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Meta lays off 11,000 people

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Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#901

Post by jahsome »

jrm4 wrote: post #816
Leires wrote: post #690

I'm sorry, but honestly fuck Meta. Conducting psychological experiments on users without consent, and enabling psyops from organizations like Cambridge Analytica, is enough for me to never use their services. I hope they implode as a company. I happily said no when people from meta approached me on LinkedIn.

I'm sorry, but the "A/B" responses to this sentiment are some of the worst euphemistic cope I've ever seen. You all really need to get out of your "tech" shells and take seriously this idea that "running nonconsensual psych experiments on humans" is a fundamentally evil thing to do.

I am interested in this line of logic, but I'm not sure I would go so far.

I feel engaging in commerce in any way at all is impossible without being "evil" under this definition.

Aren't advertisements at their core unconsented psychological manipulation? What about retail store design? Is providing customer service altogether just manipulation?

I think I take issue with the word "evil." It seems to imply a certain malice or intent to harm, which just isn't logical, given the context.

Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#902

Post by bartread »

> At the start of Covid, the world rapidly moved online and the surge of e-commerce led to outsized revenue growth. Many people predicted this would be a permanent acceleration that would continue even after the pandemic ended. I did too, so I made the decision to significantly increase our investments. Unfortunately, this did not play out the way I expected.

There was similar wording to this in the recent Shopify announcement. I must admit, I was frustrated by it then, and I'm frustrated by it now.

"Many people predicted this would be a permanent acceleration?" Yeah, sure, many people who don't understand the concept of regression to the mean predicted a permanent acceleration. But here's the thing: if you thought that after months of being cooped up most people were just going to carry on sitting round their houses playing Runescape and jacking off, or never visit the shops again, you are an idiot. Now, I will grant you, there were some silver linings to the pandemic, and some people did kind of enjoy it, but there were also a lot of people crawling the walls who couldn't wait to be let off the leash again. Just look at what's happened with the travel industry and holiday chaos this past summer, at least here in the UK.

I saw Mark Zuckerberg on Joe Rogan recently. I've got quite a lot of hostility for Meta, due to the societal damage, and personal cost to individuals, for which it's responsible, but Mark Zuckerberg is an intelligent and interesting guy. Definitely worth listening to, not least of which because he actually comes across as a human being in this podcast episode rather than some sort of odd robot.

I'm incredibly disappointed that he got taken in by this idea of a permanent off trend shift to online and beyond him - and beyond Shopify - this kind of, "hurr durr, we got it wrong, wut you gunna do >," justification for layoffs is going to get really old really quickly.

There's something really wrong with corporate governance that can look at an unprecedented situation like COVID and then jump to the conclusion that it's going to permanently change human behaviour in the round, disregarding all previous trends: humans are, after all, still human.

Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#903

Post by Siira »

Leires wrote: post #690

I'm sorry, but honestly fuck Meta. Conducting psychological experiments on users without consent, and enabling psyops from organizations like Cambridge Analytica, is enough for me to never use their services. I hope they implode as a company. I happily said no when people from meta approached me on LinkedIn.

Conducting “psychological” experiments without “consent” is the only way to do science. Perhaps in this instance the knowledge gained is used in the ad industry and not benefiting society, but the nature of the research is to be admired and replicated.

Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#904

Post by paxys »

CarbonCycles wrote: post #51

I agree. Two very different business responses between Musk and Zuck. I almost feel sorry for Zuck as we are witnessing meltdowns of two large companies in real-time. Musk just continues to dig his own grave… I feel bad for the ppl losing their jobs but that is a very generous severance package.

Zuck is doing first ever mass layoffs for a company he started from his dorm room 18 years ago and grew to a ~trillion dollar valuation.

Musk is following the standard playbook of private equity takeover + gutting the company to squeeze out remaining profits and then sell for parts. There is no question of even a bit of emotion involved from his side.

Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#905

Post by andirk »

Leires wrote: post #690

I'm sorry, but honestly fuck Meta. Conducting psychological experiments on users without consent, and enabling psyops from organizations like Cambridge Analytica, is enough for me to never use their services. I hope they implode as a company. I happily said no when people from meta approached me on LinkedIn.

