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Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

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Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#341

Post by seattle_spring »

shrimpx wrote: post #265
wpietri wrote: post #138

Earlier 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…

Your sentiment reflects what I see on teamblind.com. It's all TC and leveling up. A ton of people don't give much of a shit about the subject matter.

If we go by the content of teamblind, then every company's engineers only care about TC and leveling up.

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#342

Post by wutbrodo »

skizm wrote: post #105
hokumguru wrote: post #18

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.

I’m with you. Facebook brings way more good to the world than bad. And the bad it brings is just amplification of what already exists. And with the Internet that amplification will happen with or without facebook. Also the fact that much of the research / “leaks” are showing most of the issues are only happening in the US is a sort of a glaring hole in most of the arguments being made against FB. The US is just borke…

Most people completely have their head in the sand about how utterly awful the average person is. A massive chunk of what people complain about is simply attributable to the fact that people are monsters, and that global connectivity means we can now all talk to each other without distribution being tightly bottlenecked and controlled (eg publishers, broadcasters, radio, etc). There's little that Facebook is accused of that seems as salient as this fact, and little they could do that would avert much of what we're seeing.

Oddly enough, I've felt for a long time that Facebook is among the most unethical companies out there. It's very weird to see it facing a potential reckoning on the back of such incredibly weak claims.

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#343

Post by hollerith »

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…

I think a more apt analogy has advertising as Facebook's fossil-fuel burning, but then I expect severely curtailing fossil-fuel use will severely reduce GDP, which I am guessing is not a common belief around here. (I'm guessing that many around here think that it is essentially just the stubbornness of those in power that keeps fossil-fuel use high, and that even if we force the whole world economy to transition to 100% renewals over, e.g., the next 5 years, things will turn out fine.)

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#344

Post by 6510 »

_yoqn wrote: post #236
mise_en_place wrote: post #217

Earlier 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…

You're absolutely 100% correct. About 2.5% of people have have an inverted viewpoint of their own survival. Meaning, they think they need to squash others down in order to feel superior. As opposed to the logical path which is raise your team together and effectively lead to greater prosperity for all.

I think the bug in most organizations is that performance is reviewed only by the people above with very little to no input from below.

edit: Took me down memory land to re-visit some truly incompetent and insanely unproductive bootlickers and fast talkers who would lose their job immediately after a 5 min confidential talk with any of their underlings.

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#345

Post by throw_m239339 »

Mark, you hired, just like Google and other IT companies did in the midst of the Trump presidency, political activists and now you are surprised these political hires are compromising your business secrets and betraying you? Read their manifesto, they are here is subvert and destroy, not get you good easy PR.

The Silicon Valley can't have it both ways and it's a situation they certainly created, by trying to pander to political activists just for PR reasons but now they acting all surprised when political activists are doing exactly what they say they would do in public or social media? subvert and destroy your business if you don't submit to their need for censorship?

well, prepare yourself for a bunch of heavy regulations as a result, and it will affect ALL STARTUPS as a result.

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#346

Post by ahahahahah »

nr2x wrote: post #306
LordHumungous wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No that's of girls who have thoughts of suicide, 13.5% say it makes it worse. Ok, is that good or bad? The number is meaningless without a control.

One person having one more thought of suicide is too many. So no number - other than zero - is "meaningless". If Facebook made money doing something they knew there was a non-zero risk of pushing even one person to suicide, they are a sociopathic organization.

That's a high bar. Let's shut down malls, competitive sports, grades in schools, hell schools themselves, teen magazines, television, arcades, even suicide hotlines, etc because they all made at least one person feel more suicidal.

And then you could say, well, maybe some of those places didn't do the research. In which case, isn't that worse? If they are making people more suicidal and they don't even care enough to research and find out, how are they possibly going to get better? I would much rather an institution research the harms (and benefits) that it may be causing than to just turn a blind eye.

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#347

Post by coding123 »

mise_en_place wrote: post #217
wpietri wrote: post #138

Earlier 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…

Game of survivor played out in real life.

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#349

Post by gorwell »

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…

It may be that facebook can't fix itself, but what makes anyone think an even larger and more powerful organization is the answer and won't itself succumb to its own system of incentives? She is pushing for the equivalent of The Ministry of Truth.

Relevant testimony here: https://twitter.com/gillibrandny/status/1445451624005001217

Remember, this is the system of incentives that had us spend 20 disastrous years in Afghanistan, across both parties. And has failed to deal with climate change. And healthcare. And education. And wealth inequality. And housing. And... Siri, what's the definition of insane?

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#350

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

wpietri wrote: post #138
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…

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…

Were you ever really meant to solve the problem or just be a Potemkin village in case anyone accuses the execs of not caring.
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