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An Anti-Facebook Manifesto, by an Early Facebook Investor

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Re: An Anti-Facebook Manifesto, by an Early Facebook Investor

#101

Post by stevenicr »

modzu wrote: post #3
x3tm wrote: post #2

What I struggle to understand is how could esteemed AI researchers like LeCun and many others work for such a company to give it even more powers and edge? How can they justify this as scientists? The huge influx of money into research (here AI, but could be anything in the future) combined with the disfunctions of academia is very troubling.

im not justifying it, but its easier to do research at a place like FB than in a university these days

This scares me.

It's easier because.. FB has access to millions of people that universities do not? Because fbook can manipulate the minds, emotions and money and politics of highly targeted groups without anyone knowing and the universities could never do that, or would never do that?

Is it because fbook has less ethics / laws / rules in place? Because universities need to answer to the community they are in and have the fear of pitchforks and loss of funding / donors / non-monopoly and need to think of their future and reputation and fbook does not?

What other reasons could there be?

This is something that indeed, unfortunately, we probably should have had regulators talking about long ago.

Re: An Anti-Facebook Manifesto, by an Early Facebook Investor

#102

Post by moosey »

m0zg wrote: post #98
moosey wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A US company took money from a foreign government and used it to spread foreign propaganda, while calling it advertising. Money is pooled into massive organizations called 'PACs' that are used to fund campaigns that get folks into government, then offer them sweet high paying jobs afterwards as long as they do their bidding while they work there. It's not corruption, that's lobbying. It gets tiresome calling things w…

Disclaimer: I'm Russian-American. I do not believe Russian "siloviki" are competent enough to pull off anything like what you're implying. Russia spent $100k on FB in total, and they ran ads on controversial issues from both sides, not just Trump (and also organized "resist" protests after Trump won). For comparison, Trump's campaign alone spent $100 _million_. I don't know off the top of my head how much the Clinton…

With FB, propaganda campaigns are cheap, and the advertising, while small scale, doesn't really deal with the entire issue. Modern social tooling allows for broad propaganda with minimal interruption, and companies are happy to allow it because it brings additional advertising dollars. This can be seen in the various groups created by Russia and internal groups during the campaign, and the reach of them, many spreading falsehoods and propaganda... and yes, to both sides. The goal is to divide, not necessarily a full take over.

I admit that these groups pushed both Black Lives Matter and Blue Lives Matter, Anti-Vaxx and Pro-Vaxx groups, etc., etc. I'm suggesting that the problem is that we have corporations that are apparently 'US' corporations that make money from the process and have a perverse incentive to push it, as it creates increased activity from certain users. It's this 'sharing' economy in propaganda that groups during the election took advantage of, and once set up it's almost free and self-expanding.

I agree: Israel, China, SA, Europe, and other groups and nations have a lot more impact here. My anger is not towards them for what they are doing here in this country. My anger is directed towards the regulatory and corporate structures in the United States that make propagandizing the populace possible in the first place, while also being legal and producing profit.

Re: An Anti-Facebook Manifesto, by an Early Facebook Investor

#103

Post by r00fus »

cheeseomlit wrote: post #83
r00fus wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except it's not just the left, and there are open indictments against many of the President's team.

All of which are for process crimes committed after the investigation started, or for completely unrelated white collar crimes from years ago

So-called "process crimes" that cover up real crimes are still crimes. Or do you think Capone's tax evasion rap wasn't just the tip of the iceberg?

Re: An Anti-Facebook Manifesto, by an Early Facebook Investor

#104

Post by stevenicr »

cirgue wrote: post #19
androidgirl wrote: post #10

I understand this is a manifesto, but really the dialogue around Facebook and social media has truly become unhinged. Facebook is just a symptom, it seems What is there to be _done_? Pandora's box is open, so to speak. If Facebook disappeared overnight, are we really going to assume the problems they're in are going to go away? Everyone is potentially connected to everyone, everywhere, on the entire planet. There has…

> Furthermore, outside of media companies and the HN bubble, people _do not care_. Your average person doesn't care about decentralization, preventing social media addiction, gamification, or polarization of online communities. My parents, who are deeply not the HN crowd, are starting to care, and this is not my doing. They didn't two years ago, but they're starting to have the same sense of something being wrong tha…

I too have struggled to get people to care. Partially because the public has such little insight into how these things can used to manipulate and shred privacy.

