Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Former Facebook staffers launch Integrity Institute

protocol.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 186 posts

Re: Former Facebook staffers launch Integrity Institute

#161

Post by blitzar »

ljm wrote: post #160
blitzar wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even employee #1? Intern can be redeemed, but can a lifer? Can the person that invented the like button?

If you were to replace 'FB employee' with 'criminal', the substance of this post and the parent wouldn't really change. So, as with GP: you're welcome to think FB employees are beyond redemption, and the parent is welcome to see them as ex-convicts, but that's not a good quality discussion for HN. It's just doubling down on facile. Now, if your own place of work took a large turn towards the unethical, would you live…

> you're welcome to think FB employees are beyond redemption

You are welcome to think that is what I think but it is just doubling down on faclie.

The societal context and literature on redemption or salvation is typically religious. We can also wade into the crime vs morality vs things that should be crimes against humanity but are not because there are shareholders.

Christians even have a handy loophole as usual. There is Heaven for the good, there is Hell for the bad. Then there is Purgatory, for souls with unforgiven sins, where sins are punished and where a persons soul undergoes purification before it can go to Heaven.

We also have the added benefit of remuneration. People are paid for their service, and that number is not as arbitary as it may seem. There is a supply/demand factor, skills, location, danger.

> Now, if your own place of work took a large turn towards the unethical

large turn that I was enacting. I would refuse to 100%. Have done, will do. Someone somewhere in a different department, nothing to do with me, but just happens to be representing the same organisation? We are into the grey here. Is it a rouge actor or the overriding philosophy of my organisation?

> I might do a lot of things to make me feel like I did my best

But we all know this is just the paycheque and the internal moral compass having a debate about what our price is. Everyone has a price.

Re: Former Facebook staffers launch Integrity Institute

#162

Post by Fnoord »

SrslyJosh wrote: post #130
zestyping wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a hypothesis. It goes like this. Today all the major text-based social platforms work in about the same way: we type text into an empty little box that's threaded under another box. There are variations in ranking and flagging, but the basic mechanism is unchanged. It is striking to me that, in all these years, we have explored only a tiny little corner of the design space. There are no mechanisms to lower the…

> There are no mechanisms to lower the temperature when arguments get intense, for example. This is a second, third, or fourth-tier concern after stuff like white supremacists using platforms for organizing/harassment, governments using them to facilitate genocide, scammers using them to profit off of the pandemic, etc., etc. "When arguments get intense" completely ignores the incredibly low-hanging fruit: banning ne…

> Twitter is trying to warn users about "intense" conversations.

Discourse, too. It gives a statistic that X% of the posts are yours, and asks you to consider letting other's voice their opinion. It says that after you typed your post. I'm not going to not post, then, but I admit that yes it does remind me to consider spending less time on the platform in general (!).

HN has it, too. Deep threads hide the reply button if posts are made in quick succession.

The orig. comment claimed:

> [...] There are no mechanisms to lower the temperature when arguments get intense, for example.

Addressed above.

> Nothing to help keep us from misconstruing comments out of context.

I don't agree with this. Factchecking occurs, thumb-up/heart on factual content helps. Also, quoting, logic, and linking sources allows to dispute (such) fallacies. These tools are available.

> Nothing to assist us in feeling compassion for the people we're talking to, or understanding their intent as they mean it to be understood. [...]

Bingo.

Because polarized people don't want to. They want to 'win' a discussion instead of learn from it.

Re: Former Facebook staffers launch Integrity Institute

#163

Post by spywaregorilla »

sayhar wrote: post #88
spywaregorilla wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you define integrity in this context. (you, personally)

This is a great question! I'm still trying to find a top-down definition instead of a "I know it when I see it" one. To me it's probably something like this: we can think about an information ecosystem or social platform as a system. "Normal" hacking of the system happens through finding loopholes code. (That's cybersecurity). "Integrity-related" hacking of the system happens through finding loopholes in design and r…

What you describe sounds like you're there to counter user fraud. It's definitely not the first thing people imagine when they hear you're there to support integrity imo. Doesn't that feel misleading to you?

Re: Former Facebook staffers launch Integrity Institute

#164

Post by dogman144 »

shug2k wrote: post #147
dogman144 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course. Regarding internal solutions: it’s impossible to overlook the significantly misaligned incentives facing integrity teams. They try to solve problems inherently created by the profit model of the company and what also pays their salary. The parallels to the internal scientist teams at Phillip Morris are uncanny. As I said, this paradox, and the company kicking the can down the road, has been obvious for yea…

While at the company, we were busy trying to solve problems during a critical period. The criticism has been fierce for Facebook - but make no mistake, our teams made enormous difference within the company, and the world would look very different than it does today without the work of integrity workers within the company. This continues to be true to this day. Coming out publicly over the years has done very little.…

Someone else in this thread commented it well - “this is the problem talking to FB engineers.”

I’m not sure how you can read that founders letter, and not see a spotlight grab/virtue signals by people who contributed to and profited from the problem they’re trying now take a leading role in solving. It’s like there is just total refusal to be seen as part of the problem. Blows my mind.

