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FB to curb internal debate over sensitive issues amid employee discord

wsj.com

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Re: FB to curb internal debate over sensitive issues amid employee discord

#111

Post by Talanes »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #91
fgrtr3terwy wrote: post #85

Facebook wants their employees to stop talking about politics, even though Facebook by its nature takes stances on deeply political topics. How exactly do you avoid political discussion when you're asking what constitutes hate speech, whether a US president should be allowed to violate Facebook's content guidelines, or to what extent governments can spread misinformation in other countries? If you work at Facebook, y…

"Curb" here doesn't seem to mean "ban". What Facebook wants is for employees to avoid the totalizing view of politics you're describing, where political discussion needs to occur in all places at all times and declaring a "no politics zone" constitutes taking a side.

They can be a "no politics zone" when they agree to "no politics money."

Re: FB to curb internal debate over sensitive issues amid employee discord

#112

Post by alwayseasy »

xamuel wrote: post #93
fgrtr3terwy wrote: post #85

Facebook wants their employees to stop talking about politics, even though Facebook by its nature takes stances on deeply political topics. How exactly do you avoid political discussion when you're asking what constitutes hate speech, whether a US president should be allowed to violate Facebook's content guidelines, or to what extent governments can spread misinformation in other countries? If you work at Facebook, y…

>Facebook by its nature takes stances on deeply political topics. Why is that "by its nature"? I don't think that's "by its nature" at all. Phone companies and ISPs facilitate communication between people, but that doesn't necessitate they take political stances on what communication to allow. Why should Facebook? If certain language should be restricted, then laws should be written restricting said language and Face…

They do take a stance on what can be amplified through ads or not. Hence its political nature.

Re: FB to curb internal debate over sensitive issues amid employee discord

#113

Post by claudeganon »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #73
jgacook wrote: post #32

Generally I try and shy away from being too alarmist, but I am so disillusioned with the kind of tech worker HN's userbase seems to represent. I think it's a feckless attitude to think that working in one of the best-paid, global, most influential professions in the world right now means that your only obligation is to clock in on time, code whatever you're told to code, take no ownership of the effect your work may…

I think it's reasonable for someone working on, say, scaling the photo storage service to say that their work is apolitical and these debates aren't relevant to them. The performance characteristics of Facebook photos aren't going to incite a genocide or contribute to the global rise of authoritarianism.

I don’t want to go all Godwin’s law, but the “I was just scaling capacity for processing census punch cards” argument doesn’t pan out very well, historically.

Re: FB to curb internal debate over sensitive issues amid employee discord

#114

Post by chance_state »

jsabo wrote: post #72
patorjk wrote: post #5

At 3 paragraphs (131 words), that was a really short article. However, I agree with the subheading: "Mark Zuckerberg says employees shouldn’t have to confront social issues in their day-to-day work unless they want to" That sounds good to me. I've never had to talk about these kind of things at work. Are there work places where this is unavoidable?

That depends on if your existence is political I suppose. Ask some of your LGBT colleagues, especially trans colleagues, if they feel like can just leave politics at the door.

If your very existence is so wrapped up in political and gender/sexuality issues that you can't stand not talking about them at work, maybe you're not emotionally prepared to join the workforce.

Re: FB to curb internal debate over sensitive issues amid employee discord

#115

Post by cltby »

fgrtr3terwy wrote: post #85

Facebook wants their employees to stop talking about politics, even though Facebook by its nature takes stances on deeply political topics. How exactly do you avoid political discussion when you're asking what constitutes hate speech, whether a US president should be allowed to violate Facebook's content guidelines, or to what extent governments can spread misinformation in other countries? If you work at Facebook, y…

> How exactly do you avoid political discussion when you're asking what constitutes hate speech, whether a US president should be allowed to violate Facebook's content guidelines, or to what extent governments can spread misinformation in other countries?

These issues are not part of your job description. You were hired to write Javascript, not to set corporate strategy. Sit in your seat, content yourself with the $500K/yr you're being paid by your betters, and refrain from sharing with everyone else your facile moralism.

