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

#241

Post by Tainnor » Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 8:40 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #207

Tainnor wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not OP, but IMHO, the danger comes from the algorithms which lead to "engaging" content being pushed aggressively to everyone. "Engaging" can mean cat videos or "incredible looking food", but it means divisive, partisan, insincere and outright dangerous more often than not. Inasmuch as a "social network" is just people signing up to talk about certain topics and that's it, I don't have a problem with it. Internet for…

I take your point. But I would need more convincing that just getting rid of algorithms/recommendations/etc. would suddenly make all the problems go away.

All? No. Conspiracy theories and disinformation existed before the internet, too.

But we can at least try to get rid of the things that make the problem worse.

Moreover, minimising hyper-addictive patterns on such platforms would have a host of other benefits too.

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

#242

Post by jollybean » Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 9:01 PM UTC

aeturnum wrote: post #232

jollybean wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook pissed off people by having power. The power to control the narrative (or take it away from others by virtue of giving yahoos in their basement, or regular people, a huge voice) is the real power, and the elite are really scared of that. I don't mean that to sound globalist/conspiracist, but it's effectively what's going on here. Mostly from the centre to far left (FYI not being political here, this has noth…

> Facebook pissed off people by having power. > most believe that FB and it's ilk are the reason 10% believe[...] > Personally, I think they are largely right on that Do you think Facebook has the power or is it being used as a conduit for others? Either way, is that about Facebook specifically or the kind of company that Facebook is? There is plenty of confused thinking about Facebook (and other social media). Some…

1) I don't know the answer to how much or how little FB censors, that's such a complicated thing and I'm not sure if anyone has a good sense of where FB is materially doing. Of course it's an impossible problem anyhow.

Either way - I believe voices on FB do have a lot of power.

I felt this viscerally when visiting with an older family member who listens to insane people on FB all day, who happen to be anti-vaxxers. This person is 'at risk' and has been strongly influenced by the nauseating, constant misinformation about vaccines and other things.

2) The argument over the term 'whistleblower' - and the material legality of the allegations matters a lot.

What Enron did was wrong, that's not an opinion.

The Facebook leaks don't point at legal wrongdoing, or rather, it would be an editorialisation to indicate that they are even doing anything wrong, legal or otherwise.

There's a world of difference between someone 'disagreeing' with Facebook vs. indicating that FB has done something very illegal, which I believe the term 'whistleblower' implies i.e. they're 'blowing the whistle' on some malfeasance.

When someone is a 'whistleblower' they are subject to all kinds of protections not afforded to someone merely 'disagreeing' with their company.

Ironically, what she did was probably very illegal.

And yes, she does have the right to be 'prepared' but it rather seems to me to be disingenuous as people are not going to be aware of the planned mechanations of the organized plot, and I think that matters as well.

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

#243

Post by cabalamat » Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 9:21 PM UTC

herval wrote: post #191

cabalamat wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Badly, and that's the point. I'd like social media to be run by everyone having a social media server linked to their home network (imagine something like a Raspberry Pi), with it being totally decentralised and every user controlling their own server. Then if the government wants to shut it down, they have to raid everyone's home.

Or, you know, just work with the ISPs to make it illegal, like with BitTorrent. Also, what you want already exists - you're free to go use Mastodon and run your own node. You can't possibly think that's a reasonable product your grandparents would be able to use.

> Or, you know, just work with the ISPs to make it illegal, like with BitTorrent.

BitTorrent certainly isn't illegal in the UK; it might be in other jurisdictions.

> you're free to go use Mastodon and run your own node

Would it work behind a NAT'ed router on a dynamic IP? I suspect it might not.

> You can't possibly think that's a reasonable product your grandparents would be able to use.

What I envisage is an SD card containing the OS + apps, you put it in the Pi, plug it into your router by ethernet, configure it via its web app, and you're ready to go. I think it ought to be possible to make it easy enough for the average person to install (certainly anyone who could install a router + internet would be able to).

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

#244

Post by paisawalla » Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 9:34 PM UTC

helen___keller wrote: post #115

paisawalla wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but 1. a lot of people also find that entire situation to be such incredible bullshit 2. the counterargument discredits itself when it employs the mental gymnastics needed to explain that inconsistency

> 1. a lot of people also find that entire situation to be such incredible bullshit OK? The fact that government doesn't police itself sucks, yes. The fact that I don't have a Lamborghini also sucks. I don't see what throwing in a Hillary Clinton dig is going to do to solve this situation or offer any kind of insight to other readers and commenters besides making people feel angry about politics. > 2. the counterargu…

You honestly sound like you're going out of your way to be upset about this.

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

#245

Post by alecmuffett » Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 9:58 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.

