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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

#711

Post by specialist »

quotemstr wrote: post #704
specialist wrote: post #690

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regulating Facebook, making it safe for human consumption, is trivial. No targeted advertising. No algorithmic news feed. Voila. Fixed. RSS feed readers can do it. So can Facebook. > dang applies special rules to your comments if he doesn't like you. What's FB's equivalent to HN's guidelines? When has @dang violated his own guidelines? Are you suggesting that automated curation, moderating is without bias ? > FB's al…

> No targeted advertising. Strong disagree. Why the hell shouldn't I be able show ads to people who want to see them? > No algorithmic news feed. HN is an algorithmic feed.

Targeted ads. Targeted. As in specifically and exquisitely targeted to individual people based upon datum gathered from surveiling everyone.

Still legitimate, and maybe even encouraged, are contextual ads, banners, sponsorships, branding, swag, paid placement, influencers, misc calls to action, etc.

Please rest your concerns. Late stage capitalism will continue unimpeded after Facebook's wings are clipped. Social media will revert to less noxious enterprises, like metafilter and craigslist.

> HN is an algorithmic feed.

Opt-in. Transparent.

What is FB's equivalent to HN's /newest?

I'm not crazy about HN's ranking. It's pretty good, non-toxic, seems fair. But someone other than me is making judgement calls.

I much prefer client side (user controlled) filtering and sorting, like with any generic RSS reader.

Repeating myself: All HN visitors see the same feed. A crucial qualitative point you pointedly do not acknowledge.

Nor do you answer any of my questions.

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

#712

Post by quotemstr »

specialist wrote: post #711
quotemstr wrote: post #704

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No targeted advertising. Strong disagree. Why the hell shouldn't I be able show ads to people who want to see them? > No algorithmic news feed. HN is an algorithmic feed.

Targeted ads. Targeted. As in specifically and exquisitely targeted to individual people based upon datum gathered from surveiling everyone. Still legitimate, and maybe even encouraged, are contextual ads, banners, sponsorships, branding, swag, paid placement, influencers, misc calls to action, etc. Please rest your concerns. Late stage capitalism will continue unimpeded after Facebook's wings are clipped. Social med…

Ad targeting is just a bugbear for a section of the tech activist crowd. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with a site like Twitter noticing that I tend to post a lot about cats and showing me cat ads as a result. No, it's not self-evident that targeting is bad, and no, behavioral targeting doesn't require "surveiling" everyone internet-wide.

> Late stage capitalism

I don't subscribe to the neo-Marxist worldview that uses this "late stage capitalism" frame all the time. Capitalism is the natural order of the universe, not some temporary aberration on the way to your Utopia.

> Opt-in. Transparent.

Not transparent, and hardly opt-in: HN feed ranking is the default.

> I much prefer client side (user controlled) filtering and sorting, like with any generic RSS reader.

Okay, so people seeing different feeds is good...

> Repeating myself: All HN visitors see the same feed. A crucial qualitative point you pointedly do not acknowledge.

... and now people seeing different feeds is bad.

Make up your mind.

Different people should see different feeds because they're interested in different things. There's nothing sinister or nefarious about showing people stories about topics that interest them and not showing them stories about topics that don't.

I think even you'd agree that someone should be able to opt into seeing stories about "cooking" and opt out of stories about "motorcycles". Okay, that's good, right? Now what's wrong with using ML to infer, based on what someone reads, that he's interested in "cooking" and not "motorcycles"?

This interest inference is what FB is doing. There's nothing bad about it.

I maintain that the criticism you and others are lobbying against algorithmic feeds is logically incoherent, emotionally rooted, and unworkable as public policy.

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

#713

Post by mullingitover »

quotemstr wrote: post #712
specialist wrote: post #711

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Targeted ads. Targeted. As in specifically and exquisitely targeted to individual people based upon datum gathered from surveiling everyone. Still legitimate, and maybe even encouraged, are contextual ads, banners, sponsorships, branding, swag, paid placement, influencers, misc calls to action, etc. Please rest your concerns. Late stage capitalism will continue unimpeded after Facebook's wings are clipped. Social med…

Ad targeting is just a bugbear for a section of the tech activist crowd. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with a site like Twitter noticing that I tend to post a lot about cats and showing me cat ads as a result. No, it's not self-evident that targeting is bad, and no, behavioral targeting doesn't require "surveiling" everyone internet-wide. > Late stage capitalism I don't subscribe to the neo-Marxist worldview t…

> This interest inference is what FB is doing. There's nothing bad about it.

And circling back to the original article, there is in fact something bad about it. One guy started out with a site to rate the attractiveness of women at Harvard, and now my mother is probably going to die because his customized algorithm found that showing her lots of anti-vaccine misinformation would maximize his profits.

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

#714

Post by specialist »

quotemstr wrote: post #712
specialist wrote: post #711

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Targeted ads. Targeted. As in specifically and exquisitely targeted to individual people based upon datum gathered from surveiling everyone. Still legitimate, and maybe even encouraged, are contextual ads, banners, sponsorships, branding, swag, paid placement, influencers, misc calls to action, etc. Please rest your concerns. Late stage capitalism will continue unimpeded after Facebook's wings are clipped. Social med…

Ad targeting is just a bugbear for a section of the tech activist crowd. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with a site like Twitter noticing that I tend to post a lot about cats and showing me cat ads as a result. No, it's not self-evident that targeting is bad, and no, behavioral targeting doesn't require "surveiling" everyone internet-wide. > Late stage capitalism I don't subscribe to the neo-Marxist worldview t…

I wish you'd started with a reputiation of the body of research, and everyone's lived experience.

