131–140 of 194 posts
do all social media sites not suffer from the same issues or am I wrong? e.g., snapchat, tiktok, youtube? Why is Meta being singled out?
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> The rank and file engineers and designers and PMs doing the work were all morally correct people Then why didn't they quit? I believe I could have gotten a job at Meta (and hey, maybe I'm wrong!) but I've never been able to stomach the idea of working on their products. If I can choose to avoid working on morally compromising things, why can't they? And look, I get it. If they didn't make it some other engineer wou…
>> The rank and file engineers and designers and PMs doing the work were all morally correct people > Then why didn't they quit? I can't speak for those people, but decisions like quitting your job aren't one-dimensional. Quitting a job can create severe hardships for a family, stress relationships to the breaking point, etc. The Bay Area is very expensive, so I'd imagine that's true even for workers making otherwise…
I can't disagree with that. But my point is more... own it, then.
OP's comment said the leaders are fully responsible. I argue the engineers are responsible too. If they made the decision they made because they don't want their family to leave the Bay Area then that's the decision they made: they put their family ahead of broader societal damage they're helping create. I might do the same for my family. But I wouldn't try to claim that I'm completely blameless in the scenario.
> Also, making the pushing for the right decision to only get overruled by the people in power can feel like doing enough for many people.
I suppose I would counter with "but it isn't".
> What other morally compromising things have you not chosen to avoid?
Again, I agree with what you're saying, every day involves some level of moral compromise. But the task I choose to dedicate most of my waking hours to, day in day out, is a little different from whether I buy free range eggs or not.
Corporate Death Penalty is exactly what the country needs to recover from this nightmare.
So, in other words, we have a corporate death penalty, it just has a weird name, is mired in a bunch of weirdly English legal history, and it isn't very well used[2]. Also, the motion for the writ would have to be filed by Delaware's AG specifically.
Also, also, this is a nuclear option.
The primary hurdle of filing a quo warranto lawsuit against Facebook would be political, not procedural: Texas would really, really like to replace Delaware as the default state large enterprises incorporate in[3]. In fact, this process is already happening. Delaware made the mistake of enforcing their shareholder protection laws against Elon Musk's pay packet, so Texas is promising corporations a jurisdiction where shareholders donate their capital to the company for absolutely nothing in return except a token that they can pump the value of. In other words, Texas is a rotten borough that is stripping away all the ability for minority stakeholders to sue.
So if Delaware actually moves to revoke Facebook[4]'s charter, that might scare every other corporation out of Delaware - including the ones that aren't obvious scams. There's probably some way Delaware could hold existing corporations hostage there, but that would be an even more thermonuclear option.
That being said, I'm starting to wonder if the concept of a "nuclear option" is even meaningful in a world where "correctly deciding a shareholder rights case" destroys your reputation as a fair and neutral arbiter of those rights. Why bother keeping your powder dry if it's evaporating anyway? Go out with a bang and kill Facebook.
[0] Which if Google hadn't enshittified their traditional search index, I wouldn't have to use this.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quo_warranto#United_States
[2] One may argue that the state doesn't use this very often because rapacious corporations happen to be useful to rapacious nation-states.
[3] Confusingly, they're calling this "DExit", which is annoying because we already use "Dexit" to refer to Pokemon Sword and Shield not shipping with all the Pokemon in it.
[4] It is always ethical to deadname corporations.
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That's why the punishment should also have a sufficient deterrent effect. If the punishment can't sufficiently deter the behaviour, it should at least deter the capital enabling that behaviour at scale. In other words: void the stock.
Are you going to take away all of Zuckerberg's vast personal fortune, and all the other execs at Meta? What about all the folks who've wokred as engineer and product managers? Otherwise they're still making out like bandits.
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Are you going to take away all of Zuckerberg's vast personal fortune, and all the other execs at Meta? What about all the folks who've wokred as engineer and product managers? Otherwise they're still making out like bandits.
$0'ing the shares would probably spread the punishment roughly proportionally with the harms they did. It's not a perfect solution (people who previously sold their equity would be missed), but better than most.
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In all fairness social media is in the same kind of business model as porn and gambling. None of that is forced on anybody. If you don't want those in your life then just don't consume them. If you don't want them in your household use a DNS blocker. How much should we really parent the rest of society?
It's a fair question, but it irritates me because it suggests that we should accept the self-destruction of vast swaths of the population in the name of perfect liberty. The reality is that we have a lot of institutions that prey on consumers' biology in a way that is overpowering for the average individual. Social media, ragebait news, and junk food are good examples of legal products that hijack human tendencies fo…
Corporate Death Penalty is exactly what the country needs to recover from this nightmare.
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So you’re saying hard decisions… are hard for reasons? No shit Sherlock. They made them a specific way, and will be stained with the consequences, because they were cowards who took the easy way out.
> They made them a specific way, and will be stained with the consequences, because they were cowards who took the easy way out. One thing I've gotten tired of as I've gotten older is self-righteous judgement like that, when directed at the rank-and-file. Your assignment: carefully inspect your life, and enumerate all the things which you are "stained with the consequences, because [you] were [a] coward who took the…
What do you think that actually looks like?
The same damn thing.
What do you think the scientists working at big tobacco said to themselves?
The same damn thing.
The system won’t work without the ‘little people’ doing all the day to day.
This is, quite literally, the ‘banality of evil’.
I have no love for Meta, but what about tiktok and youtube? What social media doesn't attempt to keep its users engaged?
Corporate Death Penalty is exactly what the country needs to recover from this nightmare.
Our system can’t bear something like a corporate death penalty. Maybe that’s another problem in and of itself. You won’t ever catch me advocating for a company like Meta - they are among the worst - but the solution can’t be one with the potential to kick off a 2008-style financial crisis. The cure can't be as painful as the disease.