Author of original blogpost here; I am seeing a lot of discussion here about "what constitutes a public group?" and so I wrote this to help with the discussion. https://alecmuffett.com/article/15095

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

#246

Post by aeturnum » Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 10:00 PM UTC

jollybean wrote: post #242

aeturnum wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Facebook pissed off people by having power. > most believe that FB and it's ilk are the reason 10% believe[...] > Personally, I think they are largely right on that Do you think Facebook has the power or is it being used as a conduit for others? Either way, is that about Facebook specifically or the kind of company that Facebook is? There is plenty of confused thinking about Facebook (and other social media). Some…

1) I don't know the answer to how much or how little FB censors, that's such a complicated thing and I'm not sure if anyone has a good sense of where FB is materially doing. Of course it's an impossible problem anyhow. Either way - I believe voices on FB do have a lot of power. I felt this viscerally when visiting with an older family member who listens to insane people on FB all day, who happen to be anti-vaxxers. T…

> This person is 'at risk' and has been strongly influenced by the nauseating, constant misinformation about vaccines and other things.

I agree that Facebook is a conduit for gross views, but it seems important to decide who should be sanctioned and how much. Is it the fault of the person saying the lie or the fault of the network that distributes it?

> the material legality of the allegations matters a lot.

I'm not aware of any claim that this set of docs shows legal wrongdoing, so that feels pretty well settled.

I also think there is plenty of whistle blowing that doesn't demonstrate direct illegal activity. The obvious example is Snowden who, of course, reported on programs that were all understood to be legal. Other examples I think of that I would call whistleblowers: Manning, whoever leaked the Exxon global warning docs, ditto for Big Tobacco[1], the pentagon papers, etc. There are endless examples of leaking docs demonstrating immoral activity that's not illegal (which often prompts changes).

> When someone is a 'whistleblower' they are subject to all kinds of protections not afforded to someone merely 'disagreeing' with their company.

She probably doesn't qualify for whistleblower protections under the law (edit: also, as I have seen calls for a defense fund, I don't think she is claiming she does), but as I said neither would many of the people who leaked documents in the cases above. I think it would be fair to call all of them whistleblowers.

> it rather seems to me to be disingenuous as people are not going to be aware of the planned mechanations of the organized plot

I do not understand this view. It is not disingenuous to think about an argument before making it. The Facebook critics have been quite public about their critiques. What is the "plot" here?

[1] These docs may have proved they lied to congress? Not sure.

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

#247

Post by 54b4b54 » Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 11:07 PM UTC

numair wrote: post #112

There’s no honor among thieves. What this guy, and the whistleblower, and Mark Zuckerberg, and Roger McNamee, and everyone else are doing is simple — they’re all turning on each other. Don’t try to figure out who is “right” or “wrong” or whatever, or if it’s the government going after them, blah blah blah. It’s just a bunch of dirty people pointing fingers at others, trying to wash their karma. Somewhere in the vault…

Good fucking riddance to the whole lot of them.

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

#248

Post by tayistay » Wed, Oct 27, 2021, 1:11 AM UTC

loeg wrote: post #216

tayistay wrote: post #173

> 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. Nonsense, and smug. Nobody would have heard of this guy were it not for "the current crop of whistleblowers." And we've all seen that Fa…

> Nobody would have heard of this guy were it not for "the current crop of whistleblowers." You might not have heard of him, and that's fine, but Alec Muffet has had a Wikipedia article dating back to 2013. He's been a public figure since long before this crop of "whistleblowers."

Despite his short wikipedia page, nobody outside of tech has heard of him, and his holier-than-thou stuff about not rage quitting (a straw man anyway, Haugen didn't rage quit) sure did a whole lot of good.

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

#249

Post by deadpannini » Wed, Oct 27, 2021, 1:14 AM UTC

colordrops wrote: post #77

kop316 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue "HN" is not schizophrenic, "HN" is a bunch of users who have different passions and will comment/vote on different things.

We should coin this the "hive mind fallacy". Though there probably already exists a name for this.

"Distributed hypocrisy."

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

#250

Post by etc-hosts » Wed, Oct 27, 2021, 2:49 AM UTC

LastMuel wrote: post #155

bostonsre wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, democracy is the worst form of governance except for all of the other ones. I trust more in our government than I do in zuckerberg. Letting him continue the path that he and only he decides does not seem like a good idea.

I find it odd that you exalt democracy and the idea of limiting individual freedom in the same paragraph. Zuckerberg isn't a government unto himself and answers to shareholders and board members; one of which served as Chief of staff for the National Economic Council in the Obama administration. You seem to think that our government and large corporations are separate and isolated organizations, but the people that w…

due to Facebook's corporate structure, I don't think Zuckerberg actually answers to the shareholders and board members.