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A whistleblower says Facebook ignored global political manipulation

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Re: A whistleblower says Facebook ignored global political manipulation

#131

Post by robert_foss »

LatteLazy wrote: post #130

I get frustrated over these pairs. What are Facebook supposed to do? They could spend billions moderating every comment and like, but they'd piss off every politicians world wide and the users would all cry censorship (and that's if they get it perfectly correct). They could pick a side, but the same would apply with slightly fewer pissed off people. They could do nothing and save billions and piss off less people. A…

If spending billions is what is required to make their product not harm others, then that's what they should do.

If that means the business doesn't break even, maybe there should be no Facebook.

Re: A whistleblower says Facebook ignored global political manipulation

#132

Post by indigochill »

bostik wrote: post #125
catsarebetter wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do think that's a poor way to handle the situation. Playing Devil's Advocate here, but is there a better way for that organization, in their fragile political position and immense power in the world, to handle situations like that? The sheer amount of bandwidth to moderate and manage every piece of data responsibly is so vast, there has to be a way of ranking content and trends and to allocate resources to them. It…

Simple: devote more resources. People, money, teams, management support . Even if the rational reason for being slapdash is lack of resources and lack of focus, that means the company is not investing enough on addressing the underlying problems. Things happen, and sometimes you need to jump to put out a fire - but if putting out fires is a routine mode of work, it's a symptom of a much wider problem. I am under no i…

Suppose you have enough resources to try to do it "right". How do you moderate in a way that's globally fair? There is disinformation (which should be moderated), but there are also legitimate disagreements (which should not). Even facts themselves are often open to interpretation, and people don't argue in objective terms.

The degree of nuance leads me to believe it's just impossible to do at commercial/global scale (though I would agree it could be done better than it currently is).

Re: A whistleblower says Facebook ignored global political manipulation

#133

Post by the_snooze »

LatteLazy wrote: post #130

I get frustrated over these pairs. What are Facebook supposed to do? They could spend billions moderating every comment and like, but they'd piss off every politicians world wide and the users would all cry censorship (and that's if they get it perfectly correct). They could pick a side, but the same would apply with slightly fewer pissed off people. They could do nothing and save billions and piss off less people. A…

You're right, moderation at Facebook's scale isn't feasible. It's the scale itself that's the problem. They've focused so much on "making the world more open and connected " that they never stopped to think how that could be weaponized.

Re: A whistleblower says Facebook ignored global political manipulation

#134

Post by rapnie »

meowface wrote: post #63
throwaway13337 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This needs to be more understood by the population. Our world-destroying-AI paperclip maximizer is here. It's called a "news feed". The thing that gets the most clicks is outrage, as the AI has discovered. We're setting people against each-other in a more and more efficient fashion. The result has been clear since the Arab Spring. Good things don't come from helping people hate each-other in the most efficient way po…

We are, but the blame has to be shared, too. In many cases the algorithm is being reinforced by your and everyone's actions. It may not even necessarily be specifically trying to prioritize polarizing content: that just might be the content you engage with the most, and the algorithm blindly follows your whims and preference. I've used YouTube for many hours per day for several years. I've almost never seen a single…

Joe Edelman wrote a nice article about algorithms that are driven by metrics:

"This talk is about metrics and measurement: about how metrics affect the structure of organizations and societies, how they change the economy, how we’re doing them wrong, and how we could do them right."

https://medium.com/what-to-build/is-anything-worth-maximizin...

Re: A whistleblower says Facebook ignored global political manipulation

#135

Post by rapnie »

sriku wrote: post #93
cabaalis wrote: post #37

None of this would be important if social media gave us what they originally sold us: See updates from your friends, family, and people you want to see updates from, in chronological order, rather than based upon weird engagement algorithms and privacy-destroying ad networks.

On a slight tangent ... the one thing about HN that lets me breathe is that the links that turn up are the same for everyone on the planet and is not "personalized". If it were, I'd be gone in a jiffy. Maybe we should rename "personalization" to something with a -ve connotation - perhaps "bubblification"? "narcissization"? "comfortzoned"?

"Sheepified"

Re: A whistleblower says Facebook ignored global political manipulation

#136

Post by LatteLazy »

robert_foss wrote: post #131
LatteLazy wrote: post #130

I get frustrated over these pairs. What are Facebook supposed to do? They could spend billions moderating every comment and like, but they'd piss off every politicians world wide and the users would all cry censorship (and that's if they get it perfectly correct). They could pick a side, but the same would apply with slightly fewer pissed off people. They could do nothing and save billions and piss off less people. A…

If spending billions is what is required to make their product not harm others, then that's what they should do. If that means the business doesn't break even, maybe there should be no Facebook.

That's fine. But if that's the criteria we use you have to shut down every newspaper, radio and TV station until they're harmless too. And that's just the start, wait until you hear what big oil and big tobacco and the defense industry have been up to.

Is that really what you're asking for here?

Re: A whistleblower says Facebook ignored global political manipulation

#137

Post by MaxBarraclough »

bostik wrote: post #118

I am surprised this segment (admittedly picked from Ars's secondary writeup) hasn't made a splash: "It's why I've seen priorities of escalations shoot up when others start threatening to go to the press, and why I was informed by a leader in my organization that my civic work was not impactful under the rationale that if the problems were meaningful they would have attracted attention, became a press fire, and convin…

Here's a link to the Ars article: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/09/sweeping-interna...

Re: A whistleblower says Facebook ignored global political manipulation

#138

Post by luckylion »

“One of the big tools of authoritarian regimes is to humiliate the opposition in the mind of the public so that they're not viewed as a credible or legitimate alternative,” she told BuzzFeed News. “There's a chilling effect. Why would I post something if I know that I'm going to deal with thousands or hundreds of these comments, that I'm going to be targeted?”

That's not just a tool for authoritarian regimes, that's pretty much the most used tool in any form of political conflict, in any country.

Re: A whistleblower says Facebook ignored global political manipulation

#139

Post by sriku »

dwaltrip wrote: post #95
sriku wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a slight tangent ... the one thing about HN that lets me breathe is that the links that turn up are the same for everyone on the planet and is not "personalized". If it were, I'd be gone in a jiffy. Maybe we should rename "personalization" to something with a -ve connotation - perhaps "bubblification"? "narcissization"? "comfortzoned"?

Spoonification

Ah yes! Let's just call it the "spoon feed".

Re: A whistleblower says Facebook ignored global political manipulation

#140

Post by Kbelicius »

LatteLazy wrote: post #136
robert_foss wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If spending billions is what is required to make their product not harm others, then that's what they should do. If that means the business doesn't break even, maybe there should be no Facebook.

That's fine. But if that's the criteria we use you have to shut down every newspaper, radio and TV station until they're harmless too. And that's just the start, wait until you hear what big oil and big tobacco and the defense industry have been up to. Is that really what you're asking for here?

How in the hell could you think that scale of moderation needed for facebook is the same as newspapers, radio and TV stations?
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