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Former Facebook staffers launch Integrity Institute

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Re: Former Facebook staffers launch Integrity Institute

#41

Post by TechBro8615 »

debacle wrote: post #6

> Allen left Facebook soon after that for a data scientist job at the Democratic National Committee. So the guy on the election integrity team then takes a job with the DNC. This is called a revolving door. And now, curiously, he is part of the effort to push for more censorship of Facebook. This concerted effort to cow Facebook into censoring their platform more is coming from the RNC, DNC, Congress, and the mainstr…

This is either a Trojan horse or an exercise in self-aggrandizing pomposity.

What is this about “not breaking your NDAs” with Facebook? If you had integrity the NDAs wouldn’t matter, because no moral framework is constrained by respecting an arbitrary document drafted by a megacorporation to keep you silent. When your first move is to assuage any fears from your former employer that you might do something as drastic as break your NDA, it’s obvious your priorities are nowhere near where you claim them to be. So the question becomes, is this intentional dishonesty, or lack of self-awareness? I suspect a bit of both.

Don’t tell me what integrity means.

Edit: Apparently I read this wrong, and they haven’t actually quit their jobs? So this is just a cartel of self-righteous employees at tech corps with plans to maximize efficiency of collaborative deplatforming? Lol!!!

Re: Former Facebook staffers launch Integrity Institute

#42

Post by splistud »

wil421 wrote: post #10
debacle wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current conversation isn't about the real bad stuff (which I thankfully have never seen on FB), but rather about how much control the government should have over Facebook as a platform, and the direction seems to be universally in favor of more restriction of speech, not less.

I think it’s still very similar. Misinformation is still bad stuff but not the worst of it. If a foreign political group was buying billboard or newspaper ads there would be some kind of legal accountability. Instead of ads like this we have troll farms targeting Black and Christian Americans with misinformation. Maybe it’s time there was some kind of legal framework about posts and foreign influence but I don’t pret…

To extend this somewhat, not only does paid and quasi-paid political speech(paying operatives/algorithms rather than a newspaper) not face the same accountability re content on Facebook (for example), Facebook does not face the same accountability for providing equal access to it's platform for all political points-of-view.

Re: Former Facebook staffers launch Integrity Institute

#43

Post by camgunz »

debacle wrote: post #6

> Allen left Facebook soon after that for a data scientist job at the Democratic National Committee. So the guy on the election integrity team then takes a job with the DNC. This is called a revolving door. And now, curiously, he is part of the effort to push for more censorship of Facebook. This concerted effort to cow Facebook into censoring their platform more is coming from the RNC, DNC, Congress, and the mainstr…

Do you really disagree that there's way, way too much bad stuff on Facebook and it's had a hugely harmful impact on our society? Or, do you just think we shouldn't do anything about it?

Re: Former Facebook staffers launch Integrity Institute

#44

Post by tedivm »

strulovich wrote: post #28
tedivm wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The person created spyware for profit- something that clearly lacks of integrity. The fact that this is even a question shows why no one who worked at Facebook should be in charge of any integrity project.

So it’s a linguistic issue. You’re lumping integrity as “do people abuse our system” with “does person A follow the same morals as me”. Specifically, looks like your morals are that products that are free in exchange for anonymously analyzing your data are immoral. (Remember: Onavo gave free VPN to users) It’s a reasonable position to take, but it’s unclear it’s necessarily true and that everyone who doesn’t agree wi…

This is part of the problem with talking with Facebook engineers.

Most of society is against spyware. It's not a controversial topic- spyware is pretty frowned upon. Spying on people does, to most people, show a lack of integrity. So does much of the other actions Facebook has taken and which are now coming out in these leaks.

If you bring this up with Facebook engineers it turns into a "linguistic" issue. You're told that integrity only applies in the computer science sense of the word, and are then told by the engineer what you "actually" think.

All of this is condescending and distracting from the main point- which seems to be the point.

