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My interview with Steven Levy re. leaking of my Facebook Goodbye post

alecmuffett.com

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Re: My interview with Steven Levy re. leaking of my Facebook Goodbye post

#41

Post by muglug »

> I built a great team, built the product, and unlike the current crop of whistleblowers I submitted my resignation and fostered strong relationships with my soon-to-be-ex-colleagues, because there is a lot more impact to be had through constructive engagement than in rage-quitting.

This has a bit of a holier-than-thou approach. He was in a radically-different position than some of the whistleblowers — he was an engineer working on features that would clearly appeal to FB’s user base.

A lot of the people saddled with the hard work of civic integrity & election integrity are well-paid but severely under-resourced by the company. Facebook only cares enough to put out PR fires, and not prevent real-life ones resulting from its work.

Re: My interview with Steven Levy re. leaking of my Facebook Goodbye post

#42

Post by adventured »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #20
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1) Less monitoring on private messages The Facebook leaker is explicitly arguing against this though. She cites Facebook’s push for end-to-end encryption of private messages as a problem.

> Facebook leaker is explicitly arguing against this though. She cites Facebook’s push for end-to-end encryption of private messages as a problem. One doesn’t have to agree 100% with an ally.

> One doesn’t have to agree 100% with an ally.

Depending on how terrible the bad ideas are that they're pushing, they may not be an ally at all in fact. A multi-purpose trojan horse may be more accurate.

In this case, promoting the abolition of end to end encryption is quite heinous. She's providing the authoritarians a potent argument that isn't yet well established in the public mind (we have to be able to see all of your data so we can keep you safe from the Chinese trying to see all of your data).

Re: My interview with Steven Levy re. leaking of my Facebook Goodbye post

#43

Post by yawnr »

lowkey_ wrote: post #7
yodsanklai wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN is a bit schizophrenic on this topic. On one hand, it seems everybody wants more freedom and less surveillance, but they give FB a hard time for not monitoring content better. Hopefully these aren't the same people expressing these contradictory points of view. I'd be curious to know what both side think the ideal social network should look like.

> On one hand, it seems everybody wants more freedom and less surveillance, but they give FB a hard time for not monitoring content better. I don't think these are conflicting views: (1) Less monitoring on private messages (2) More monitoring on public posts

My question is what constitutes a public post? I feel like that definition is evolving. Is a WhatsApp group with 1k members spreading disinformation still a private message?

Re: My interview with Steven Levy re. leaking of my Facebook Goodbye post

#44

Post by mwigdahl »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #20
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1) Less monitoring on private messages The Facebook leaker is explicitly arguing against this though. She cites Facebook’s push for end-to-end encryption of private messages as a problem.

> Facebook leaker is explicitly arguing against this though. She cites Facebook’s push for end-to-end encryption of private messages as a problem. One doesn’t have to agree 100% with an ally.

Nor does one have to disagree 100% with an enemy.

Re: My interview with Steven Levy re. leaking of my Facebook Goodbye post

#45

Post by sanedigital »

bostonsre wrote: post #38
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #2

As cited in this article, Frances Haugen is arguing against allowing Facebook to use end-to-end encryption because she suggests Facebook should have more surveillance of private communications: https://twitter.com/AlecMuffett/status/1452309133928054799?s... A lot of people jumped to the defense of the Facebook leaker because the media so successfully framed it as a “whistleblower” situation, but that’s not really wha…

> her suggestions really do not align with what the tech community wants at all. I feel like we as a tech community should take a step back and consider whether or not we should not be the only ones that decide what should or should not be done. It is a massive country with many opposing viewpoints. We have massive conflicts of interest and some tech companies have shown over and over that greed trumps morals in many…

In my opinion, domain experts have a moral obligation to speak up regarding policy that involves their area of expertise.

On the topic of encryption, we're the only community with an understanding of what "breaking encryption" means. There are no skeleton keys, only vulnerabilities. We have a moral and ethical duty to fight for encryption, privacy, and security, not against it.

