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Facebook's Fix-It Team

fortune.com

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Re: Facebook's Fix-It Team

#11

Post by borplk »

sanderjd wrote: post #9
duxup wrote: post #7

"In the spring of 2017, Rosen put a team of engineers on “lockdown,” a Facebook practice in which people drop everything to solve a problem. The problem was dire indeed: People were using Facebook Live, a video-streaming service that had just launched, to announce their intention to kill themselves, and even to stream themselves doing it." While I've got some strong feelings about Facebook and their actions... that's…

This is the kind of empathy that I think lots of people fail to have when it comes to sites with user-generated content. As another example, lots of people seem to think Facebook is negligent for failing to properly delineate between fake and real news articles or between organic political speech and propaganda. Purely from an engineering perspective, I just don't see how they could possibly do even an adequate, let…

It's only recently that people have started to assign blame and responsibility to the platform hosting the content (really only after the US election drama).

Back in the earlier days of the internet the attitude was quite different.

It was all celebrated free speech and "anyone is empowered to do anything it's all open and free and happy for everybody and there's some bad stuff so what" (happy early Web 2.0 days where the web was moving from static pages to "textboxes and submit buttons").

Now a pin drops and 50 publications write an "Facebook negligently allowed someone to ... they must be held accountable and regulated and broken apart" article.

It's just a mindless pendulum swing. Those of us in the middle always get the shit. Back in the day we got blamed for saying anything against the "open and free and rainbows for all humanity" rhetoric and now it's gone to the other side.

Re: Facebook's Fix-It Team

#12

Post by aylmao »

borplk wrote: post #11
sanderjd wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the kind of empathy that I think lots of people fail to have when it comes to sites with user-generated content. As another example, lots of people seem to think Facebook is negligent for failing to properly delineate between fake and real news articles or between organic political speech and propaganda. Purely from an engineering perspective, I just don't see how they could possibly do even an adequate, let…

It's only recently that people have started to assign blame and responsibility to the platform hosting the content (really only after the US election drama). Back in the earlier days of the internet the attitude was quite different. It was all celebrated free speech and "anyone is empowered to do anything it's all open and free and happy for everybody and there's some bad stuff so what" (happy early Web 2.0 days wher…

> Now a pin drops and 50 publications write an "Facebook negligently allowed someone to ... they must be held accountable and regulated and broken apart" article.

I think part of it is this; those "50 publications" --the media-- is paying attention now, and they judge the internet like a media publication and not a forum.

There's debate of course; does the sorting of the newsfeed equate editorial curation? Does this make Facebook a media company vs a communications platform? I do think that a lot of the outcry I've been hearing against these open communication mediums have come from old media more so than from the average person.

Re: Facebook's Fix-It Team

#13

Post by scaryclam »

fyfy18 wrote: post #8

Is there a way to pass the GDPR consent dialogue without giving them permission to do whatever they like with my data? I thought the purpose of the GDPR was to give users a choice as to whether their data is used?

Some may be in breach of the GDPR for making consent a condition of use. Without knowing more it's hard to say though, since some services really do need some PII to operate (like Amazon needing an address to deliver to).

Re: Facebook's Fix-It Team

#14

Post by aylmao »

gkanai wrote: post #10
duxup wrote: post #7

"In the spring of 2017, Rosen put a team of engineers on “lockdown,” a Facebook practice in which people drop everything to solve a problem. The problem was dire indeed: People were using Facebook Live, a video-streaming service that had just launched, to announce their intention to kill themselves, and even to stream themselves doing it." While I've got some strong feelings about Facebook and their actions... that's…

> creating a system where you realize people are sharing their suicide on. They should have planned for that pre-launch and had a plan in place to deal with users like that. When Live was launched, journalists asked Zuckerberg about this exact topic and he would not believe the Live platform would be used in that way. Of course murders and suicides were streamed on the platform and FB was yet again on the back foot.…

> FB plans for the optimistic usage when in reality, that is rarely the normal usage.

Hold up, this sounds wrong. I am sure the optimistic usage is by far the "normal usage"; I don't suppose most people are streaming murders, suicides, etc.

Considering the number of users Facebook has, I'd be surprised if these negative uses even come close to one in many thousands. For the same reason one also can't assume they won't happen; give 2+ billion people the ability to stream live and someone is bound to stream something nasty. I doubt most of those 2+ billion people are using this feature negatively though.

Re: Facebook's Fix-It Team

#15

Post by bertil »

fyfy18 wrote: post #8

Is there a way to pass the GDPR consent dialogue without giving them permission to do whatever they like with my data? I thought the purpose of the GDPR was to give users a choice as to whether their data is used?

Facebook’s GDPR modal explains what they do with your data and why it’s legitimate. You can opt out of targeted advertising. The only thing that Facebook doesn’t offer is not filtering your News Feed by interest, which they see as a key feature.

