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Facebook chooses profits over people

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Re: Facebook chooses profits over people

#161

Post by jamesandthewolf »

Applejinx wrote: post #132
jamesandthewolf wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I hoard a billion news papers clippings I'm a mad man but if I hoard billions of dollars I'm a hero this seams like a bit of a paradox in itself no?

No. Newspaper clippings don't give you impossible, unaccountable power. Money IS a proxy for power in a way that old newspaper clippings (even of your own great deeds) can never be. If you hoard millions of dollars, it's not really the same: it's effectively saying 'I'm going to do whatever I gotta do, in order to seize unthinkable power over everybody I interact with, and rule them'. The money isn't useful in itself…

That is something that we need to change, I have no issue with being wealthy I do have an issue when it is something that is misguiding, misleading and breaking the social structures of society just cause "old mate" has a behavioral complex and mental disorder due to potentially a lack of self confidence.

Re: Facebook chooses profits over people

#163

Post by ppod »

FabHK wrote: post #101
dghughes wrote: post #38

That's any for profit company no matter what anyone believes. Any company its only purpose is profit. It's the same with company HR it's there to protect the company. It's not personnel anymore it's called human resources for a reason you're just company inventory. And "corporate culture" there is none they are not your family there is no culture they'll fire you in a heartbeat.

> That's any for profit company no matter what anyone believes. Any company its only purpose is profit. That's a myth. See for example 1. this aptly titled article: Corporations Don’t Have to Maximize Profits https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-co... 2. Tim Cook at Apple: > The shareholder asked Cook about the company’s renewable energy efforts and told him that Apple should only undertake such…

>In a rare display of anger, Cook replied that there were many things Apple did because they were right and just. “When we work on making our devices accessible by the blind,” he added, “I don’t consider the bloody ROI.” Then he added, “If you want me to do things only for ROI reasons, you should get out of this stock.”

That anti-profit dollar, that's a good dollar.

Re: Facebook chooses profits over people

#164

Post by indigochill »

aceazzameen wrote: post #32
jamesandthewolf wrote: post #4

I'm not a fan of Facebook and starting to see linkedin heading the same way, I just don't get the look at my one it's bigger then yours I don't understand this so don't join in the game. I personally feel like Facebook and lots of social media is more a fashion statement or cheap thrill. I kind of am liking it here as it's more meaningful and feels like more of an education then a show off session. Facebook's ideas s…

You made me think, is it even possible to create a social media network geared towards education (sharing skills and ideas) for the masses? I suppose YouTube is somewhat there. But it's blended with so much crap.

Social network, no. Social networks are for talking about yourself, and that's generally not very productive for educational purposes.

However, in the slightly earlier life of the internet BBSes and forums were all the rage, and those were actually useful, because the focus was on discussing common interests instead of everyone just showing themselves off (and forums are still around! Discourse is a modern open source implementation).

Which is probably also why people like HN, because it still follows the forum pattern rather than the social network pattern.

Some subreddits are also useful for this, when you get into somewhat less controversial corners like learning math or music theory.

Stack Overflow and its various spinoffs is probably another good real-world example.

Re: Facebook chooses profits over people

#165

Post by blitzar »

mhh__ wrote: post #110
blitzar wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet YouTubers constantly make clickbait titles like "Tour of my 10 MILLLION DOLLAR house" or "I gave away $50,000"

Well yes, but 3Blue1Brown exists on the same site for example.

And they also have a page on facebook.

Re: Facebook chooses profits over people

#166

Post by fnord77 »

KaiserPro wrote: post #146
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #44

These headlines naïvely miss the point. The problem isn’t Facebook, a private company, seeking profits. The problem is its deeply-entrenched psychopathy and pathological record of lying [1]. And it really appears to be a Facebook problem. Instagram for Kids wasn’t the fever dream of a deranged Instagrammer. It was pushed by a Facebook implant [2]. I don’t know if being in proximity to Facebook’s leadership corrupts p…

> And it really appears to be a Facebook problem. Instagram for Kids wasn’t the fever dream of a deranged Instagrammer Two things to unpack here. its not a facebook problem. its a problem that exists in many large companies. Apple for example doesn't give a shit about individuals. (you can see that if you slip off any of the predefined support pathways) _everyone_ to google is just a thing to evaluated and advertised…

> Apple for example doesn't give a shit about individuals.

I don't think that's true. Jobs cared deeply about giving his users the best possible experience.

Re: Facebook chooses profits over people

#167

Post by bambax »

KaiserPro wrote: post #146
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #44

These headlines naïvely miss the point. The problem isn’t Facebook, a private company, seeking profits. The problem is its deeply-entrenched psychopathy and pathological record of lying [1]. And it really appears to be a Facebook problem. Instagram for Kids wasn’t the fever dream of a deranged Instagrammer. It was pushed by a Facebook implant [2]. I don’t know if being in proximity to Facebook’s leadership corrupts p…

> And it really appears to be a Facebook problem. Instagram for Kids wasn’t the fever dream of a deranged Instagrammer Two things to unpack here. its not a facebook problem. its a problem that exists in many large companies. Apple for example doesn't give a shit about individuals. (you can see that if you slip off any of the predefined support pathways) _everyone_ to google is just a thing to evaluated and advertised…

Agreed. Companies are all "evil" in that they exploit people for profit. What about cigarette makers? Or Monsanto? Does anyone think those companies care about people?

