Statement from Mark Zuckerberg • Hacker News Board

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#581

Post by nonameiguess » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 10:49 AM UTC

sofixa wrote: post #541

jamiek88 wrote: post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then they are too big and must be broken up.

I can't see it working. Instagram and WhatsApp should be spun off, absolutely no question about it. But Instagram and Facebook still remain way too big. And how do you break them up? By geographic area? People would be pissed because they have contacts with, or maybe want to watch vacation videos from people from different areas. IMHO the only options would be: * non-profit run by the UN or similar * forced to open a…

It's probably too late for any specific publicly traded company that already exists, but social media as a protocol, with forced interoperability if necessary, is the way to solve this. Many regional phone carriers doesn't prevent people from communicating across regions.

Of course, it does cost more, so the question becomes who is willing and able to pay for a socially less harmful means of networking individuals without having to put them all on a single data hoovering ad platform? Whether it's direct charge to consumers or subsidized by government, the money still ultimately has to come from people.

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#582

Post by emerged » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 10:54 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…

It’s easy for me to reconcile after living through COVID. There are people in my own family who have emotionally told me they’d never do anything to hurt their family. Meanwhile throughout the pandemic they have purposefully hidden when they have been sick and spent full days with their elderly family and immune compromised 3 year old, touching food and participating in cooking. There is a big difference between emotional and cognitive empathy.

I also think the people who make the biggest show of how much they care tend to be the same who don’t actually act in a caring way at all.

No, I’m not surprised at all that FB employees say they really care. And that they do so very convincingly.

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#583

Post by akudha » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 10:55 AM UTC

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…

Whenever I am having a hard time understanding a situation, someone's motives etc in the world of business/politics, I start with follow the money, and it helps. It might sound cliche, but it is also true in a majority of the cases

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#584

Post by Applejinx » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 10:58 AM UTC

imgabe wrote: post #372

djabatt wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We can. It's called pay directly for the services you use. It is a time-honored system where you give providers money in exchange for goods and services. In response, their incentive is to keep you happy and healthy and prosperous so you can continue to give them money.

No, their incentive is to get your money and get other people like you in case you die on 'em. They don't need you specifically, and they extra much don't need you to be prosperous.

The message 'you can save all this money, using us!' always means 'you can spend all this money with us'. I'm not faulting the general system or even your point here: I am, however, suggesting that while the system is fine it does NOT in any way imply that such people have or feel ANY incentive to your well-being.

You could maybe make a case that such a company might feel an incentive to the POPULATION it depends on… but even then, I feel like that might be mythical. In theory you don't want to eat your own seed corn, but such incentives toward good behavior are so easily ignored… and even if they are honored, it's a collective concern, NOT personal.

They don't care about you, and you are damn lucky if they care even a little about your wellbeing as a class or demographic… most likely they do not. And that's where the system tends to break down.

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#585

Post by fsflover » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 10:58 AM UTC

sofixa wrote: post #541

jamiek88 wrote: post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then they are too big and must be broken up.

I can't see it working. Instagram and WhatsApp should be spun off, absolutely no question about it. But Instagram and Facebook still remain way too big. And how do you break them up? By geographic area? People would be pissed because they have contacts with, or maybe want to watch vacation videos from people from different areas. IMHO the only options would be: * non-profit run by the UN or similar * forced to open a…

> And how do you break them up? By geographic area?

Did you hear about federation and inter-compatibility between different network? Have a look at how Mastodon works.

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#586

Post by ralfn » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 11:00 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…

The problem with facebook is that it plays with fire every day. Kills innocent people every day. But they have a fire department, so they can't be all bad right?

If you can't do what you do in a way that isn't this harmful to the world, then you always have the choice to just stop it.

These are all smart people. They could be working on anything else and be successful at it. But they are scared of change. The money is too good.

I just wish the people working at facebook that are decent, that they would just leave and go work somewhere else.

And that we stop debating whether Zuckerberg is redeemable. He is not. He is a psycho. He is why it escalates this much. He is a monster. Beyond all the lies, he intends the damage he does to the world. Maybe someone bullied him as a child. Maybe he is just not well. I don't know.

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#587

Post by KptMarchewa » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 11:02 AM UTC

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #576

trhway wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And who is going to break up TikTok or whatever comes next/instead? The social media is like tobacco, and FB increasing the engagement at all costs is like when Big Tobacco were increasing addictiveness of the cigarettes. Like with tobacco, the way to deal with the issue is to wean the population off by in particular educating the population about the damage it does to them . Btw, "Statement from Mark Zuckerberg" - t…

To be fair to the guy, he was 19 then. Who amongst us hasn't said something (many things, in my case at least) stupid at 19?

[flagged]

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#588

Post by MobileVet » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 11:10 AM UTC

titzer wrote: post #34

> Now that today's testimony is over, I wanted to reflect on the public debate we're in. I'm sure many of you have found the recent coverage hard to read because it just doesn't reflect the company we know. Yeah, we know you don't know, because you're looking at it from on top of a mountain of 100 billion dollars, Mark. There isn't a single damned thing that can change your picture of it being the absolute greatest t…

> Your entire model of the world is broken, Mark. No wonder nothing makes sense.

+100

This has been the consistent picture of Mark from the very beginning of Facebook. ‘Stupid fs gave me their info’

As titzer said, the actions speak louder than the words and Mark’s actions over the years have never varied from their hyper focus.

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#589

Post by amelius » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 11:12 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…

Perhaps we should help Zuck a little, and ban advertising in any social media application. That should at least set the incentives straight.

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#590

Post by BiteCode_dev » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 11:13 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…

> they have created a system of incentives that are inexorably leading to harmful outcomes

If the people inside are "smart, thoughtful, kind, well-intentioned people", they would have tried to work around the incentive, influence them, denounce them, or quit.

It rarely happened. Most of the time, the just take the money, and goes with the flow.