Facebook's employees reckon with the social network they've built • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook's employees reckon with the social network they've built

#141

Post by tropdrop » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 7:03 PM UTC

davidw wrote: post #105

jerf wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"BBSes and forums" Observe flamewars on BBSs and forums tended to drive people away, thus tending to confine them through natural mechanisms. Our current systems encourage and fan them, and by profiting from them, create a system that sustains them indefinitely instead of naturally isolating them to just the people who actively want to participate. As someone who has a low-grade hobby of kind of keeping track of this…

I'm always reminded of this quote from Larry Wall, the creator of Perl: "The social dynamics of the net are a direct consequence of the fact that nobody has yet developed a Remote Strangulation Protocol." It's tough to get all this right. Humans are ok at dealing with one another in person most of the time, but being behind a screen really doesn't happen in many cases. I have no idea what the solution is... it's a pe…

> it's a people problem

I dislike this trend (especially in Silicon Valley) to blame problems on the users - e.g. creating a startup, and becoming frustrated with users when people use it "incorrectly." Technology is supposed to be used by people, not the other way around. When technology is using people for its own interest (in this case, ad revenue), then we have a real problem with the technology, and it is absolutely not a people problem.

Only 80 years ago, plain images on posters could be used to motivate people to die for their country in World War II. 400 years ago, images were so rare that it was enough to paint church walls with them to fill people with belief in God and afterlife. And as of the last ten years, we're suddenly expecting people to drop their belief in images and use their "rational" logic to see through fallacies, saying it's a "people problem" when they can't? It's just too fast for evolution, and the onus is on the ones who create the technology that disseminates images to be careful, lest they create the perfect conditions for a society to fall apart because they were too busy looking out for their bottom line.

Re: Facebook's employees reckon with the social network they've built

#142

Post by gonehome » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 7:03 PM UTC

davidw wrote: post #105

jerf wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"BBSes and forums" Observe flamewars on BBSs and forums tended to drive people away, thus tending to confine them through natural mechanisms. Our current systems encourage and fan them, and by profiting from them, create a system that sustains them indefinitely instead of naturally isolating them to just the people who actively want to participate. As someone who has a low-grade hobby of kind of keeping track of this…

I'm always reminded of this quote from Larry Wall, the creator of Perl: "The social dynamics of the net are a direct consequence of the fact that nobody has yet developed a Remote Strangulation Protocol." It's tough to get all this right. Humans are ok at dealing with one another in person most of the time, but being behind a screen really doesn't happen in many cases. I have no idea what the solution is... it's a pe…

If I was king of Facebook (or a social media company that had its network) and I could change things for users without worrying about the company's revenue I'd do two things.

1. No links to outside content.

2. Mandatory deletion of all historical data with a max retention option no longer than 1 year with a default of 30 days. (Let users pick the 'fuse' length within this time frame).

I think that would double down on the things I like about it (keeping tracking of acquaintances like you mentioned, handling events, etc.) - while also removing a lot of the things I don't (arguing about news, targeted ads based on historical data).

That said I'd just like to make it easier for people to control their own nodes (https://zalberico.com/essay/2020/07/14/the-serfs-of-facebook...), but I also recognize that getting the social element to work in a federated way is not easy. Maybe Urbit will pull it off eventually.

Re: Facebook's employees reckon with the social network they've built

#143

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 7:05 PM UTC

lr wrote: post #79

Social media, and all of the "talking heads" on network news and talk radio, are basically in an arms race, just like advertisers have been for years. For instance, Coke can't stop advertising because then Pepsi or another brand will take over, i.e., they have to keep it up. We are now at that same point with politics: everyone has to keep it up, and even more so; constantly upping the ante. Facebook is the dominant…

[deleted]

Re: Facebook's employees reckon with the social network they've built

#144

Post by throwawaysea » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 7:06 PM UTC

mherdeg wrote: post #51

Facebook's famously tight-knit and tight-lipped engineering organization has become increasingly leaky in the past couple of years, as posts and data make it to the press with surprising regularity. What changed? Is it morale? Or something that happens at scale? Does the rate of leaks say anything about the health of the company?

The same thing that happened at the other tech companies. A newer, younger generation of employees joined. The Gen Z cohort seems to be much more ready to bring politics and ideological wars into the workplace, and really view any institution they're a part of as an opportunity to weaponize that institution. This culture had already taken root on college campuses, and my belief is that they view that as the 'normal' way of operating, including making purposeful leaks. I know this is anecdotal and speculative but I am offering it up as an explanation nevertheless, and would love to hear other theories on what changed.

I do not believe that the change is simply due to the companies growing bigger. They already were big in prior years and had gone through phases of fast growth in employee count previously. Something is different this time, which is why I am pointing to a generational change.