“Coming out publicly has done very little” attitude sort of says all you need to know. Pretty sure the article said also ~”now that Frances came out publicly, we can start this!” Mental gymnastics.

Re: Former Facebook staffers launch Integrity Institute

#165

Post by homo_ergaster »

dogman144 wrote: post #68
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.

Many PMs and engineers and laymen knew FB was a rotten product for a long time. I also assume a lot of people at this institute didn’t take the Alex Stamos (ex, short term FB CISO) U-turn either. So… How is this effort not a virtue signaling by people that made their fortune on the back of this generation’s cigarettes, and now hoping to get traction on being listened to for fixing the mess they created?

>now hoping to get traction

Not even just that, they also want us to donate to cover the costs for the good work they’re surely going to be doing

Re: Former Facebook staffers launch Integrity Institute

#166

Post by tedivm »

ljm wrote: post #160
blitzar wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even employee #1? Intern can be redeemed, but can a lifer? Can the person that invented the like button?

If you were to replace 'FB employee' with 'criminal', the substance of this post and the parent wouldn't really change. So, as with GP: you're welcome to think FB employees are beyond redemption, and the parent is welcome to see them as ex-convicts, but that's not a good quality discussion for HN. It's just doubling down on facile. Now, if your own place of work took a large turn towards the unethical, would you live…

> Now, if your own place of work took a large turn towards the unethical, would you live up to these expectations or call yourself an exception to the rule because you have reasons?

I've quit better jobs for less, to be honest.

Re: Former Facebook staffers launch Integrity Institute

#167

Post by sayhar »

LurkingPenguin wrote: post #144
neural_thing wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's understandable that people go to work for Sauron to get paid big money. But starting a "human-orc ethics think tank" because you have relevant experience in the field is a bit rich.

It's also a bit rich to tell people "from the start, the Institute has been funded out-of-pocket by its founders. But that can’t last forever." -- even though you were only incorporated a month ago on September 29 -- and start asking for donations before you have received approval for tax-exempt status[1]. [1] https://integrityinstitute.org/donate

Jeff and I have been working on this nonstop since January-February. Formal incorporation happened way way after the work started. This has been my full time (unpaid, volunteer, only) job since February, and I have burned down much of my savings in that time.

Re: Former Facebook staffers launch Integrity Institute

#168

Post by sayhar »

smsm42 wrote: post #87
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.

How do you ensure that "integrity" does not morph into "ban everything our groupthink says is wrong"? How do you ensure you're not coopted into an ideological or partisan propaganda/speech control efforts - a trap that so many "fact checkers" gladly fallen into?

One thing we focus on is not really looking at content at all, but instead, behavior. Mostly -- spam.

One way to see what we're doing is glorified spamfighting. Except the spam sometimes isn't fake ray-bans, but is instead doctored videos that call for lynchings in India.

Here's more on the subject. (My ideas, not the full institute): https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/governing-social-media-city

Re: Former Facebook staffers launch Integrity Institute

#169

Post by dogman144 »

dogman144 wrote: post #164
shug2k wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While at the company, we were busy trying to solve problems during a critical period. The criticism has been fierce for Facebook - but make no mistake, our teams made enormous difference within the company, and the world would look very different than it does today without the work of integrity workers within the company. This continues to be true to this day. Coming out publicly over the years has done very little.…

Someone else in this thread commented it well - “this is the problem talking to FB engineers.” I’m not sure how you can read that founders letter, and not see a spotlight grab/virtue signals by people who contributed to and profited from the problem they’re trying now take a leading role in solving. It’s like there is just total refusal to be seen as part of the problem. Blows my mind. “Coming out publicly has done v…

Correct, the Integrity Institute's cofounder:

"Frances is exposing a lot of the knobs in the machine that is a modern social media platform," Massachi said. "Now that people know that those knobs exist, we can start having a conversation about what is the science of how these work, what these knobs do and why you would want to turn them in which direction."

It seems public discussion does help, and is even a critical input to this effort. It's just better when others do it first.

Re: Former Facebook staffers launch Integrity Institute

#170

Post by sayhar »

spywaregorilla wrote: post #163
sayhar wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a great question! I'm still trying to find a top-down definition instead of a "I know it when I see it" one. To me it's probably something like this: we can think about an information ecosystem or social platform as a system. "Normal" hacking of the system happens through finding loopholes code. (That's cybersecurity). "Integrity-related" hacking of the system happens through finding loopholes in design and r…

What you describe sounds like you're there to counter user fraud. It's definitely not the first thing people imagine when they hear you're there to support integrity imo. Doesn't that feel misleading to you?

We spent a good amount of space on the website laying out different types of work that are covered in the term "integrity".

I also do very strongly think there is a moral/ethical dimension to the work. That's one reason I shy away from "Trust and Safety" label. Integrity work may have started with connotations of "structural integrity", but it also must be done carefully and ethically. It's not just engineering, it's also about doing the right thing. Hence the Hippocratic oath we all take. [1]

[1] https://integrityinstitute.org/our-values

Post reply on HN