Re: Facebook's Fix-It Team

#16

Post by gnarbarian »

aylmao wrote: post #12
borplk wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's only recently that people have started to assign blame and responsibility to the platform hosting the content (really only after the US election drama). Back in the earlier days of the internet the attitude was quite different. It was all celebrated free speech and "anyone is empowered to do anything it's all open and free and happy for everybody and there's some bad stuff so what" (happy early Web 2.0 days wher…

> Now a pin drops and 50 publications write an "Facebook negligently allowed someone to ... they must be held accountable and regulated and broken apart" article. I think part of it is this; those "50 publications" --the media-- is paying attention now, and they judge the internet like a media publication and not a forum. There's debate of course; does the sorting of the newsfeed equate editorial curation? Does this…

> does the sorting of the newsfeed equate editorial curation?

there are quite a few independent YouTube news channels I trust far more for showing me the truth than any giant network with vested interests. two examples:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJdKr0Bgd_5saZYqLCa9mng

https://www.youtube.com/user/Timcasts

Re: Facebook's Fix-It Team

#17

Post by chrisseaton »

gkanai wrote: post #10
duxup wrote: post #7

"In the spring of 2017, Rosen put a team of engineers on “lockdown,” a Facebook practice in which people drop everything to solve a problem. The problem was dire indeed: People were using Facebook Live, a video-streaming service that had just launched, to announce their intention to kill themselves, and even to stream themselves doing it." While I've got some strong feelings about Facebook and their actions... that's…

> creating a system where you realize people are sharing their suicide on. They should have planned for that pre-launch and had a plan in place to deal with users like that. When Live was launched, journalists asked Zuckerberg about this exact topic and he would not believe the Live platform would be used in that way. Of course murders and suicides were streamed on the platform and FB was yet again on the back foot.…

> They should have planned for that pre-launch

That's easy to say with hindsight isn't it?

Re: Facebook's Fix-It Team

#18

Post by deanCommie »

sanderjd wrote: post #9
duxup wrote: post #7

"In the spring of 2017, Rosen put a team of engineers on “lockdown,” a Facebook practice in which people drop everything to solve a problem. The problem was dire indeed: People were using Facebook Live, a video-streaming service that had just launched, to announce their intention to kill themselves, and even to stream themselves doing it." While I've got some strong feelings about Facebook and their actions... that's…

This is the kind of empathy that I think lots of people fail to have when it comes to sites with user-generated content. As another example, lots of people seem to think Facebook is negligent for failing to properly delineate between fake and real news articles or between organic political speech and propaganda. Purely from an engineering perspective, I just don't see how they could possibly do even an adequate, let…

Facebook used to have a feature where when you wrote a comment to a news article, it would give you suggestions of 3 "suggested" response links that you could post in response.

99% of the time when I started writing a response to a news story I knew to be false, the top recommended link was a Snopes article debunking the story. I could just click on that, and be done with it.

So they already had an engineering fix for this problem, and it worked GREAT.

Why did they take it out? Probably because the metrics showed that stuff like this killed conversations, and the virality of people reposting stories. Nobody is going to Share a news post when one of the top comments is a big Snopes "FALSE" preview.

Some engagement metrics went down and they took it away.

Re: Facebook's Fix-It Team

#19

Post by Cthulhu_ »

gnarbarian wrote: post #6
yial wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most interestingly is "... (The reason: While people may commit a single homicide accidentally or in self-defense,..." homicide would be unlawful killing, so now I'm curious, is this per incident... as in, imagine someone had to kill two individuals at once in self defense, would they be banned from facebook? sidebar: I have had my facebook deleted since 09/2015 so I may not be the key audience ever of facebo…

Key word there is convicted. Homocide in certain situations can be legal. Killing someone in self defense is legal (in the us). Another example of homicide with no fault to you would be someone jumping out in front of your car. Neither case would normally yield a conviction or even a case. Also homicide is different than murder. Murder implies intent.

And that's just the US; Facebook is an international company with different laws everywhere.

Re: Facebook's Fix-It Team

#20

Post by JshWright »

yial wrote: post #5
bonniemuffin wrote: post #3

Today I learned: "anyone convicted of two or more murders is banned from Facebook." (One murder is okay though.)

I think most interestingly is "... (The reason: While people may commit a single homicide accidentally or in self-defense,..." homicide would be unlawful killing, so now I'm curious, is this per incident... as in, imagine someone had to kill two individuals at once in self defense, would they be banned from facebook? sidebar: I have had my facebook deleted since 09/2015 so I may not be the key audience ever of facebo…

Homicide is not necessarily unlawful. It simply means someone was killed by another Homo sapiens.

There are all sorts of situations where that could occur lawfully.

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