Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A whistleblower says Facebook ignored global political manipulation

buzzfeednews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 211 posts

Re: A whistleblower says Facebook ignored global political manipulation

#141

Post by LatteLazy »

Kbelicius wrote: post #140
LatteLazy wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I didn't say it was. I said they need to be made "harmless", that's the standard the comment I replied to says we require.

Re: A whistleblower says Facebook ignored global political manipulation

#142

Post by Kbelicius »

LatteLazy wrote: post #141
Kbelicius wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I didn't say it was. I said they need to be made "harmless", that's the standard the comment I replied to says we require.

Apologies, seems I had a brain fart.

Re: A whistleblower says Facebook ignored global political manipulation

#143

Post by nullc »

catsarebetter wrote: post #120
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…

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…

Facebook trying to "optimize" the world for "social good" is probably one of the most frightening ideas I've seen mentioned this week.

If they are managing to do so much harm through indifference and greed just imagine what they could do if they were explicitly trying to manipulate the world for "good"?

Powerful groups who try to optimize the world have a pretty poor track record compared to those who just try to do their own stuff right and let the world sort itself out.

Re: A whistleblower says Facebook ignored global political manipulation

#144

Post by fareesh »

Cognizant employees (contracted Facebook Moderators) are on camera admitting that they censor specific people based on their political leanings.

Facebook sent them specific memos about which violent images towards which politicians were not to be removed.

That particular set of facts escapes most coverage of this topic for obvious reasons.

These conversations about this topic will never be seen as sincere since they themselves are biased.

Re: A whistleblower says Facebook ignored global political manipulation

#145

Post by r_c_a_d »

nikitaga wrote: post #121
meowface wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> just might be the content you engage with the most, and the algorithm blindly follows your whims and preference No, it's the content that other people engage with. Disregarding the whole "engagement is a good metric of how much you want to see something" bullshit, if you served me food based on what other people like to eat, it would be a weird mix of gluten free vegan stuff, and also coke, pizza and doritos. I don…

Nobody likes to eat gluten-free stuff; unfortunately, some people like me have to eat it.

Re: A whistleblower says Facebook ignored global political manipulation

#146

Post by sn41 »

082349872349872 wrote: post #114
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…

Yugoslavia was well before the Arab Spring. Of course, that was broadcast, not clicks, but outrage was stoked. (In Lonnie Athens' theory of violentisation, there's a step where the to-become-radically-violent says to themselves, "I'll become the biggest badass and this will never happen to me again." Milošević has a famous TV speech where, after a spot of "spontaneous violence", he tells ethnic serbs he isn't going t…

Yes, this is something that I have realised of late. Very few people except maybe the most psychopathic, start by believing that they are evil. Most of us believe that we are being victimised. Maybe I am an unemployed youth, outraged at the fact that some minority got a job while I am unemployed. I completely ignore the fact that I am not as qualified as the other person and comfort myself with some victimhood myth.

These minor grievances are later amplified by demagogues. The reaction to this perceived victimisation is so out of proportion that the initial grievance looks minuscule in retrospect.

The main difference these days is that we don't need a visible demagogue. The various "engagement algorithms" play the role of an echo chamber which sends opinions into a positive feedback loop until it enters the regime of social collapse.

Re: A whistleblower says Facebook ignored global political manipulation

#147

Post by pjc50 »

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…

Pretty much every organisation behaves like that for things that don't threaten the organisation itself. After all, if someone gets killed by a Facebook mob, all that happens to Facebook is the user engagement numbers go down by one.

Re: A whistleblower says Facebook ignored global political manipulation

#148

Post by aahortwwy »

an_opabinia wrote: post #115
aahortwwy wrote: post #49

The pattern of hiring young, passionate, ambitious workers, then telling them their job is of critical importance to the company (and, in this case, society at large) while simultaneously underfunding their team and providing them with completely inadequate leadership is REALLY common in Silicon Valley companies. These same companies will actively stigmatize saying "it's not my job," and so you have very green employ…

Once someone has been anointed a "whistleblower," it is a bad look for you to try to play devil's advocate to whatever she's saying. Stepping back, without a media circus, how really do you expect to change anything at organizations this large and powerful? Facebook transcends governments dude, Mark Zuckerberg has an unfathomable amount of money and power. At least give her some credit for putting out a non-conformis…

I'm not trying to play devil's advocate, I think you misinterpreted my post.

> Also, with regards to your specific points, everyone is qualified to determine political bots are bad. I can't believe you're going with the, "Well she is missing the nuance oh and she gets paid a lot of money so there!" take here.

The point I was making in that second paragraph is:

- Company A is wildly profitable.

- Company A says publicly and internally that solving Problem Z is very important to them.

- The team tasked with solving Problem Z at Company A is understaffed, underfunded, and lacks support from leadership.

The "forest" being missed by the people working on Problem Z is the unfortunate reality that Company A does not actually care whether Problem Z is solved or not. In fact, to the extent that solving Problem Z might hurt the bottom line they probably prefer that it remain unsolved.

I use placeholder terms because while this particular story is about Facebook, this same thing plays out all the time at darling companies in Silicon Valley (and presumably outside, but I've less experience there).

I respect the memo author immensely. In similar situations I've just left quietly. The author probably should've done just that, now their name is directly linked to this story.

Re: A whistleblower says Facebook ignored global political manipulation

#149

Post by evolve2k »

evolve2k wrote: post #11

I can see it in my least tech savvy, least educated friends. As Facebook users they seem to be radicalising the longer I leave them to the devices. But what’s the alternative? If people want family & friends social media, where to go? Aren’t the open/alternative platforms just as open to abusive, if not more so, as no-one like the whistleblower is even hired when it comes to open platforms?

Bunch of votes few insights; I’ve posted this as a Ask HN https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=24479271

Re: A whistleblower says Facebook ignored global political manipulation

#150

Post by pjc50 »

082349872349872 wrote: post #114
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…

Yugoslavia was well before the Arab Spring. Of course, that was broadcast, not clicks, but outrage was stoked. (In Lonnie Athens' theory of violentisation, there's a step where the to-become-radically-violent says to themselves, "I'll become the biggest badass and this will never happen to me again." Milošević has a famous TV speech where, after a spot of "spontaneous violence", he tells ethnic serbs he isn't going t…

Yup. The Rwanda genocide was incited by radio.

You could also argue that the original rise of Fascism was enabled by mass propaganda becoming possible where it wasn't really previously, but that's so overdetermined it's hard to attribute to particular causes.

Then there's the original SARS of bad memetic propaganda, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Piece of leafleting from the early 1900s that's contributed to the deaths of millions.

Post reply on HN