As the scholarship advances, and both the predictive and explanatory powers they afford us, I'll update my views as best able.

Meanwhile, if you can't entertain the premise that Facebook's profit model is a major net negative for humanity, we don't have much to discuss.

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

#715

Post by philwelch »

amerkhalid wrote: post #564
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.

What if it is not censorship but rather we apply same standards for Facebook feed that we have for newspapers. If a newspaper publishes something false that hurts someone, they can sue newspapers because editors should have caught false information. Facebook or social media algorithms now optimize feeds for engagement even if information is false or harmful. To me algorithms are new editors. So people who are hurt by…

Newspapers are a poor analog to social media for this exact reason. A newspaper is the same newspaper for everyone.

The better analogue to social media, at least from the user’s perspective, is direct mail. If someone mails out libelous political fundraising letters, the liability is on whoever wrote the letter, not the postal service. The only difference with social media is that social media has ranking algorithms, but that’s because the volume of social media far outstrips the volume of direct mail. Even Gmail uses algorithms to filter your various inboxes.

If social media worked the same way as direct mail, you’d basically be forced to dig through every social media post within your subscriptions at random to make sure you didn’t miss anything you wanted to see. Which means the primary effect of the algorithm is subtractive. The algorithm sometimes adds content you weren’t otherwise subscribed to, but most of the time, it works by hiding content you are subscribed to. The primary complaint seems to be that Facebook isn’t hiding enough content.

Finally, I think you’re understating the problem with mainstream media. Settling defamation lawsuits out of court, on the rare case that false and harmful news media actually crosses that line, does not even come close to undoing the initial damage. Especially since under US law, public figures—who are the primary targets of media coverage—have a much higher burden of proof to sue for defamation. (Whenever politicians propose reforming these defamation laws, these mainstream media outlets respond with passive-aggressive antics like printing “Democracy Dies In Darkness” on their mastheads. I bet Zuckerberg wishes he could get away with that kind of thing.)

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

#716

Post by philwelch »

mike00632 wrote: post #557
ashtonkem wrote: post #543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Fire in a crowded theater” comes from the Supreme Court upholding the criminal conviction of a man handing out pamphlets protesting the WW1 draft. Not exactly the precedent I’d reach for if I was trying to argue that governmental regulation of speech is not dangerous.

Facebook Groups have been host to many organized acts of violence. The Kenosha shooting comes to mind as a recent example where the Group was reported to Facebook and made it through multiple layers of review before being allowed to persist. To say that such speech is protected under the First Amendment is too much of a stretch.

It hasn’t even been legally established that Kyle Rittenhouse did anything wrong. Legally, he is innocent until proven guilty, and he has a case for self-defense for every round he fired that night.

To say that the First Amendment doesn’t protect the rights of people to organize and assemble in a public place where one of them is later forced to defend themselves is absurd. People don’t use Facebook to plan premeditated acts of political violence. They use Signal.

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

#717

Post by lhopki01 »

karaterobot wrote: post #381
015a wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't like Oxycontin, just don't use Oxycontin, Dilaudid, or Fentanyl. Don't know why so many people here think adults are not capable of regulating themselves.

And yet, regulating off-label usage of opioids doesn't seem to be very effective at reducing addiction either. So perhaps this analogy doesn't work, and we should acknowledge that using social media and becoming addicted to opioids are substantively different?

There are many countries around the world that don't seem to have the same issues with opioids so something must be different. What is it apart from regulation?

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

#718

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

chalst wrote: post #685
1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #552

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"In response, Congress passed the Sherman Antitrust Act in 1890 which subsequently prevented the actions that Standard Oil had used to conslidate the market." This tech company employee (aka the "Facebook Whistleblower") is refusing to share the documents she stole with the FTC. Although she did share them with several attorneys general. It appears she does not support antitrust inquiries. Heavy consolidation of "soc…

> This tech company employee (aka the "Facebook Whistleblower") is refusing to share the documents she stole with the FTC. Source?

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/05/technology/who-is-frances...

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

#719

Post by heartbreak »

CountDrewku wrote: post #574
heartbreak wrote: post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Medical resources are finite, and there are people who need non-Covid medical care competing for those limited resources. Getting pretty tired of having the same argument with people who are smart enough to figure this out on their own.

Yeah you're right so you should have the same issue with obese people. Actually you should have MORE of a problem with them than un-vaccinated since they've been a consistent burden on the system for far longer. Getting pretty tired of the hypocritical and illogical dissonance displayed from people who should be smart enough to think the ENTIRE picture through on their own.

Really? Your response is, “What about fat people?”

If we could dramatically reduce the negative impacts of obesity with a shot you better believe I’d want that mandated too.

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

#720

Post by quotemstr »

specialist wrote: post #714
quotemstr wrote: post #712

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ad targeting is just a bugbear for a section of the tech activist crowd. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with a site like Twitter noticing that I tend to post a lot about cats and showing me cat ads as a result. No, it's not self-evident that targeting is bad, and no, behavioral targeting doesn't require "surveiling" everyone internet-wide. > Late stage capitalism I don't subscribe to the neo-Marxist worldview t…

I wish you'd started with a reputiation of the body of research, and everyone's lived experience. As the scholarship advances, and both the predictive and explanatory powers they afford us, I'll update my views as best able. Meanwhile, if you can't entertain the premise that Facebook's profit model is a major net negative for humanity, we don't have much to discuss.

I can believe simultaneously that FB as currently structured is net negative and also that legal prohibitions on algorithmic feeds are net negative.
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