Re: FB to curb internal debate over sensitive issues amid employee discord

#116

Post by hartator »

Talanes wrote: post #110
xamuel wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Facebook by its nature takes stances on deeply political topics. Why is that "by its nature"? I don't think that's "by its nature" at all. Phone companies and ISPs facilitate communication between people, but that doesn't necessitate they take political stances on what communication to allow. Why should Facebook? If certain language should be restricted, then laws should be written restricting said language and Face…

I cannot say something into one end of the telephone, and depending on the content of my message, not have it delivered on the other end. That's the difference.

Some govs cut off your phone if you say certain keywords.

Re: FB to curb internal debate over sensitive issues amid employee discord

#117

Post by munificent »

nindalf wrote: post #75
dntrkv wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious how you think it's possible for FB to prevent the spread of disinformation? Everyone likes to pretend like Facebook has the ability to just stop disinformation, when in reality, even defining "disinformation" is basically impossible. Sure, you can bring up examples of blatant lies, but most of the effective disinformation is a lot more subtle and depends on what side of the issues you are on.

I have seen this question asked many times on such threads but have never seen a workable solution. Usually the response is something like "I'd shut the whole website down" or "I'd employ millions of moderators" or "I'd allow people to only post once a month" or "I would remove sharing links, only baby pictures allowed". Nothing practical. If you respond to any of these with examples of positive speech that would be…

What is "impractical" about "shut the whole website down"?

When it was discovered that tetraethyl lead was widespread in the environment and caused neurological damage, it was banned. Yes, that materially harmed several chemical companies whose livelihood was based on producing tetraethyl lead.

So what?

If your business model harms people, I don't care if stopping harming people eliminates your business. People matter. Businesses do not.

Are we supposed to just go, "Yeah, we know Facebook is harmful to millions, but won't someone think of the poor shareholders?" Then shrug and accept it?

Re: FB to curb internal debate over sensitive issues amid employee discord

#118

Post by hartator »

fgrtr3terwy wrote: post #85

Facebook wants their employees to stop talking about politics, even though Facebook by its nature takes stances on deeply political topics. How exactly do you avoid political discussion when you're asking what constitutes hate speech, whether a US president should be allowed to violate Facebook's content guidelines, or to what extent governments can spread misinformation in other countries? If you work at Facebook, y…

> Facebook by its nature takes stances on deeply political topics

I use Facebook to say in touch with old friends. If they want to share last Tucker's video, not sure why FB should block them if I don't block them.

Re: FB to curb internal debate over sensitive issues amid employee discord

#119

Post by thrwn_frthr_awy »

dntrkv wrote: post #105
thrwn_frthr_awy wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook's algorithms exploit the brain's attractiveness to decisiveness. They've know this and have chosen not to take action, except for small amounts so Mark can tell congress they are improving things. Source https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-knows-it-encourages-di... So besides straight up changing the algorithms to promote non-decisive content, these are a couple things I think could help: - Limit the sprea…

Facebook doesn't profit from divisiveness, they profit from engagement. The fact that divisive posts encourage more engagement tells me more about people in general, rather than Facebook's business model. > Limit the spread of information in general in favor of content created by the people you follow I don't think that's what people want from their social networks nowadays. FB, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, et…

> I don't think that's what people want from their social networks nowadays. FB, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, etc all do not work this way anymore.

They don't work this way because it makes shareholder's the most money, not because it is the best experience for the user.

> Advertising plays a very small part in this. Most of what you would call "disinformation" is spread through reposts, which are not affected by advertising.

A completely false ad about a candidate of a different political party is much less likely to be called out or reported because it is only shown to a highly targeted group of people. This lack of accountability creates disinformation. These ads could not be ran as a billboard advertisement or in a non-personalized ad space.

All of the counter arguments always come down to this: Facebook would make less money. And, yes, of course that is going to be the case because if any of these changes would make them more money they would have implemented them themselves. It requires a public corporation to accept that they are making the world a worse place, and to choose to make less money to stop doing that.

Re: FB to curb internal debate over sensitive issues amid employee discord

#120

Post by Talanes »

Kattywumpus wrote: post #88
satya71 wrote: post #8

How about bringing the same rules to the wider FB? I just want to look at baby pictures and connect with friends. I don't want to be part of a machinery that spreads misinformation and conspiracy theories.

> I don't want to be part of a machinery that spreads misinformation and conspiracy theories. You're swearing off the internet entirely?

Internet? I can get all of that from the dude sitting in a wheelchair outside my coffee shop. (Pre-Covid, at least. Hope he's doing okay.)
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