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Facebook harms children and weakens democracy: ex-employee

bbc.com

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Re: Facebook harms children and weakens democracy: ex-employee

#11

Post by chroem- »

gremloni wrote: post #9
chroem- wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If democracy is a system where the average citizen controls the government through voting, how will we "protect democracy" by intentionally trying to control the opinions and actions of voters, with the implication that their current opinions are wrong? That kind of electorate shaping seems akin to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, where everyone still votes, but it's always influenced to be in favor of the…

It’s a fine balance that doesn’t work well with hyperbolic extremes like you’re painting. We don’t let people buy materials to make bombs but we don’t prevent farmers from buying fertilizer either. The answer is somewhere in between.

Where are the checks and balances to prevent that from happening? The public discourse is the system of checks and balances in a democracy that prevents that kind of authoritarian subversion. If you prevent people from speaking out and shape their opinions, who is able to say something when it goes too far? This is not an effort to aid democracy, it's a direct attack against it.

Re: Facebook harms children and weakens democracy: ex-employee

#12

Post by _ink_ »

chroem- wrote: post #7
gremloni wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you. We need gatekeepers, not unsubstantiated nonsense from the lowest common denominator.

If democracy is a system where the average citizen controls the government through voting, how will we "protect democracy" by intentionally trying to control the opinions and actions of voters, with the implication that their current opinions are wrong? That kind of electorate shaping seems akin to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, where everyone still votes, but it's always influenced to be in favor of the…

We don't use democracy in the correct way. The true form of democracy does not use voting to determine the leaders, but a raffle. The voting was added some time around the french revolution, when people learned that having power is great and they wanted to increase their probability to not lose it.

Re: Facebook harms children and weakens democracy: ex-employee

#13

Post by invalidname »

chroem- wrote: post #7
gremloni wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you. We need gatekeepers, not unsubstantiated nonsense from the lowest common denominator.

If democracy is a system where the average citizen controls the government through voting, how will we "protect democracy" by intentionally trying to control the opinions and actions of voters, with the implication that their current opinions are wrong? That kind of electorate shaping seems akin to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, where everyone still votes, but it's always influenced to be in favor of the…

Facebook is the one doing the controlling. You don't see the majority in the newsfeed. They pick the extreme and pump that to you so it looks like all your friends agree with you and all your enemies are awful people. This promotes engagement and silos.

It's an inadvertent global re-education scheme on a massive scale whose results we see every day. There was political collaboration and discussion in the past. Facebook essentially made that a non-starter. If the news feed was closer to what people said or even like reddit where the majority vote goes up then there wouldn't be a problem.

Re: Facebook harms children and weakens democracy: ex-employee

#15

Post by mypastself »

Is there an easy, non-paywalled way to access some of the original leaked documents? With the amount of discussion this has generated on HN in the past few days, I’m disappointed no one here seems interested in the actual content of the documents, only in interpretations.

I don’t personally use any Facebook products, at least not knowingly, as I tend to agree with what seems to be the consensus opinion here. But I am questioning the political angle and calls for legal action.

Perhaps if I had insight into the documents, I might judge for myself. A recent article about a leaked internal report about foreign actors, for example, involved misinterpretations by the news site, and further exaggerations by the commentariat:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28691585

Re: Facebook harms children and weakens democracy: ex-employee

#16

Post by avalys »

mypastself wrote: post #15

Is there an easy, non-paywalled way to access some of the original leaked documents? With the amount of discussion this has generated on HN in the past few days, I’m disappointed no one here seems interested in the actual content of the documents, only in interpretations. I don’t personally use any Facebook products, at least not knowingly, as I tend to agree with what seems to be the consensus opinion here. But I am…

Facebook has released the original decks, with their own annotations added on the side.

https://about.fb.com/news/2021/09/research-teen-well-being-a...

Re: Facebook harms children and weakens democracy: ex-employee

#17

Post by mypastself »

avalys wrote: post #16
mypastself wrote: post #15

Is there an easy, non-paywalled way to access some of the original leaked documents? With the amount of discussion this has generated on HN in the past few days, I’m disappointed no one here seems interested in the actual content of the documents, only in interpretations. I don’t personally use any Facebook products, at least not knowingly, as I tend to agree with what seems to be the consensus opinion here. But I am…

Facebook has released the original decks, with their own annotations added on the side. https://about.fb.com/news/2021/09/research-teen-well-being-a...

Thanks, I will take some time and study them.

Re: Facebook harms children and weakens democracy: ex-employee

#18

Post by worrycue »

CryptoPunk wrote: post #2

The ex-employee wants Facebook to engage in more censorship, spying and control. That's their definition of helping people and democracy. Like Glenn Greenwald said: https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1434854149087182848 >>The entire "anti-disinformation"/"anti-extremism" industry is a gigantic fraud, funded by the same tiny handful of billionaires, governments and NGOs: a scam to control discourse while feigning n…

Frankly, Facebook doesn’t need to censor. They just need to rein in their algorithm that promote posts to people’s feeds. Watching the shorten 60 minute’s interview, I get the sense that’s the main problem.

The algorithm promote stuff that maximizes “engagement” but the unfortunate side effect is that it sow division, reduces social trust, and creates civil unrest - among other side effects.

Facebook’s own internal research has pointed out the effects of what they are doing.

There aren’t laws against what they are doing but they should probably do a course correction - and laws can be created real quick.

Re: Facebook harms children and weakens democracy: ex-employee

#19

Post by inglor_cz »

ipaddr wrote: post #8
gremloni wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you. We need gatekeepers, not unsubstantiated nonsense from the lowest common denominator.

Gatekeepers are corruptable usual by money. The web was great previously because we lost the gatekeepers. Now we have 3-5 gatekeepers..facebook, twitter, google..

This.

A tiny group of powerful gatekeepers will have a tendency to slide towards clique. That is just human nature, and that is why we used to have anti-trust legislation with teeth.

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