Re: My interview with Steven Levy re. leaking of my Facebook Goodbye post

#46

Post by helen___keller »

fareesh wrote: post #6

On the popularity of Haugen: I find it amusing how your government treats a whistleblower who is promoting government control over social media, vs the way your government treats a whistleblower who leaks evidence of government spying and abuse. The fact that Edward Snowden and Julian Assange are treated the way they are (and the earlier treatment of Manning) gives the US government zero credibility on press freedom,…

> Furthermore according to the FBI it's ok for Hillary Clinton to keep government communication explicitly marked classified in her basement server because no harm is intended, whereas others have been prosecuted in the absence of intended harm

What exactly does this have to do with the topic? Your first paragraphs are talking about treatment of whistleblowers and Hillary Clinton is (obviously) not a whistleblower.

Adding in a Clinton dig just adds political derailment to the topic for no particular reason.

Re: My interview with Steven Levy re. leaking of my Facebook Goodbye post

#47

Post by PragmaticPulp »

capableweb wrote: post #23
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #2

As cited in this article, Frances Haugen is arguing against allowing Facebook to use end-to-end encryption because she suggests Facebook should have more surveillance of private communications: https://twitter.com/AlecMuffett/status/1452309133928054799?s... A lot of people jumped to the defense of the Facebook leaker because the media so successfully framed it as a “whistleblower” situation, but that’s not really wha…

> some of her suggestions really do not align with what the tech community wants at all I agree in general with your comment, but what I don't like is anyone (Haugen, you or anyone else) speaking for "the tech community". We all have different opinions, and you can't generalize with that. For example, plenty of people I know including myself would be strongly against less encryption, but strongly for more government…

> For example, plenty of people I know including myself would be strongly against less encryption, but strongly for more government control of tech companies (not via less encryption but via other means).

But that’s not what Haughen is lobbying for. She’s explicitly saying that end-to-end encryption is bad because it doesn’t allow Facebook to monitor private communications enough.

I’d be surprised if you could find more than a tiny minority in the tech communicate who agree with this.

Re: My interview with Steven Levy re. leaking of my Facebook Goodbye post

#48

Post by tacitusarc »

yawnr wrote: post #43
lowkey_ wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On one hand, it seems everybody wants more freedom and less surveillance, but they give FB a hard time for not monitoring content better. I don't think these are conflicting views: (1) Less monitoring on private messages (2) More monitoring on public posts

My question is what constitutes a public post? I feel like that definition is evolving. Is a WhatsApp group with 1k members spreading disinformation still a private message?

Yes.

Re: My interview with Steven Levy re. leaking of my Facebook Goodbye post

#49

Post by ignoramous »

lowkey_ wrote: post #7
yodsanklai wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN is a bit schizophrenic on this topic. On one hand, it seems everybody wants more freedom and less surveillance, but they give FB a hard time for not monitoring content better. Hopefully these aren't the same people expressing these contradictory points of view. I'd be curious to know what both side think the ideal social network should look like.

> On one hand, it seems everybody wants more freedom and less surveillance, but they give FB a hard time for not monitoring content better. I don't think these are conflicting views: (1) Less monitoring on private messages (2) More monitoring on public posts

> Less monitoring on private messages

As pointed out on The Last Week Tonight show, private messaging apps are a cess pool of misinformation [0] especially in the developing world.

But: Facebook can and does monitor private messages whenever any user flags / reports them [1]. The problem is, how effective is the mechanism given not many know it is even there. Of course, e2ee mustn't be compromised but it should also not be used as an excuse to let misinformation run amock. May be homomorphic encryption gets us there, may be UI changes do. I hope Facebook does act swiftly and decisively whatever the case, since e2ee (backdoored or not [2][3]) seems like the scape goat here.

[0] https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/l5jtFqWq5iU

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25211185

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13389935

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25685446

Re: My interview with Steven Levy re. leaking of my Facebook Goodbye post

#50

Post by aero-glide2 »

fareesh wrote: post #6

On the popularity of Haugen: I find it amusing how your government treats a whistleblower who is promoting government control over social media, vs the way your government treats a whistleblower who leaks evidence of government spying and abuse. The fact that Edward Snowden and Julian Assange are treated the way they are (and the earlier treatment of Manning) gives the US government zero credibility on press freedom,…

I cannot trust the media anymore, they are crazy and they are making me go crazy.
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