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Zuckerberg's war on whistleblowers

pluralistic.net

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Re: Zuckerberg's war on whistleblowers

#141

Post by game_the0ry »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #107
game_the0ry wrote: post #71

People complain about meta all the time. Clearly, its a scumbag company. There is only one way to make him hurt: boycott all meta products. Uninstall facebook, instagram, whatsapp. Edit -- I am getting downvoted for this comment. I can't say I am surprised, most of you are too programmed to think for yourselves.

Yeah, I don't understand the downvotes either. Complaining is one thing (and it's certainly valid to complain about Meta), but nothing's going to change if a lot of people still use their service. Sure, one person getting off of the Meta platform isn't going to do anything, but millions could have an effect - if only to give less power to the company. I deleted my Meta account last year and haven't missed it.

> Yeah, I don't understand the downvotes either.

I do -- meta's products are inherently addictive and the network effect is powerful, so people would rather cope and complain than take meaningful but inconvenient action. This is how zuck wins, every time.

> I deleted my Meta account last year and haven't missed it.

Me too and so has most of my family.

Re: Zuckerberg's war on whistleblowers

#142

Post by game_the0ry »

Terr_ wrote: post #129
game_the0ry wrote: post #71

People complain about meta all the time. Clearly, its a scumbag company. There is only one way to make him hurt: boycott all meta products. Uninstall facebook, instagram, whatsapp. Edit -- I am getting downvoted for this comment. I can't say I am surprised, most of you are too programmed to think for yourselves.

> There is only one way to Zuckerberg et al. would actually prefer that we all think that, so that we just stop there and don't proceed to more-effective politics. https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/21/purity-culture/

You may have given up. I didn't.

Re: Zuckerberg's war on whistleblowers

#143

Post by hedora »

lokar wrote: post #94
hyhatqtv wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The New Deal was mostly rolled back a while ago. After all corporatism did generally fall out of fashion for after WW2 (and of course there was quite a bit of opposition of state planning due to geopolitical reasons in the 50s and later)

Social security? And the follow-up, Medicare?

Those are both being actively dismantled.

Re: Zuckerberg's war on whistleblowers

#144

Post by gverrilla »

game_the0ry wrote: post #71

People complain about meta all the time. Clearly, its a scumbag company. There is only one way to make him hurt: boycott all meta products. Uninstall facebook, instagram, whatsapp. Edit -- I am getting downvoted for this comment. I can't say I am surprised, most of you are too programmed to think for yourselves.

'guillotine' > boycott

Re: Zuckerberg's war on whistleblowers

#145

Post by Macha »

khurs wrote: post #118
alt227 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is everyone beating around the bush? Its Nick Clegg

I'm confused. What's the allegation?

Clegg later held the same position but was fired as Facebook decided that it was more politically favorable to stop employing someone in the role that was involved in content moderation (including actions against Donald Trump) and instead hire someone with connections to Donald Trump in January 2025, due to some sort of recent event at at that time.

I guess that the thread is implying his position would have given him access to newer claims, just as Wynn-Williams' had, and the method of his firing might give him motivation to reveal anything he knows.

Personally I feel that might be giving Clegg to much credit.

Re: Zuckerberg's war on whistleblowers

#146

Post by alexashka »

dofm wrote: post #53

It's not increasingly bizarre, really, if you just allow for the possibility of one thing: There's something else worse that they know could be in such a book, but isn't yet, and it is so bad that it is worth doing this. Perhaps they know that Wynn-Williams could have put it in the book and didn't. Perhaps they know that someone else — someone else British, say? — could write such things in a book and so far hasn't.…

Employee - Large organization.

Mosquito - Human.

You don't swat a mosquito out of fear, you swat it out of preventing a minor nuisance.

A whistleblower is a mosquito that's bitten a human. The most likely outcome is an imminent, violent swat, resulting in career destruction.

Re: Zuckerberg's war on whistleblowers

#147

Post by nikkwong »

softwaredoug wrote: post #123

It’s hard to have sympathy for Zuck when Facebook / instagram don’t police misinformation about other people. Sort of ensnared in a trap of his own making.

Their lackadaisical attitude towards scams and misleading information on their platforms is just utterly mind blowing. The other day I was suggested a post from an account of a beautiful girl with 150k followers which, upon investigation, is not a real person but a character generated with AI; whose profile links out to a bunch of sites trying to get people to pay for nude images or download nefarious apps like gambling, crypto, etc. Though not technically illegal, it’s a total moral hazard and is yet another nail in the coffin in our goal to maintain an equitable society.

The people that work at the company are smart, and I’m sure many of them are compassionate. I just don’t know what kind of people can sign off on product decisions like this that truly erode trust, community fabric, and make our world ultimately so much worse. It’s heartbreaking that someone like zuck is the one leading this initiative, you could pick any random person off the street and they would lead the company in a direction that was better for mankind.

Re: Zuckerberg's war on whistleblowers

#148

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

stephc_int13 wrote: post #104

It is the same reasoning as with the regular Decimation. It is all about disciplining their employees. And it works. We're not saying many ex or current Meta employees talking about their experiences here, even if I am sure that HN is pretty popular among this crowd. And of course this is not unique to Zuck/Meta. We don't hear much from people working for Musk either.

> We're not saying many ex or current Meta employees talking about their experiences here, even if I am sure that HN is pretty popular among this crowd.

This is just false I think. I'd have to search for it, but in some of the recent stories about how morale at Meta is at an all-time low due to the layoffs and fiefdom-building I recall seeing a number of current and former Meta employees comment.

Plus, my guess is that the vast, vast majority of Facebook employees just aren't privy to outright illegal acts, and most people aren't going to break their nondisparagement clause just to break the latest bitchy thing somebody said regarding Zuck.

Re: Zuckerberg's war on whistleblowers

#149

Post by charcircuit »

>Meta got its arbitrator – a lawyer who is paid by Meta to adjudicate contractual disputes instead of an actual judge

Arbitration is paid for by both parties and of course there isn't a judge when you go to arbitration due to having a civil dispute.

Re: Zuckerberg's war on whistleblowers

#150

Post by alwa »

khurs wrote: post #118
alt227 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is everyone beating around the bush? Its Nick Clegg

I'm confused. What's the allegation?

Former senior British politician Nick Clegg joined Meta in 2018 as vice president for global affairs and communication. He rose to Meta’s president for global affairs in 2022, and left in 2025 for an AI startup.

This would be shortly after Wynn-Williams’ 2017 departure from the policy role she describes in the book at hand. And it would be around the time that word was getting around about Facebook’s role in what Amnesty and the UN described as a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya minority in Myanmar. Among other things.

That story didn’t go on to a happy ending after 2017, and one imagines that, in the decade since, there have been fewer and fewer situations of strife, geopolitical gamesmanship, and civil conflict where Facebook/Instagram/Whatsapp could avoid taking consequential policy decisions.

Meta were enmeshed in ample US domestic drama during that period, too; and Clegg’s replacement in the policy role was someone in the new administration’s orbit. Perhaps that’s fresh on the ancestor commenters’ minds.

Given the culture Ms. Wynn-Williams describes—and the tumult of the decade when he held the policy role—one imagines Mr. Clegg might have some stories to share should he choose to…

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