I posted a few of my recently successful talking points to get people's attention on these issues here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19010553

and am always looking to hear from others how they explain important issues they actually understand and listen to.

for example, some older people don't care if fbk steal the photos from their phone (they don't have many, and none that are 'naughty') - however when bringing up that these apps can steal the pics from their daughter's phones without explicit knowledge, and send them to how many non-perv people to manually inspect? And forward them to how many agencies etc.. they start to have ears perk up.

also the psych tricks to random hit notifications and such - these things show a company that is trying to game and use the users, not a company that is just trying to make it easy to send holiday pics to the family.

Re: An Anti-Facebook Manifesto, by an Early Facebook Investor

#105

Post by jerf »

jkingsbery wrote: post #76
jerf wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"What is there to be done ?" A $0.01 tax per ad impression. Such a thing would not destroy the advertising industry, but it would do wonders for making it much less worthwhile to deploy massive surveillance technology to make .03 cents more per user per day, and leave only very high-value advertising behind. It would probably anti-decimate it or more, though (leave only 10% behind instead of destroying 10%). $0.10 pe…

According to https://blog.adstage.io/google-display-ads-cpm-cpc-ctr-bench... , advertisers spend around $2.80 for a thousand impressions in display advertising. You're proposing a tax that is 3.5 times as much as the thing itself costs. That would have pretty steep ramifications on the industry. Also, when one thinks about high-value advertising, it doesn't always correlate with high-value to society, but rather thin…

"You're proposing a tax that is 3.5 times as much as the thing itself costs."

Yes. Yes I am. I did say it would probably cut 90% of the industry.

"That of course would incentivize advertisers to make sure their ad spends are effective which would in turn create more incentive for more ad tracking."

They may sit there and wish for more tracking, sure. They're pretty addicted to that as the only model in the world for making money.

But if you may something much more expensive, and therefore much less profitable, you are saying that you'll get even more of it. That's not how raising prices works.

They're not tracking every last cough we make because they have to to make any money. They track everything because it enables them to make .03% more off of us, and that .03% is profitable. (Number made up, but the evidence strongly suggests we're long past the point of diminishing returns on more tracking, yet they do it anyhow.) Take away the profitability, and they'll stop doing it.

They'll have to. Most of them will be bankrupt and won't be tracking anybody anymore.

Besides, exactly what "more" tracking are we concerned they're going to deploy in a world where they have 90% less money and probably even less profit? They already read all our email, track everywhere we go, track everything we see on the internet, listen to a good chunk of what we say, and use our social connections in every conceivable way to monetize us. What's left?

Re: An Anti-Facebook Manifesto, by an Early Facebook Investor

#106

Post by jerf »

pul wrote: post #54
jerf wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"What is there to be done ?" A $0.01 tax per ad impression. Such a thing would not destroy the advertising industry, but it would do wonders for making it much less worthwhile to deploy massive surveillance technology to make .03 cents more per user per day, and leave only very high-value advertising behind. It would probably anti-decimate it or more, though (leave only 10% behind instead of destroying 10%). $0.10 pe…

I fail to see how this would reduce the incentive to collect data. If anything, wouldn't it require _more_ information on users to figure out whether or not showing an ad would be worthwhile?

See cousin reply. It's not about what they want to do, it's about what they can afford to do profitably. They'll want to do it even more so, but they won't be able to do so.

