My interview with Steven Levy re. leaking of my Facebook Goodbye post • Hacker News Board

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

#81

Post by boringg » Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 1:52 PM UTC

helen___keller wrote: post #46

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. A…

Exactly. OP clearly has an agenda (though all over the map in their comments). Clinton has no relation to this whatsoever. Maybe too much consuming of right wing media.

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

#82

Post by Tainnor » Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 1:54 PM UTC

swalsh wrote: post #66

danjac wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the ideal social network is no one big "social network", i.e. get rid of your Facebooks and Twitters and go back to small, decentralized, localized forums and interest groups running on independent, secure, open-source platforms that are easy for laypeople to set up, maintain and moderate.

I think you need both. Small decentralized topic specific forums are important. But, without a larger community people tend to not realize the outside world may not share the same opinions. That leads to this tribalist attitude of hatred of "others".

I'm skeptical that seeing opposite viewpoints expressed by random people on the internet leads to shared understanding or less hatred.

If anything, research seems to indicate that tolerance to opposing viewpoints and revising of stereotypes comes from extended personal contact and having a shared sense of purpose, and that's difficult to achieve on the internet.

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

#83

Post by josephg » Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 1:54 PM UTC

yodsanklai wrote: post #5

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…

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.

> 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.

I see social networks (and in many ways the internet as a whole) like a new country we’ve founded. It’s a bit different from countries made out of atoms. For a start, everyone there is a dual citizen with somewhere in meatspace. And instead of community centres we build websites. But it’s a place.

How are those spaces governed? Is it a democracy? No. Each social network is its own mostly benevolent corporate dictatorship. If you don’t like the rules, your only option is banishment.

Healthy communities (in healthy society) need rules to keep bad actors in check. And freedom to explore and be ourselves. Healthy communities in real life use participatory processes to figure out what those rules should be. You need people to feel like they have a voice. It’ll never be perfect. And different rules will make sense for different groups.

Facebook’s problem is they’re trying to be the government, the judiciary and police for billions of people from every country on the planet. There is no single set of rules and policies which will work everywhere. And even if there was, how do you police billions of people? AIs make mistakes.

I don’t know how, but I think FB needs to eat humble pie and find ways for communities to decide on (and enforce) their own social norms somehow. It’d be messy and disjointed, but so are people. Reddit and discord do this - although they’re obviously very different products.

Tyrannies don’t have a strong history of making choices which primarily benefit their citizens. So far, facebook’s track record hasn’t been much better. To improve, they need to acknowledge the position they’re in, learn from history and give some power back to the people who populate their site.

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

#84

Post by paisawalla » Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 1:55 PM UTC

marcinzm wrote: post #19

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,…

>The optics are absolutely terrible on these issues. If I can speak for some of the folks in the rest of the world, we're laughing and shaking our heads. I can't think of a large government that doesn't protect its interests and those of the elite above others. In my experience people tend to have a blind spot for how their own government functions versus other governments.

This makes sense if your analysis is of bureaucrats and the administrative state. But it doesn't explain why individual, elected representatives wouldn't be unable to express a respect for the release of true-yet-damning information.

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

#85

Post by samhw » Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 1:56 PM UTC

boringg wrote: post #63

yawnr wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, that is definitely a public post.

And what about 100? 25? 10?

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

#86

Post by himinlomax » Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 1:57 PM UTC

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…

> 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.

As an engineer, I'm in a better position to understand what the f is going on regarding encryption and, say, nuclear power than most people.

No amount of wishful thinking will change that.

> It is a massive country with many opposing viewpoints.

World. Not country.

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

#87

Post by ineedasername » Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 1:57 PM UTC

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…

Frances Haugen's own motives are not the defining factor regarding the public utility of leaking this material.

Her motives are her own, and once her information is out in the open it isn't up to her to decide what we all do about it. I'm not about to dismiss what was revealed just because I disagree with some of her opinions about that material.

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

#88

Post by Gunax » Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 1:58 PM UTC

> 1. regional censorship will be applied at a network level — e.g. upon “Indian IP Addresses” or “Indian Phone Numbers” — which is not a good solution because the Internet does not respect national boundaries, nor does it work that way: e.g. VPNs exist and are already used to bypass these approaches. 2. regional censorship will be applied at a human level — e.g. upon “Indian Users” — which is not a good solution because it assumes that (a) online anonymity should and can be effectively stopped, (b) national identity is straightforwardly applicable to humans (how about “dual nationals?”) and (c) platforms must know the nationality of their users merely to function, e.g. to send cat pictures. 3. global censorship will be applied blindly as the union of regional censorships — so people in the USA will not be able to critically discuss Indian politics, and absolutely nobody would be able to discuss China. This would be highly illiberal and destructive of public discourse.

It's going to be neither of these, but close to #3. Users will be able to discuss anything (withing their nationality's rules) but they would be not visible to user outside their own--or atleast not available to the citizens/users of the place is question.

The seeds have all ready been planted with this Russian propaganda/disinformation/whatever campaign (not trying to argue about the veracity of it, but it's interesting that the public apparently cares more about who said it than what was actually said).

Even in the USA, supposed home of the free, we are seeing that free speech doesn't seem to apply if you are not a citizen. Can't have weak American minds exposed to wrongthink from abroad.

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

#89

Post by peterwei87 » Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 1:59 PM UTC

golemotron wrote: post #68

sanedigital wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Tech people have tech knowledge, but they are not policy experts. Our job is to give the people creating policy information on our area of expertise, not theirs. If you don't agree, look at that comments on this post. They are shallow and tech centric, not considering all of the various impacts of a comprehensive policy.

It's not obvious that Ms. Haugen provides any additional expertise in policy matters. What are her achievements in the policy space that merit deference to expertise?

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

#90

Post by LastMuel » Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 1:59 PM UTC

bostonsre wrote: post #60

sanedigital wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, I agree that we should absolutely provide advice on our area of expertise for topics in our domain but I don't think we should be the ones that make the decision. The other side of the debate aren't idiots, they have some valid view points, else this encryption debate would have been settled long ago. Encryption was not the only point brought up by the OP, they were also against government regulation. My main po…

> We are humans and like other industries, greed has crept in and we don't always make great decisions when left on our own.

I feel strange having to point out that Governments are made up of people too. If it's not people that are making the good decisions, whom do we turn to?