Re: Former Facebook staffers launch Integrity Institute

#45

Post by splistud »

AlbertCory wrote: post #15

Long before the Internet, you could go through an airport and be unable to avoid the Moonies & the followers of Lyndon LaRouche. You could find the book "None Dare Call It Treason" and lots of people did. "The Daily Worker" (newspaper of the US Communist Party) was readily available. Any of those groups could take out ads in the newspaper, or hold demonstrations (like the Nazi Party in Skokie, IL). There were UHF sta…

I agree with your point completely. The 'misinformation' is unimportant. What is important is restricting access. You correctly note that, where legal, any of those groups were allowed to hand out nonsense printed on cheap pulp. Today? Not so much.

Re: Former Facebook staffers launch Integrity Institute

#46

Post by splistud »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #37
AlbertCory wrote: post #15

Long before the Internet, you could go through an airport and be unable to avoid the Moonies & the followers of Lyndon LaRouche. You could find the book "None Dare Call It Treason" and lots of people did. "The Daily Worker" (newspaper of the US Communist Party) was readily available. Any of those groups could take out ads in the newspaper, or hold demonstrations (like the Nazi Party in Skokie, IL). There were UHF sta…

> "Oh, but now it's different!" the "integrity" people claim Because it is. Our modern legal constructs of free speech came about in a semi-literate, printing-press pamphleteering age. It was revised in the era of broadcast television. "It was like this before, and so it should be forever after" is not an argument. We're at a point where we have to talk in terms of first principles. Not ideologies or teams. That's to…

'We' have been talking in first principles about this and other constitutional touchstones for generations. 'We' don't agree with you in sufficient numbers to allow you alter our concept of free speech.

Re: Former Facebook staffers launch Integrity Institute

#47

Post by _bfhp »

sayhar wrote: post #2

Oh hi! That’s me! (And a bunch of other folks). Happy to answer any questions. I also really like this founders note that we wrote. It’s in our own words, etc: https://integrityinstitute.org/founders-letter We are recruiting new members! If you work on integrity / trust and safety / antispam / content quality / etc, let’s talk.

Have you spoken or do you plan to speak out about the most normalized form of state-sponsored propaganda in the U.S., namely hasbara [1]? For example, Hasbara Fellowships and Israel on Campus Coalition [2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasbara

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_on_Campus_Coalition#Mis...

Re: Former Facebook staffers launch Integrity Institute

#48

Post by mike00632 »

AlbertCory wrote: post #15

Long before the Internet, you could go through an airport and be unable to avoid the Moonies & the followers of Lyndon LaRouche. You could find the book "None Dare Call It Treason" and lots of people did. "The Daily Worker" (newspaper of the US Communist Party) was readily available. Any of those groups could take out ads in the newspaper, or hold demonstrations (like the Nazi Party in Skokie, IL). There were UHF sta…

The fact that over 40% of Americans are still not fully vaccinated and thousands of people per day are still dying needlessly proves that people actually aren't good at filtering out bullshit.

Re: Former Facebook staffers launch Integrity Institute

#50

Post by mzs »

agd wrote: post #4

My understanding, from speaking with someone at Facebook who has worked in this area, is that they are primarily empowered to do individual fixes. I.e. they do root cause analysis on why content X was correctly/incorrectly handled, update processes, and repeat. The problem instead seems to be a systemic one. i.e. What kinds of posts does the platform incentivise and promote as a whole? However, changing the system wo…

>The problem instead seems to be a systemic one. i.e. What kinds of posts does the platform incentivise and promote as a whole? However, changing the system would require significant product updates and harm the bottom line, as it would likely result in lower engagement.

It took me an hour but I made FB enjoyable for me again by making it a feed that is just my friends in chronological order. As a bonus there is no good way for the system that decides what to show me to be gamed, I just bookmark this:

https://facebook.com/?sk=h_chr

Preventing all the groups and pages I had interacted with before from creeping into that feed was the time consuming but worthwhile part. I had to go into my groups settings & unfollow them all individually though:

https://facebook.com/groups/feed/

same for pages:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/?category=liked&ref=bookmarks

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