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Facebook Whistleblower Leaks Thousands of Pages of Incriminating Internal Docs

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Re: Facebook Whistleblower Leaks Thousands of Pages of Incriminating Internal Docs

#671

Post by asiachick »

burlesona wrote: post #361
hunterb123 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To clarify, can you specify exactly what law you would like made? What do you want to be done exactly ? I would rather take the stance of feed algorithms and moderation logs be PUBLICLY available. Transparency instead of censorship.

I would ban algorithmic targeted media -- ie no personalized feed based on an "engagement" algorithm, for social media just see a chronological feed of posts from the people you follow. This is the most addictive and radicalizing part of social media - and the most lucrative. Much like the nicotine in Big Tobacco's case.

Could I write my own algo for personal use? Could I hire someone else to write that algo? Could I share it with others? Could I start a company to sell it? If it gets to popular will you try to ban it too?

Re: Facebook Whistleblower Leaks Thousands of Pages of Incriminating Internal Docs

#672

Post by georgyo »

taf2 wrote: post #326
jimkleiber wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really appreciate this point. I often see it as written rules (laws) and unwritten rules (ethics). If something breaks the unwritten rules we have about how people are supposed to interact with each other, then we often codify that rule into law. Many people will say "I didn't break the law" but where many people would say that person did break an unwritten law. > There should be no question, that what FB is doing…

My Mom said it to me with simpler terms when i was little... "we only have laws because of the assholes"

Your mom's saying has a lot of wisdom because it works in multiple ways.

Either the law was needed because someone did something that needed to not happen again.

Or the law was not needed or even unwanted but was created by an unjust person(s) or politicians.

And that covers all laws. I'm going to use this quote.

Re: Facebook Whistleblower Leaks Thousands of Pages of Incriminating Internal Docs

#673

Post by smsm42 »

dillondoyle wrote: post #607
smsm42 wrote: post #599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't believe NYT is liberal, you're just refusing to recognize the reality. You may love NYT, you may agree with what they say 100 times out of 100, which is fine, but it doesn't change the fact they are a liberal media outlet and have been since forever. If you ignore that, you're just voluntarily skewing your picture of reality. Maybe you think "liberal" means "bad" (which would be weird as I suspect your o…

Do you have examples of importantly not opinion pieces which you consider liberal? to me their reporting is very flat and caged in a good way.

But you know what, don't believe me. I'm just some random dude on the internet, what do I know. Just ask their public editor: https://archive.ph/A26ZF

You don't have to read long. Just read the first line.

Re: Facebook Whistleblower Leaks Thousands of Pages of Incriminating Internal Docs

#674

Post by cblconfederate »

siruncledrew wrote: post #119

I don't care about Facebook, and am not interested in using it, but after reading the spiral of consequences Facebook has been in, it made me think: 1. To all the governments that want to tighten more control on communication, this is great kindling to show people "we the government should further control tech for your own good". 2. You can hardly get the US gov to agree on anything, but when it's about hating each o…

1. Yes and no. Look at how the world's autocrats are using facebook: As a propaganda machine with their troll army, they kick it out of their country or shut it down when convenient and facebook is OK with it (e.g. on Turkey). FB has no spine. So some regulation would actually hold the governments accountable for their abuses.

2. Thats because facebook transgresses common decency. People dont argue politics with base insticts in a parliament.

3. The solution is not to dump their externalities to the public forever. The whole idea of "social media" as mob media is ill-thought.

Re: Facebook Whistleblower Leaks Thousands of Pages of Incriminating Internal Docs

#675

Post by MertsA »

mLuby wrote: post #377
at-fates-hands wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> To clarify, can you specify exactly what law you would like made? What do you want to be done exactly? Honestly, social media issues are for the most part a parenting issue. If you don't have access to your kids phone, or know what platforms they are on and who they are talking to and what they're sharing, I'm not sure legislating social media is going to do much of anything. New platforms will pop up, more privat…

> You start to put some teeth into laws where people are facing serious consequences for bullying and pushing people to suicide Counterpoint: kids aren't all neurologically and socially developed enough to understand life-altering consequences for certain actions, and that's not their fault. Legal codes and law enforcement are too crude in most child-related cases, unless you're okay with incarcerating misbehaving ch…

Counterpoint to your counterpoint: Almost all kids are neurologically and socially developed enough to understand they'll be picking up cigarette butts and cleaning graffiti on the weekend if they start bullying someone. It's quite common for American schools to enact "zero tolerance" policies for any physical altercation that, barring criminal charges, is the same punishment regardless of severity and irrespective of who the aggressor was. The policy is literally to give the victim the same punishment in the name of "fairness". Now there's no reason not to escalate and it incentivizes the victim to not report it. Even with the same punishment it's still skewed towards the bully as odds are, they're probably not going to care as much about a couple days of suspension and most bullies aren't going to be in any serious risk of expulsion.

