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they can't be serious
Statement from Mark Zuckerberg
331–340 of 699 posts
Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg
#332Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 b…
> According to internal studies retrieved by Haugen, Facebook found that 13.5% of teen girls say Instagram makes thoughts of suicide worse, and 17% of teen girls say Instagram makes eating disorders worse. This is a snippet of the research mark's referring to. Oh good, only 13.5% of girls feeling more suicidal.
While it did make it (suicidal thoughts, aiui) worse for 13.5%, it made it better for 38% (see https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/mental-health-f... slide 10). Is that better than schools? Is that better than television? Is it better than malls? Is that even good overall or bad overall? How does it compare to competitive sports? What about grades in school?
I mean, we could take the position that if any of these cause any teen girls (or boys) to be more suicidal we should condemn that thing and rid ourselves of it, but I think that would be a mistake.
Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg
#333Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
The "lean in" people and incentives have made society suffer for profit. Perhaps we can define a better set of incentives that reward companies of people building products.
Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg
#334Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 b…
Is there a link to the actual findings of the study? I feel like that statement is cherry picking, and without context there's not much weight to it. The ultimate issue here (unless I'm misunderstanding the controversy) is about whether Facebook decided to act on the findings of the study which showed Facebook/Instagram was causing harm to teenagers. This sentence from Zuckerberg seems to be disputing the findings of…
> Is there a link to the actual findings of the study?
https://about.fb.com/news/2021/09/research-teen-well-being-a...
> I feel like that statement is cherry picking, and without context there's not much weight to it.
How can you form an option about whether it’s cherry picking if you’re unaware of the context?
Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg
#335Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is a phenomenon I have witnessed working both in high growth startups and traditional Fortune 500s. At some point, the company starts attracting Dark Triad personality types that cement themselves in upper management positions, usually starting at Director level. These people are extremely dangerous, one of them had access to my corporate laptop (as was standard policy for that company) and would torment me by…
This happened at a company I was at. Hyper-growth startup, huge aura around it. A few high-level folks arrived whose perfection in smooth talking was rivaled only by their enjoyment of wreaking havoc on teams & relationships. They brought in their friends, paranoia and rumors spread, culture went off a cliff, CEO was confused what happened. Mass exodus followed.
How do you filter against hiring these types given their talking and schmoozing get them over the HR guard as well as director and above interviewers?
Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg
#336> 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…
US is a weak democracy, simple as that.
The US is a federal republic with an overly powerful and intrusive central government.
Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg
#337I'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…
As other have said, my experience with Facebook just doesn't mirror the "angryness" and hatred that other people are seeing. My Facebook stream is just every day things from friends I have made through the world. It is very useful for me to maintain a bit of a touch with people I esteem so much but with whom I've list touch through the years.
The "angry facebook" experience to me seems like the moms against heavy metal / twisted sister case: People are seeing a reflection of what their peers share.
If their circles are angry and share disinformation, that's what they will see.
Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg
#338Earlier quoted context omitted.
"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.
end algorithmic recommendations
Ah yes. Get rid of Pandora and GoodReads because what they're doing has basically the outcome.
Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg
#339Earlier quoted context omitted.
The person who mentions the banality of evil, dannykwells, has an excellent point. But there's more at play here. I briefly worked on Twitter's anti-abuse engineering. Many of the people on that team cared a lot about protecting people. I sure did. But we didn't have the necessary power to actually solve the problem. The people who did have that power were senior execs. They might say that they cared. In their heart…
There is a phenomenon I have witnessed working both in high growth startups and traditional Fortune 500s. At some point, the company starts attracting Dark Triad personality types that cement themselves in upper management positions, usually starting at Director level. These people are extremely dangerous, one of them had access to my corporate laptop (as was standard policy for that company) and would torment me by…
Extremely insightful, I have had the same experience and I agree. I somehow have the ability to "sniff" out these types pretty quickly, something about their conversations give them away.
Here's an real life example: I worked for a small startup years ago and the founder invited the engineering team to lunch at a restraunt. The founder proceeded to berate the waiter for no reason and yell at him, it seemed like completely psychopathic behavior and then I caught the smallest of smiles from him after the waiter walked away beaten up(metaphorically speaking) by the barrage. I knew right then this person was not someone I wanted to work for and put in my notice shortly after.
Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg
#340The 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). Firs…
> 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.
I wouldn't conclude anything about Zuckerberg's character from this letter. There is absolutely no way he wrote it. I'm sure he signed off on it, but he didn't write it. Some PR crew filled with lawyers and communication specialists wrote it.