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As a whistleblower prepares to speak out, what can be done to rein in Facebook?

theguardian.com

11–20 of 129 posts

Re: As a whistleblower prepares to speak out, what can be done to rein in Facebook?

#11
This doesn't sound very promising. "Give users more control over their data" It sounds more like, look we give users more control over data, but please let us do the meta verse project.

From what I see there, it will get even worse. Fb collects data and sells ads based on that data, meanwhile the users are undergoing gamification aka incentivized to spend as much time as possible on the platform.

The best governance would be if people simply stopped using it, but people do want to share and like, they think it adds value to the life.

Re: As a whistleblower prepares to speak out, what can be done to rein in Facebook?

#12
I worry that simply breaking up FB could make things worse. Today, with a safe monopoly feedung high profit margins they can afford some mitigations (more reviewers, etc) and to "hold back" a bit on some of the worst/unhealthy engagement tricks.

Several more equal competitors would feel pressure to outdo each other. Some other fix is needed (probably in addition to breakup).

Re: As a whistleblower prepares to speak out, what can be done to rein in Facebook?

#13
Why does every attack on Facebook seem like an actual pressure tactic to get them to censor views the mainstream media disagrees with? It seems a lot of the reporting on Facebook is driven more by a desire for censorship than for anything else.

In terms of misinformation, it was just a couple a weeks ago that the mainstream media was pushing the narrative that the Border Patrol was whipping immigrants, which was completely false.

Re: As a whistleblower prepares to speak out, what can be done to rein in Facebook?

#14
Calls for breaking up companies make great headlines for politicians but let's look at the history and why this was necessary as a solution to antitrust.

The textbook case for the Sherman Act was Standard Oil. Built up by Rockefeller in the late 19th century, Standard Oil came to effectively control the extraction, refining, distribution and sale of kerosene (in particular). This is when oil pipelines began, interestingly to break up another monopoly: the railroads (for distribution).

Standard Oil split into a bunch of companies, many of which still exist today (eg Chevron, Exxon-Mobil). This break up actually made Rockefeller (even more) fantastically wealthy.

The key point is that Standard Oil could (and did) use its significant market power to squash competitors.

Another example: the Paramount decision that split film studios, distribution and theaters.

Personally I think very few Big Tech companies would warrant this kind of government action and top of that list for me would be Amazon, whose stranglehold on logistics, delivery and online storefronts is near-total. Amazon's delivery prices (FedEx, UPS, USPS primarily) cannot be matched. The barrier to entry is so huge, no one could reasonably compete.

But Facebook? Let's look at the last 10 years. FB bought IG when (IMHO) IG represented an existential threat to FB. So if you're going to argue market dominance, you're going to have to explain how a company a few years old with 13 employees (at the time of acquisition) could possibly threaten FB.

Another is TikTok.

Can we stop applying standards developed for 19th century oil producers to Big Tech where distribution is essentially free and said companies exist only so long as the users want them to?

I know it's trendy for lawmakers to bang their drums about an issue as a kneejerk reaction to grab some headlines and that they must hurry to do so before the market just solves the problem anyway but still.

Disclaimer: Ex-Facebooker. Opinions are my own.

Re: As a whistleblower prepares to speak out, what can be done to rein in Facebook?

#15

Odd that "Stop using Facebook and products it owns" wasn't listed. While I understand that at this point it will probably take some regulatory action to fully deal with Facebook and its abuses, there's a huge cognitive dissonance among many people when it comes to Facebook. Lots of the people who complain about how evil the company's behavior is use the company's products frequently. Lots of criticism of Facebook is…

If Facebook wasn't behaving anti-competitively by preventing interoperability this might work, but as of right now an individual may not always have a choice in using Facebook.

A lot of businesses, social clubs, schools/daycare centers, etc use Facebook as their primary online presence. Your option is to either sign up or not participate.

Re: As a whistleblower prepares to speak out, what can be done to rein in Facebook?

