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

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

#161

Post by tehjoker »

Izkata wrote: post #102
tehjoker wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just saying, only ~1/3 of the population votes. These elections are already illegitimate if you believe that they're supposed to express some kind of will of the majority. Additionally, the only areas of real contestation are suburban areas filled with reactionaries and relatively wealthy people. Dems have a lock on cities, Rs have a lock on rural areas. EDIT: Those of you downvoting, I think it's amusing that you th…

> Just saying, only ~1/3 of the population votes. It's a little over 1/2 for presidential elections (over 2/3 in some states). Midterm elections are what's around 1/3. http://www.electproject.org/home/voter-turnout/voter-turnout...

Thanks!

EDIT: I would point out that this means that every four years, about 25% of the population picks the president. Ideally, we would be somewhere north of 40%. This bare majority participation occurs admist one of the biggest extended and hyped media events in the world. Other countries routinely get above 60-70% participation with far less nonsense.

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

#162

Post by analyte123 »

tech-historian wrote: post #2

> "Yaël Eisenstat, Facebook's former election ads integrity lead, said the employees’ concerns reflect her experience at the company, which she believes is on a dangerous path heading into the election. > “All of these steps are leading up to a situation where, come November, a portion of Facebook users will not trust the outcome of the election because they have been bombarded with messages on Facebook preparing the…

It's pretty damning, but not in the direction the article wants it to be. Facebook is a very powerful company, so it's more shocking that it can be rocked by politically motivated hysteria over a "https://emojipedia.org/red-triangle-pointed-up/" symbol (the actual subject of most of this article) than that it took an extra few days to delete a highly-debatable usage of that symbol by the US president.

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

#163

Post by viklove »

site-packages1 wrote: post #134
seddin wrote: post #125

The media always blames Mark for every bad action that his company does, but what about all the other employees, aren't they just as guilty as him?

It's possible to be an employee at what you think is an immoral company but be doing some innocuous that's just a part of a bigger whole. Does improving an internal observability tool as your job make you just as culpable as Mark? At what point do your actions become immoral? Just working for the company? Building anything for the company while an employee? Maybe you have to be the last step implementor of some bad p…

> At what point do your actions become immoral?

When your livelihood is funded by this kind of vile deception and manipulation, your actions are undoubtedly immoral.

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

#164

Post by creato »

jfengel wrote: post #119
tomrod wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People trust the outcome generally, whether they like it or hate it. The folks aren't trusting the inputs. 2020 is not 2016. Polling is suggesting a large shift. That may cause distrust in the outcome itself if the outcome doesn't align to polling due to voter suppression efforts and other possible issues.

Is the polling really all that different from this point in 2016? As I recall, in 2016, the eventual winner was way down in the polls right up until election day.

By the time of the election, the polls had narrowed considerably. There were a lot of clowns with predictions of 99% chances and whatnot, but people that actually understood statistics and polls had the race a lot closer to a coin flip at the time of the election (IIRC 60-40 odds).

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

#165

Post by analyte123 »

bhupy wrote: post #153
seneca wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The steel-man argument is that the President's statements practically amount to an indirect call for violence. There's no other way for the state to enforce laws except to use the messy apparatus of the police, which may result in collateral damage/violence. Which would mean that literally any discussion of government policy which could result in law enforcement is a call for violence. While I don't particularly di…

I actually don't think there's that much wrong with what the President tweeted/posted, but I do think it's inaccurate to compare what he said to just any old discussion of government policy. He wasn't just discussing government policy, he was talking about enforcing it in a very particular way ("the shooting starts"). There is definitely a qualitative difference between: "Deadbeat fathers should have to pay child sup…

Use of lethal force by civilians is permitted against robbery and trespass to varying degrees in many (maybe even most, not sure) US states.

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

#166

Post by tantalor »

notacoward wrote: post #147
vannevar wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I did that until my feed was mostly empty and uninteresting, so I deleted my account.

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

#167

Post by d_burfoot »

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.

From the article:

> "White men are so fragile," she fired off, sharing William's post with her friends, "and the mere presence of a black person challenges every single thing in them."

> It took just 15 minutes for Facebook to delete her post for violating its community standards for hate speech.

I'm pretty sure that comments like that don't count as "anti-racism".

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

#168

Post by StevePerkins »

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…

Indeed.

I have a theory, that many of the high-profile "advertiser boycotts" recently aren't really about content moderation. I suspect that companies simply don't want to promote their body wash in the middle of a constant screaming match about wearing masks.

Being on Facebook bums me out. It makes me dislike my extended family, and old colleagues or people I knew from school. I've been unable to completely wean myself off it (the "engagement" hooks are strong), but I genuinely feel dirty and unhappy with myself after browsing the site. It certainly doesn't foster a positive view toward brands that I see advertising there.

I wonder if: (1) that perspective is common, (2) large advertisers have figured it out, and (3) their "boycott over hate speech" is really just a clever way to get social-trend-extra-credit for a move they'd like to make anyway?

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

#169

Post by Nasrudith »

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…

Satanic ritual panic and several other deeply moral panics say hello. Loud and extreme opinions and bullshit have always been rewarded with more attention because the adherents are more passionate.

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

#170

Post by analyte123 »

AlexandrB wrote: post #47
dvt wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I feel like all of this debate is painfully missing the point. Your point also applies to news -- articles these days miss the point by design . You get more clicks by being provocative and hyperbolic. And yellow journalism isn't really new , but its comeback has been triumphant.

That's hardly surprising. Both social media and regular media are now part of the same competition to get more clicks. The whole model of online ad-driven content is rotten and creates the worst incentives.

It's not so simple: social media is how regular media get most of their clicks. Not that I'm a huge fan of social media companies, but the constant push by regular media companies for social media companies to promote "authoritative sources" (i.e. regular media) and the accompanying hit pieces make a lot more sense in this context. To me, these articles are being honest in their criticism when they call for less social media in general, not just more control of the existing social media. This is one of the latter.
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