddened about how my work is misunderstood, and I don't want to blame the critics, but I'll work to get past my reactive feelings and go back to continuing my wonderful work that has been so unfairly maligned".

I'll grant that this is more mature than a tantrum that attacks the critics and spreads rumors and lies about them. Zuckerberg is a more thoughtful and nicer person than Donald Trump.

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#319

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 2:51 AM UTC

burnished wrote: post #234

wpietri wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So maybe Zuck is telling the truth here, that they are trying to fix all this. But no one can see the forest from the trees. Ah, this is what I think of as Schrodinger's Accountability. Zuckerberg and Facebook's senior execs are simultaneously: A) so brilliant for running Facebook that they deserve to be incredibly rich, and B) so normal that they can't possibly be expected to understand the consequences of their a…

You may be missing the point if you think your point is orthogonal to theirs. Mark Zuckerberg doesn't have to be painted as a reptiloid in order for his actions to be bad, or for those actions to cause harm. More than blaming shit needs to get fixed right? We can still hold people culpable, but we don't need to do that, don't need to indict anyone before trying to fix a problem that is self perpetuating due to indivi…

[deleted]

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#320

Post by vineyardmike » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 2:51 AM UTC

mbesto wrote: post #113

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 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, especially children. Those same people are protecting their children with $300k+ salaries and buying property in area where they can send their children to Gunn HS. While I empathize with these people the direct opportu…

> Do you they know deep down inside that the only way to fix these things is to hurt Facebook financially? Probably.

The crazy thing is that FB has taken steps to improve things in past that also hurt them financially (eg post cambridge analytica) . They just make so much money and so fast that its like 1 or 2 bad quarters and its over.

So (1) mark being all powerful means he alone can decide its worth lower profits - he's done it before.

(2) The loss of profits probably wouldn't even matter.