Re: Facebook's employees reckon with the social network they've built

#145

Post by vannevar » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 7:07 PM UTC

notacoward wrote: post #124

vannevar wrote: post #67

Facebook is not a "social network" in any meaningful sense of that word. It's a largely unmoderated narrowcast platform accessible to anyone willing to put down the money to use it, regardless of motivation, as long as it isn't obviously pornographic.

Why can't it be both? I see people using it both ways, every day.

You see people trying to use it that way, while wading through a morass of paid advertising and promoted memes. I can use a brick as a hammer, too, but that doesn't make the brick a hammer.

Re: Facebook's employees reckon with the social network they've built

#146

Post by snthd » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 7:09 PM UTC

Miner49er wrote: post #131

One thing that's interesting is that Facebook has also come under fire for banning/censoring anti-racists and black people for talking about racism: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2019/04/24/facebook-whil... It would be one thing if they didn't censor anything, but censoring anti-racism but not racism seems to show that FB is taking a pro-racism stance.

Off Topic: The URL clearly suggests your link was posted last year (and I'm sure I've read it before), but the inline article "date" is Jul 9th 2020.

Re: Facebook's employees reckon with the social network they've built

#147

Post by notacoward » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 7:12 PM UTC

vannevar wrote: post #145

notacoward wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't it be both? I see people using it both ways, every day.

You see people trying to use it that way, while wading through a morass of paid advertising and promoted memes. I can use a brick as a hammer, too, but that doesn't make the brick a hammer.

Why do so many people forget that they control their feed? Maybe less than some of us would like, but I carefully curate my feed and use mute and so on and my feed has very little junk in it. Mostly family stuff and jokes/memes, with some ads for stuff that actually does interest me. It's not hard. Most of us here solve harder problems every day.

Re: Facebook's employees reckon with the social network they've built

#148

Post by Miner49er » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 7:15 PM UTC

snthd wrote: post #146

Miner49er wrote: post #131

One thing that's interesting is that Facebook has also come under fire for banning/censoring anti-racists and black people for talking about racism: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2019/04/24/facebook-whil... It would be one thing if they didn't censor anything, but censoring anti-racism but not racism seems to show that FB is taking a pro-racism stance.

Off Topic: The URL clearly suggests your link was posted last year (and I'm sure I've read it before), but the inline article "date" is Jul 9th 2020.

It was published last year, the updated date was July 9th, 2020.

Re: Facebook's employees reckon with the social network they've built

#149

Post by bhntr3 » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 7:15 PM UTC

creato wrote: post #7

I feel like all of this debate is painfully missing the point. The problem is not some content moderation policy, the problem is that social media has changed social conversations from small local interactions into monstrous virtual fight clubs between millions of people simultaneously, and where the most extreme opinions are rewarded with the most attention. Boring level headed opinions used to at least have a chanc…

Yes, I think some people are becoming uncomfortable with unfettered free speech because the distribution model has changed in ways that are difficult to control and which are elevating what some people view as the "wrong" messages.

Prior to this era in which we're constantly online and connected, for a message to be heard it usually had to go through a professional editor at a newspaper, radio station, publishing company, or TV station. If you had an opinion you wanted to share, you had free speech but you probably didn't have a platform. Now messages are global, immediate, viral, and permanent.

Max Wang's video makes a strong case that Facebook's content policy and Zuckerberg's concern with adherence to it is a stringent ideology which lacks the flexibility to address clear cases that it should cover but doesn't. In other words it lacks good judgement.

I think it's going to be a long time before an automated system can exercise good judgement. Obviously having a professional editor review every tweet is impossible. So in the meantime, I think we will see a continual elevation of tension between people who value free speech at any cost and people who think that certain messages shouldn't be given a platform.

Re: Facebook's employees reckon with the social network they've built

#150

Post by mandevil » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 7:16 PM UTC

mherdeg wrote: post #51

Facebook's famously tight-knit and tight-lipped engineering organization has become increasingly leaky in the past couple of years, as posts and data make it to the press with surprising regularity. What changed? Is it morale? Or something that happens at scale? Does the rate of leaks say anything about the health of the company?

Talk to a reporter about why people leak. The reason people leak is when they feel that the organization doesn't listen to them and they can't steer the organization any other way. If your employees feel respected and listened to- and that their internal warnings are being heeded- they won't leak to an outsider. If they feel that they are a Cassandra, doomed to be correct but ignored, they will leak.

Now sometimes workers are wrong- the problem they were obsessed with wasn't actually that serious, their boss did take their advice into account and decided to resolve it a different way, etc., but in general, lack of respect is why people leak.

The implications for Facebook are obvious.