School administrators don't care about bullying and teens being driven to suicide, they care more about liability than fairness. Taking the King Solomon approach in public schools is abhorrent and injust. Kids do dumb things, but it makes it so much worse when incompetence and callous disregard create perverse incentives.

Re: Facebook Whistleblower Leaks Thousands of Pages of Incriminating Internal Docs

#677

Post by m0zg »

farcebook wrote: post #191
ozzythecat wrote: post #141

I don’t personally use FB and don’t have a very favorable view of their products. I would, however, like to see the same level scrutiny applied to the general American media, especially the news media. FB has come in and started eating their lunch. There’s a deeper problem here, and it feels more like the powers that he want to take down FB. I’m not denying any allegation made against FB, but why is it that Fox News,…

One, most of the mainstream news has at least basic editorial processes in place that do a rudimentary check on truthiness. Facebook, along with some of the sketchier news outlets, are the opposite: they profit off (and optimize for) disinformation. Two, it's a matter of scale. Facebook reaches a far larger audience and has far more detail into their preferences and can nano-target personalized stories for them and c…

> rudimentary check on truthiness

Did you miss the part where they lie pretty much all the time nowadays to advance political agendas? The argument being made by this "whistleblower" is merely that FB should be required to do the same. The only "whistle" she's really "blowing" here is that of the DNC. I'm sure Zuck is smart enough to see how detrimental this is to his company's long term success, or even existence. Founders and executives: background check your future employees and screen them for activist backgrounds. If they have any of that - do not hire. They themselves say political affiliation is not a protected category. They are dangerous for business. Let them taste their own medicine.

Re: Facebook Whistleblower Leaks Thousands of Pages of Incriminating Internal Docs

#678

Post by [deleted] »

smsm42 wrote: post #673
dillondoyle wrote: post #607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have examples of importantly not opinion pieces which you consider liberal? to me their reporting is very flat and caged in a good way.

But you know what, don't believe me. I'm just some random dude on the internet, what do I know. Just ask their public editor: https://archive.ph/A26ZF You don't have to read long. Just read the first line.

[deleted]

Re: Facebook Whistleblower Leaks Thousands of Pages of Incriminating Internal Docs

#679

Post by OneTimePetes »

freeopinion wrote: post #442
finfinfin wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like you are willfully ignoring Facebook’s own findings. They know that polarizing content is more engaging yet harmful… and they choose to amplify it anyway. The same old argument that it’s hard therefore let’s not do anything is not applicable. Facebook is not a neutral platform that just shows all posts from your friends in a chronological order. They are actively manipulating the stream and are fully respon…

> Facebook [clipped] are fully responsible for what you consume. I'm not sure how deeply you hold this belief, but I am concerned to see so many people push all blame from their own actions. While it may be true that Facebook is largely responsible for what is consumed * on Facebook *, individuals are largely responsible for consuming Facebook.

Because they are- they actively filter out rational and positive contributing individuals from the public plaza. They remove all the good people from the world and give the bad ones a stick for leverage and a hose to spray the neighbourhood down in all caps.

Re: Facebook Whistleblower Leaks Thousands of Pages of Incriminating Internal Docs

#680

Post by raxxorrax »

2pEXgD0fZ5cF wrote: post #633
philwelch wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's astounding to me that too little censorship is characterized as "antithetical to our values", "highly dubious ethically", and worthy of potential legal sanction in the top-ranked comment on HN.

It's astounding that something like a chronological timeline free of Facebooks outrage algorithms is portrayed as censorship. And honestly the defense of Facebooks unethical behaviour is following a real simple pattern at this point: Shift blame to the users and make it look like Facebook critics want "more censorship". Facebook shareholders making a few dollars less (if thats even the case) is absolutely not my prob…

> make it look like Facebook critics want "more censorship".

Unfortunately a lot of them do plainly want more censorship. Worse, they want it for the whole net. Many people always advocated to be careful sharing your life with facebook. They were completely ignored. Now when the users understood they have no control about their own data and the information that gets shared, they want to make the whole net happy with content regulations with the help of the state.

Facebook doesn't care much about ethics, that is true for any companies. But the users certainly had a choice here. Exception might be people in media that also has alsodependent on Facebook in the meantime.

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