Re: An Anti-Facebook Manifesto, by an Early Facebook Investor

#107

Post by forgottenpass »

InternetUser wrote: post #27
androidgirl wrote: post #10

I understand this is a manifesto, but really the dialogue around Facebook and social media has truly become unhinged. Facebook is just a symptom, it seems What is there to be _done_? Pandora's box is open, so to speak. If Facebook disappeared overnight, are we really going to assume the problems they're in are going to go away? Everyone is potentially connected to everyone, everywhere, on the entire planet. There has…

The minds that were behind LiveJournal, Friendster, and MySpace, to name just 3 other social platforms that had monthly active usership in the millions, were not as disgustingly criminal and unethical in nature as the mind of Zuckerberg, so, to answer your question, another online social platform could be more civil and nicer, and not as aggressive (with auto-playing, auto-looped videos, for one thing), and manipulat…

>Fortnite isn't a game, it's a place - As social media becomes ever more toxic, Fortnite has become the new social network and a place to hang out where you go to talk to friends

Who are the boomers writing this shit that don't know groups of friends socialize online without social networks? Both before and during the era of social networks? Games as the rallying point isn't novel. Has this guy never heard of ventrilo, mumble, discord?

The worst part is, people who never used the internet to talk to people before the iphone will believe this dreck.

Re: An Anti-Facebook Manifesto, by an Early Facebook Investor

#108

Post by forgottenpass »

zozbot123 wrote: post #5
x3tm wrote: post #2

What I struggle to understand is how could esteemed AI researchers like LeCun and many others work for such a company to give it even more powers and edge? How can they justify this as scientists? The huge influx of money into research (here AI, but could be anything in the future) combined with the disfunctions of academia is very troubling.

What's the alternative? Google? Baidu?

Are you suggesting that there is no application for AI outside global surveillance platforms?

Re: An Anti-Facebook Manifesto, by an Early Facebook Investor

#109

Post by mycorrhizal »

stevenicr wrote: post #99
mycorrhizal wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely don't contest the amount of tracking these companies do. I wouldn't even be surprised if it goes beyond what I can even imagine. But when it comes to control can we at least attempt to quantify it or at least make it a bit more exact. For example I'm positive these companies have influence over what brand of headphones I buy next, but I'm even more positive, at least on a personal level, that these compa…

Any idea how many people are using fbook that do not have the same level of education that you have? and how much time is spent on the fbk by this group of people? How many people are using the fbk that do not have the same familiarity with tech and apps? Same eye sight, finger dexterity? Did you miss the recent stories about the thousands of people bilked out of thousands of dollars via sneaky game app purchases? Ce…

I appreciate the response, but I definitely did not mean to imply that I don't care about other people's problems, but was simply questioning and hoping to get a more exact and maybe quantitative picture of the control these companies have. Perhaps I made a mistake in thinking too much about my own (important) personal decisions and the information and processes I use to make them.

With respect to the sneaky game purchases are you referring to the stories of facebook letting children make purchases and not reimbursing the parents? Because the ability to control children is much different than the ability to control adults.

The wedding ring for cash is definitely creepy and I can see how that would add additional distress to your friend. But I guess my point is: how much did that ad contribute to your friend deciding to get a divorce? Had she not see that ad and probably other similar ads would she have not gotten a divorce? I think at least attempting to quantify these questions is important when trying to understand the level of control of these companies. We have to go beyond "This company showed a creepy ad(s)" to "This company showed a creepy ad(s) and this is the extent it influenced my final decision."

Re: An Anti-Facebook Manifesto, by an Early Facebook Investor

#110

Post by x3tm »

modzu wrote: post #3
x3tm wrote: post #2

What I struggle to understand is how could esteemed AI researchers like LeCun and many others work for such a company to give it even more powers and edge? How can they justify this as scientists? The huge influx of money into research (here AI, but could be anything in the future) combined with the disfunctions of academia is very troubling.

im not justifying it, but its easier to do research at a place like FB than in a university these days

Well this is true only if your research is well aligned with fb's interests. Not the case in universitiew where academic freedom, albeit not perfect, still exists to a large extent.
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