#16

Odd that "Stop using Facebook and products it owns" wasn't listed. While I understand that at this point it will probably take some regulatory action to fully deal with Facebook and its abuses, there's a huge cognitive dissonance among many people when it comes to Facebook. Lots of the people who complain about how evil the company's behavior is use the company's products frequently. Lots of criticism of Facebook is…

It's _much_ easier to stop using Facebook than, say, Microsoft, Intel, Apple, etc.

Re: As a whistleblower prepares to speak out, what can be done to rein in Facebook?

#17

Why does every attack on Facebook seem like an actual pressure tactic to get them to censor views the mainstream media disagrees with? It seems a lot of the reporting on Facebook is driven more by a desire for censorship than for anything else. In terms of misinformation, it was just a couple a weeks ago that the mainstream media was pushing the narrative that the Border Patrol was whipping immigrants, which was comp…

>

From https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2021/border-patrol-hai...

   Ratje said he saw a Border Patrol agent swing his horse’s rein in the air while migrants were in the river. One migrant who was holding bags of food fell backward.

  As some migrants tried to get past Border Patrol agents, Ratje took photos, including one that would later go viral. Ratje saw the agent swing his rein vertically, spot a Haitian migrant in a black shirt carrying bags of food, and then pursue him

   The Border Patrol agent “is grabbing the Haitian with his right hand and has his reins in his left hand. The rein swings up,” Ratje said. The migrant then “got swung around,” Ratje said, but the agent eventually let go.
Nice. The rein "swings up" and the migrant "got swung around". Purely through divine intervention we presume. We also presume that when the agent eventually let go, the person was stood back on the ground without any excessive force

   A separate video tweeted by John Holman, a correspondent for Al Jazeera, showed a Border Patrol agent yelling at Haitian migrants as they crossed the Rio Grande with food. A video showed a Border Patrol agent in the river yelling at migrants:  “Hey you use your women? This is why your country’s s—, because you use your women for this!”
Even nicer: yelling at women who are trying to get food and water to feed their children and families.

Re: As a whistleblower prepares to speak out, what can be done to rein in Facebook?

#18

Odd that "Stop using Facebook and products it owns" wasn't listed. While I understand that at this point it will probably take some regulatory action to fully deal with Facebook and its abuses, there's a huge cognitive dissonance among many people when it comes to Facebook. Lots of the people who complain about how evil the company's behavior is use the company's products frequently. Lots of criticism of Facebook is…

If Facebook wasn't behaving anti-competitively by preventing interoperability this might work, but as of right now an individual may not always have a choice in using Facebook. A lot of businesses, social clubs, schools/daycare centers, etc use Facebook as their primary online presence. Your option is to either sign up or not participate.

I'm consciously uncoupling from Facebook over time. I'm down to a couple of groups, well one actually, before I disengage entirely in a month or two. You are correct that a lot of organizations make use of Facebook but somebody has to push back so why not you?

It has to start somewhere...

Re: As a whistleblower prepares to speak out, what can be done to rein in Facebook?

#20

Why does every attack on Facebook seem like an actual pressure tactic to get them to censor views the mainstream media disagrees with? It seems a lot of the reporting on Facebook is driven more by a desire for censorship than for anything else. In terms of misinformation, it was just a couple a weeks ago that the mainstream media was pushing the narrative that the Border Patrol was whipping immigrants, which was comp…

> From https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2021/border-patrol-hai... Ratje said he saw a Border Patrol agent swing his horse’s rein in the air while migrants were in the river. One migrant who was holding bags of food fell backward. As some migrants tried to get past Border Patrol agents, Ratje took photos, including one that would later go viral. Ratje saw the agent swing his rein vertically, spot a Haitian migran…

https://www.politifact.com/article/2021/sep/24/what-we-know-...

>Ratje told PolitiFact that his photographs didn’t show signs of agents whipping any migrants or using anything as a whip to strike them.

>"Nobody saw a Border Patrol agent whipping," he said. "What we did see was a Border Patrol agent swinging the rein in like a circle. It looked pretty threatening. Nobody saw him strike the migrant with that thing, the reins.

>"I asked other colleagues, ‘Did you see him whipping?’ No," he added. "That stuff got misconstrued.

Truth is there was no whipping of immigrants. That part was completely misinformation.

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