FB to curb internal debate over sensitive issues amid employee discord • Hacker News Board

Re: FB to curb internal debate over sensitive issues amid employee discord

#171

Post by mattm » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 10:50 PM UTC

lacker wrote: post #104

patorjk wrote: post #5

At 3 paragraphs (131 words), that was a really short article. However, I agree with the subheading: "Mark Zuckerberg says employees shouldn’t have to confront social issues in their day-to-day work unless they want to" That sounds good to me. I've never had to talk about these kind of things at work. Are there work places where this is unavoidable?

I was working at Facebook during the 2016 election and it was pretty unavoidable. A big part of the problem was just that everyone was using Facebook for work all the time. So quite often, there would be some enormous thread arguing about whether X or Y was the right policy, was Trump violating the rules and should be kicked off Facebook, or was Facebook's anti-Trump policies violating freedom of speech, or was it ra…

I was shocked when I learned that employees at Facebook use Facebook internally for work related discussions. Facebook is not built for that purpose.

Re: FB to curb internal debate over sensitive issues amid employee discord

#172

Post by jgacook » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 10:51 PM UTC

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #145

jgacook wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and this is why nobody is going after, for example, Facebook HQ's janitorial staff for the moral responsibility of Facebook's actions. Their income remains static in spite of Facebook's quarterly profit so it would be unfair to accuse them of trading their ethics for an income. There is a fundamental difference when you're talking about a stock-owning, educated, in-demand software engineer, even if they are "jus…

There's a difference, but it still strikes me as unreasonable to say that all institutional power must be leveraged towards political ends. I do business with a lot of companies whose owners don't agree with my politics, and I'd be unhappy to see them dedicate more of their institutional power towards fighting for things I don't want.

Yes, but it's not a political end it's an ethical end. Facebook is being leveraged by political actors to cause harm in an unethical way - wanting to prevent this is not a political stance unless you believe that being apolitical is adopting some middle ground between America's Republican and Democrat parties, in which case considering ethics at all is a non-starter since both parties have shied away from imposing any kind of hard regulation on Facebook.

Institutional power doesn't have to be leveraged towards political ends, but if you profit directly from an institution choosing unethical behavior in pursuit of profits then you are also behaving unethically. It's completely reasonable to apply that standard to the best-paid of Facebook's employees, just as it is completely reasonable for those employees to petition against committing more unethical behavior.

Re: FB to curb internal debate over sensitive issues amid employee discord

#173

Post by elliekelly » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 10:51 PM UTC

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #128

elliekelly wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's an entirely reasonable stance for management to take at most companies. But not facebook. They've deliberately tailored the platform to be a monetized political outrage machine. Its like ESPN announcing they plan to "curb" sports talk in the office.

If Yankees and Red Sox fans regularly got into shouting matches on the ESPN software development mailing lists, I expect they'd be told to knock it off, and I wouldn't see that as a contradiction of the idea that sports is important.

You're right. Then again ESPN doesn't bend over backwards to constantly bombard viewers with content that will sow division and hate between franchises so I'd imagine it's less likely to be a recurring issue.

Re: FB to curb internal debate over sensitive issues amid employee discord

#174

Post by heartbeats » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 10:52 PM UTC

elliekelly wrote: post #99

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Curb" here doesn't seem to mean "ban". What Facebook wants is for employees to avoid the totalizing view of politics you're describing, where political discussion needs to occur in all places at all times and declaring a "no politics zone" constitutes taking a side.

And that's an entirely reasonable stance for management to take at most companies. But not facebook. They've deliberately tailored the platform to be a monetized political outrage machine. Its like ESPN announcing they plan to "curb" sports talk in the office.

Don't get high off your own supply.

Re: FB to curb internal debate over sensitive issues amid employee discord

#175

Post by jgacook » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 10:53 PM UTC

wmf wrote: post #155

jgacook wrote: post #32

Generally I try and shy away from being too alarmist, but I am so disillusioned with the kind of tech worker HN's userbase seems to represent. I think it's a feckless attitude to think that working in one of the best-paid, global, most influential professions in the world right now means that your only obligation is to clock in on time, code whatever you're told to code, take no ownership of the effect your work may…

I'm convinced that discussing ethics or politics inside Facebook or Twitter will have literally zero effect. Employees should either quit or get back to work.