Oil companies conspired for decades to hide the fact that their product directly destroys, not just their customers, not just some specific category of people, but the whole planet.

Maybe because tech companies were founded and run by young guys, there was some hope that they would be different. Well, they aren't.

It's true that Facebook is in a class of its own, but that's because of its size and power; not because of its unique "evilness".

Re: Facebook chooses profits over people

#168

Post by pixelgeek »

smt88 wrote: post #89
rightbyte wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t know if being in proximity to Facebook’s leadership corrupts people. I guess you need to be a bad person from the get-go to be able to keep a smiling face in that place. I mean, it is not even that Facebook employees are forced be necessity to work there. They have plenty of options. It is just that honest work, like say a weapon manufacturer, pays so much less than ratting out your friends and family to Zu…

> I guess you need to be a bad person from the get-go to be able to keep a smiling face in that place. I have a close friend who works there. He's a moral person and disagrees with the social changes that Facebook has caused. But if you ask him why he works there, he has a few standard responses: - Most of the employees at Facebook are good and push back against Zuckerberg's harmful decisions. - If all the good peopl…

> The core problem is that any large organization is guaranteed to be psychopathic.

Well any large organization is, to a certain point, very successful and you can't get to that position with morals. Doing the ethical thing is very often not the thing you need to do to succeed or profit.

Re: Facebook chooses profits over people

#169

Post by KaiserPro »

ACS_Solver wrote: post #135
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #44

These headlines naïvely miss the point. The problem isn’t Facebook, a private company, seeking profits. The problem is its deeply-entrenched psychopathy and pathological record of lying [1]. And it really appears to be a Facebook problem. Instagram for Kids wasn’t the fever dream of a deranged Instagrammer. It was pushed by a Facebook implant [2]. I don’t know if being in proximity to Facebook’s leadership corrupts p…

I would even say it's simpler, and the problem is Mark Zuckerberg specifically. He's deeply immoral, and continues to do what Facebook does for power and money. I understand, on some level, the excitement - he's a computer nerd who came to control an organization that is more powerful than the majority of the world's countries. Zuckerberg controls the platform that is the primary means of communication for hundreds o…

> He's deeply immoral, and continues to do what Facebook does for power and money.

I don't seem him wielding power. Its not like he's managed to convince half the population of a country that they should really abstain from something for shits a giggles. I'd go further and say that facebook it's self has surprisingly little power to shape the opinions of its users. There are powerful actors that use facebook as a medium for broadcast, but not facebook it's self.

> Ethically, however, Zuckerberg seems to be on the level of murderous dictators, or human traffickers

I think this is hyperbole. I don't like the man, and I think he is morally naive. But to compare him to a dictator fundamentally undermines just how bad dictators are.

Take for example a human trafficker. They procure girls by lying to them. They know they are lying to the girls. They then deliver them to people who they know are going to force them to be raped. The trafficker does not take any steps to mitigate the outcome.

Yes, facebook facilitated a massacre in burma. That is, to say the least, bad.

But did facebook actively collude with the perpetrators? was facebook run by members of the militia that carried out these terrible acts (I'm asking you to compare and contrast to Rwanda)

have they tried, all be it not very effectively to mitigate that risk? yes.

In short, I dislike facebook. I think there are practical steps that would make things better for people. However I think people ascribe far to much agency to them. After all, how the fuck do you effectively police 2.4 billion people? Facebook is a mirror to society. The sooner we recognize that, the better.

Re: Facebook chooses profits over people

#170

Post by qedlab »

ACS_Solver wrote: post #135
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #44

These headlines naïvely miss the point. The problem isn’t Facebook, a private company, seeking profits. The problem is its deeply-entrenched psychopathy and pathological record of lying [1]. And it really appears to be a Facebook problem. Instagram for Kids wasn’t the fever dream of a deranged Instagrammer. It was pushed by a Facebook implant [2]. I don’t know if being in proximity to Facebook’s leadership corrupts p…

I would even say it's simpler, and the problem is Mark Zuckerberg specifically. He's deeply immoral, and continues to do what Facebook does for power and money. I understand, on some level, the excitement - he's a computer nerd who came to control an organization that is more powerful than the majority of the world's countries. Zuckerberg controls the platform that is the primary means of communication for hundreds o…

He is accountable to people. Those people just happen to be shareholders. And if the stock price continues to increase then what's the incentive for shareholders to ask for more accountability. All the bad news and publicity without the de-investing means that it is ultimately good news (from a shareholder perspective), thus no financial action.
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