Remember that Facebook "whistleblower" revealed that Facebook "put profits over people"? That will never not be funny.

Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#906

Post by zaptheimpaler »

jahsome wrote: post #891
Leires wrote: post #690

I'm sorry, but honestly fuck Meta. Conducting psychological experiments on users without consent, and enabling psyops from organizations like Cambridge Analytica, is enough for me to never use their services. I hope they implode as a company. I happily said no when people from meta approached me on LinkedIn.

I understand the sentiment. I agree there should be accountability. With that in mind, I'd like to point out root merely expressed an anecdote about above and beyond humane treatment of employees from the CEO. Parent described the hacker-friendly culture. Those appear to be first hand accounts. How does your comment relate contribute to that discussion? Further, how does over the top and genericized outrage and harm…

Your argument is essentially that the company treated its employees well, so who cares what it did to users. Who gave you the right to decide the discussion is framed around how Meta treats employees rather than what it does for the entire world?

Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#907

Post by kube-system »

gfd wrote: post #704
Leires wrote: post #690

I'm sorry, but honestly fuck Meta. Conducting psychological experiments on users without consent, and enabling psyops from organizations like Cambridge Analytica, is enough for me to never use their services. I hope they implode as a company. I happily said no when people from meta approached me on LinkedIn.

Not saying it makes it okay, but every company in existence does this to some extent. Everyone does A/B testing with the intent to alter user behavior (aka psychology) to increase their profits.

Maybe every company financed by adtech does this. But that's a far cry from "every company in existence".

Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#908

Post by artificial »

smsm42 wrote: post #836
Leires wrote: post #690

I'm sorry, but honestly fuck Meta. Conducting psychological experiments on users without consent, and enabling psyops from organizations like Cambridge Analytica, is enough for me to never use their services. I hope they implode as a company. I happily said no when people from meta approached me on LinkedIn.

So, Cambridge Analytica. Facebook has been used as a source of electioneering data for years before that. See for example Eitan Hersh's testimony. In fact, I've read articles bragging about how inventive the political technology using social networking profiles is, for a couple of electoral cycles before that - they may still be somewhere in HN archives even. And of course, selling the very same data to advertisers,…

Most don't have a problem uploading address books and contacts into these platforms. I think it depends which team it is. Companies? Cool! Political Party you agree with, sure! They mined the social graph and Zuck reached out to them and said they're on the same team and didn't restrict access while they mined 50 million people. Don't forget Zygna!

Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#909

Post by aussiesnack »

Leires wrote: post #690

I'm sorry, but honestly fuck Meta. Conducting psychological experiments on users without consent, and enabling psyops from organizations like Cambridge Analytica, is enough for me to never use their services. I hope they implode as a company. I happily said no when people from meta approached me on LinkedIn.

I'll cede no ground to anyone on loathing the corporate world, to the extent that I've all but abandoned work and the cash economy (at the cost of considerable personal privation).

But humans are complex beings, and it's just realistic to view us all with some nuance rather than casually tossing everyone into good/evil baskets. The gp outlined an example of decent behaviour, and it remains just that regardless of our attitudes on other grounds towards Zuckersnuffles and/or Meta. Even murderers can be kind and decent people given in some contexts (witnessed at first hand).

Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#910

Post by the-anarchist »

sytelus wrote: post #683
alasdair_ wrote: post #670

I worked at Facebook when covid first hit. Zuckerburg treated everyone in the company very, very well. There was a blanket "don't worry about performance, take care of your families" guarantee that honestly was an enormous help. The thing that particularly struck me though was the way he handled contract workers like (some of) the kitchen staff, cleaners, etc. These people don't work for Facebook and he had zero obli…

I am particularly sad about current state of Meta. Regardless of what people think of Facebook and Zuck, he was unapologetically a hacker. I visited FB campus few times and emphasis on hacker culture everywhere was just immensely delightful. He knew the value of good hacker and raised bar for the compensation across the entire industry. Ship your code today was absolutely refreshing. Number of open source projects th…

That is how cabals work.
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