Why are you convinced of that? Unionized protests frequently accomplish institutional change - why do you think Facebook or Twitter would be exempt? If anything a unionized tech force striking would have more bargaining power than other groups since they are educated, specialized, and difficult/expensive for either company to replace en masse.

Re: FB to curb internal debate over sensitive issues amid employee discord

#176

Post by mehrdadn » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 10:54 PM UTC

t-writescode wrote: post #101

xamuel wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Facebook by its nature takes stances on deeply political topics. Why is that "by its nature"? I don't think that's "by its nature" at all. Phone companies and ISPs facilitate communication between people, but that doesn't necessitate they take political stances on what communication to allow. Why should Facebook? If certain language should be restricted, then laws should be written restricting said language and Face…

> Phone companies and ISPs facilitate communication between people, but that doesn't necessitate they take political stances on what communication to allow Taking a stance to not control what communication is allowed is a very political stance. It just so happens that, I believe in those cases, it's also a legally mandated stance; but, if it weren't a legally mandated stance, it would absolutely be a political stance…

> Taking a stance to not control what communication is allowed is a very political stance.

Then in your model of the world, how would one not take a political stance?

If everyone takes a political stance in your model by definition no matter what their intents or actions are then it's a rather useless definition.

Re: FB to curb internal debate over sensitive issues amid employee discord

#177

Post by anonymousab » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 10:55 PM UTC

fgrtr3terwy wrote: post #85

Facebook wants their employees to stop talking about politics, even though Facebook by its nature takes stances on deeply political topics. How exactly do you avoid political discussion when you're asking what constitutes hate speech, whether a US president should be allowed to violate Facebook's content guidelines, or to what extent governments can spread misinformation in other countries? If you work at Facebook, y…

>How exactly do you avoid political discussion when you're asking what constitutes hate speech, whether a US president should be allowed to violate Facebook's content guidelines, or to what extent governments can spread misinformation in other countries?

Probably gotta just do what Mark thinks is right and, should that not be clear, guess what he would think is right. And suffer the consequences yourself should you guess wrong.

Re: FB to curb internal debate over sensitive issues amid employee discord

#178

Post by s1artibartfast » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 10:56 PM UTC

thrwn_frthr_awy wrote: post #119

dntrkv wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook doesn't profit from divisiveness, they profit from engagement. The fact that divisive posts encourage more engagement tells me more about people in general, rather than Facebook's business model. > Limit the spread of information in general in favor of content created by the people you follow I don't think that's what people want from their social networks nowadays. FB, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, et…

> I don't think that's what people want from their social networks nowadays. FB, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, etc all do not work this way anymore. They don't work this way because it makes shareholder's the most money, not because it is the best experience for the user. > Advertising plays a very small part in this. Most of what you would call "disinformation" is spread through reposts, which are not affected…

>All of the counter arguments always come down to this: Facebook would make less money. And, yes, of course that is going to be the case because if any of these changes would make them more money they would have implemented them themselves. It requires a public corporation to accept that they are making the world a worse place, and to choose to make less money to stop doing that.

And it would also require them to make a product that people desire less, and risk losing to a competitor that gave people what they want. People want to cluster in silos, chase novelty, and spout off with 100% confidence about topics they know nothing about.

Re: FB to curb internal debate over sensitive issues amid employee discord

#179

Post by reader_mode » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 10:57 PM UTC

munificent wrote: post #124

jseliger wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting to watch companies rediscover the old rule about leaving politics and religion at the door.

If a business wants its employees to leave politics at the door, the business should too. If Facebook is going to have departments for government affairs, public policy, and lobbying, then it is entirely reasonable for employees to be politically active too. Otherwise, you're basically saying corporations should participate in the political process but individuals should not. And that's exactly how we got the Earth i…

That's a straw man argument, just because an employee isn't allowed to bring politics to work doesn't mean they can't be politically active on their own time.

Re: FB to curb internal debate over sensitive issues amid employee discord

#180

Post by derwiki » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 10:58 PM UTC

dylan604 wrote: post #95

pjc50 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Forcing"? Is there actual force involved, or is it just more speech?

If you are at work in an open floor plan just trying to do your job while some of your co-workers are carrying on about whatever, you are pretty much forced to have to listen to it. You are now no longer achieving 100% of what you could be doing because your brain is distracted. That's before you even attempt to participate.

Is that to say, it's less of a problem in companies where there are no open floor plans? Or where everyone is working remotely?