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Facebook drains users' cellphone batteries intentionally says ex-employee

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121–129 of 129 posts

Re: Facebook drains users' cellphone batteries intentionally says ex-employee

#121

This is curious. I've recently migrated to Pixel 7 Pro with GrapheneOS and noticed that my battery was lasting for about 6 hours. And there was nothing unusual in the battery usage report. Initially I thought that something is wrong with new Pixels or GrapheneOS. So, I've started reading ADB logs and assumed that something might be wrong with Meta apps - (which I installed in work profile). The logs were full of vari…

To be fair I wouldn't be surprised if the cause of this is precisely the purity of GrapheneOS: given it lacks Google services and Firebase Cloud Messaging to centralize app notifications through Google, the apps need to do frequent polling or keep an active connection to Facebook's infra to receive notifications. Same with Telegram, each has a slightly different polling mechanism when Google-powered push is not available (a common in phones without Google services), which is most likely way less power efficient.

Re: Facebook drains users' cellphone batteries intentionally says ex-employee

#122
post #112
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can make a negative case for any of the large tech company. Yes you can, but it's a spectrum. Microsoft abusing their monopolistic position to strangle competition and adding adware and spyware in an OS people pay for is ethically and morally bad, but is much less bad than Facebook profiting from and doing nothing to stop an actual active genocide. Facebook is by far the worst, ethically and morally, offender o…

Can FB even do anything meaningful against "an active genocide"? It's important to assign some responsibility to those who have/had the ability to prevent it, but it's not clear to me that FB could have prevented it. In close races like the US presidential election it's plausible that FB was the deciding factor, but places where genocides happen are not known for close races. And to be clear, it's not like FB couldn'…

The question is not “how could a social network like Facebook have done any better given small tweaks to content moderation?” It’s “is Facebook fundamentally designed to create these kinds of misinformation bubbles?”

That second question is much more painful to ask if you’re an engineer at a company like this, because it means there’s no changing it from within.

Re: Facebook drains users' cellphone batteries intentionally says ex-employee

#123

This is curious. I've recently migrated to Pixel 7 Pro with GrapheneOS and noticed that my battery was lasting for about 6 hours. And there was nothing unusual in the battery usage report. Initially I thought that something is wrong with new Pixels or GrapheneOS. So, I've started reading ADB logs and assumed that something might be wrong with Meta apps - (which I installed in work profile). The logs were full of vari…

To be fair I wouldn't be surprised if the cause of this is precisely the purity of GrapheneOS: given it lacks Google services and Firebase Cloud Messaging to centralize app notifications through Google, the apps need to do frequent polling or keep an active connection to Facebook's infra to receive notifications. Same with Telegram, each has a slightly different polling mechanism when Google-powered push is not avail…

It doesn't lack google services nor Firebase. They work as regular apps, sandboxed by selinux (I'm not sure what else is involved, but they are sandboxed and they work flawlessly).

Re: Facebook drains users' cellphone batteries intentionally says ex-employee

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. But there may be delays and sometimes when you tap on a notification nothing happens.

Yes? I just thought if I restrict it, there will be no notification until I open the app.

I did not restrict Play Services, so Firebase notifications definitely do work.

Re: Facebook drains users' cellphone batteries intentionally says ex-employee

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And just went you think Facebook is the worst, TikTok comes around.

"Der Markt regelt das." (The market will regulate itself.)

> The invisible hand is a metaphor used by the Scottish moral philosopher Adam Smith that describes the unintended greater social impacts brought about by individuals acting in their own self-interests.[1][2] Smith originally mentioned the term in his work Theory of Moral Sentiments in 1759, but it has actually become known from his main work The Wealth of Nations, where the phrase is mentioned only once, in connection with import restrictions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_hand

(should also help to obtain the historic criticism of it that has materialized since back then)

Re: Facebook drains users' cellphone batteries intentionally says ex-employee

#126
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of worse companies (direct scams, sketchy loans, ponzi schemes); I’d say going there would be “going all the way”. There are good things you can do at fb too, e.g. expand the positive areas of FB or work on removing the negatives.

Good things like inciting war and political division? Maybe building tools to easily spread misinformation that drowns out factual information?

You misunderstood. I gave other examples of good things.

To elaborate, I said “work on removing the negatives”. If you won’t work at fb, others will. But when you work there, you actually have the power to change the place so that they do less of the stuff that you described.

Re: Facebook drains users' cellphone batteries intentionally says ex-employee

#127
post #122
post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can FB even do anything meaningful against "an active genocide"? It's important to assign some responsibility to those who have/had the ability to prevent it, but it's not clear to me that FB could have prevented it. In close races like the US presidential election it's plausible that FB was the deciding factor, but places where genocides happen are not known for close races. And to be clear, it's not like FB couldn'…

The question is not “how could a social network like Facebook have done any better given small tweaks to content moderation?” It’s “is Facebook fundamentally designed to create these kinds of misinformation bubbles?” That second question is much more painful to ask if you’re an engineer at a company like this, because it means there’s no changing it from within.

but it's also probably false with a likelihood of at least 99%

Facebook is designed fundamentally to be a social graph, a representation of people's lives, blablabla. the more time people spend representing their lives on FB, the more attached they are to their online persona/profile/connections (and the dopamine rewards through likes and engagement), the more money it makes.

misinformation bubble? who cares. if that is what people want to represent, FB provides it, sure, but it's not what it is designed for.

Re: Facebook drains users' cellphone batteries intentionally says ex-employee

#128
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Easy to discredit a comment which only comes up with explanations which disfavors one of the sides.

I'm making an observation with the same data everyone has. You're free to come to a different conclusion. FWIW I'm even on the side of the guy, I really don't like facebook. But even if I don't like something it doesn't mean I should just agree with everything that casts them in a bad light.

No. Making wild speculations in the complete opposite direction is much more fair.

Re: Facebook drains users' cellphone batteries intentionally says ex-employee

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could buy 100 iphones... Or you could "borrow" a million for free, to get rock solid stats. Also there are hundreds, if not thousands, of different phone models. The allegedly used way of negative testing is much better than buying phones, and is virtually free.

It's also unethical.

Coming from a business whom founder said: "I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SMS... People just submitted it. I don't know why. They trust me. Dumb f**s", ethical considerations has zero weight here.
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