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Facebook chooses profits over people

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Re: Facebook chooses profits over people

#171

Post by q1w2 »

yosito wrote: post #82

My reaction to this headline is, if you want someone to care about you, call your mother. Most of the world doesn't care about you, and it's not a scandal, it's just how reality works. The whole problem with Facebook is that we somehow ever trusted that it was not motivated by profit, and shared the most intimate details of our lives with it. Stupid fucks, us.

Agreed. If there is a gap between how we expect an industry treats customers, and how customers are treated in (like social media), then the answer is government regulation - not some moral shouting in the media.

A healthy capitalist society is one with efficient regulations. I feel like these pieces often try to discredit all of capitalism just because a regulation is needed somewhere.

I don't want to live in a theocracy dictated by whoever screeches the loudest in the media or on social media.

Re: Facebook chooses profits over people

#172

Post by tinco »

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…

Not certain if I support your friend, but he is right in one regard. If people who push back against Zuckerberg were not part of Facebook, we would not have all these leaks.

When they announced that they would be cracking down on leakers, that announcement leaked immediately. Imo it shows that they don't have popular support within Facebook at all.

Of course this doesn't excuse implementing features that you know are unethical, but it does help, and hopefully government will step up and attach consequences to Facebook's deceitful and malignant practices.

Re: Facebook chooses profits over people

#173

Post by jamesandthewolf »

revolvingocelot wrote: post #116
jamesandthewolf wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LoL why? surly we can measure profit in other forms then money. It's 2nd meaning is simply advantage, benefit. Example "there is no profit screaming at referees from the bench"

Of course "we" can, but we at this site certainly won't, and the relentless tide of half-baked rationalization to this end can drown the weak swimmer.

Sorry do you speak for all members of this website or just yourself. The weak swimmers are what exactly? people who value other people for who they are, not for how much they own? This is confusing.

Re: Facebook chooses profits over people

#174

Post by pixelgeek »

smt88 wrote: post #78
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…

> The problem isn’t Facebook, a private company, seeking profits. Because of the last few decades of weak law enforcement, lying and breaking the law is seeking profits. Most large companies make very calculated decisions to break the law while weighing the risk of getting caught. In many cases, the fines are tolerable when considering much larger profit.

Decades?

Anyone remember the Robber Barons? It is an inherent problem with the system.

Re: Facebook chooses profits over people

#175

Post by Applejinx »

jamesandthewolf wrote: post #161
Applejinx wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well, that's the key, isn't it? Societally we have a different approach to the basically natural (but not exclusive) human drive to just dominate and rule and conquer those around us. There's laws and rules based on the concept that some people WILL want to beat up those around them, and that this isn't helpful or good.

Wealth legitimizes this, and that's the problem. But civilization is a long history of society taking on these problems and slowly, awkwardly solving them only after it became impossible to continue any longer as things stood.

Re: Facebook chooses profits over people

#176

Post by seaourfreed »

Non-intuitive insight here:

* The claim is that Facebook should censor "fake news" more

* Facebook/Twitter /YouTube have employees with control of these sensor tools.

* A sub-set (not all) of them chose to use these tools to censor when the Republicans / Libertarians make their political points.

* Rand Paul had a YouTube channel. YouTube employee leftists censored him by removing (censoring) his ENTIRE YouTube channel.

* John Stossel is a high integrity guy. Facebook's censor tools put "PolitiFact: This post (his) is NOT TRUE". Censor-type tools were used against views of the libertarians.

* The current majority thought is that COVID originated from the Lab. Across 2020 people posting various facts that were pointing this direction had those posts censored.

We all hate real lies. However, the above list of valid political content from the political right is being censored. The list is long. Free speech & free debate is the fuel of democracy, and we need to protect it.

Re: Facebook chooses profits over people

#177

Post by KaiserPro »

fnord77 wrote: post #166
KaiserPro wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> Jobs cared deeply about giving his users the best possible experience.

that may be, but apple the company is secretive, excessively arrogant, and very willing to cut people off, should they cause a problem.

jobs himself was an effective leader, but he was fundamentally a top class bellend of a person. Zuckerberg is dull and predictable by comparison

Re: Facebook chooses profits over people

#178

Post by pixelgeek »

q1w2 wrote: post #157
FabHK wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Tim Cook was pushing some clever PR there. The reality is that if a company deviated significantly from it's primary goal of attaining profits for shareholders, the shareholders could easily sue to take control away from the CEO - and this indeed happens. The example of a small feature here or there is a deflection since, like any do-good public effort, it's just good PR to do them when they're relatively low cost.

Apple, and Cook in particular, is a member of groups that are actively working to stop the proposed environmental laws in the US. So yes indeed, deflection

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/oct/01/apple-amazon...

Re: Facebook chooses profits over people

#179

Post by rglullis »

amelius wrote: post #107
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…

No, the problem is lack of strong consumer protection. Trusting profit-seeking private companies to do "the right thing" is naive at best.

I trust that my "profit-seeking" dentist does the right thing, just like I trust that the "profit-seeking" engineer that built the home I live in and the "profit-seeking" restaurant owner from the place I had lunch today.

Please stop demonizing "profit-seeking". The problem is the lack of ethics of Facebook and Big Tech in general. Putting it on "private, profit-seeking" companies is a tired, sophomoric take.

Re: Facebook chooses profits over people

#180

Post by nbzso »

kwertyoowiyop wrote: post #160
nbzso wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tim Cook at Apple. Please, don't. Pushing CSAM, and removing apps for oppressive governments. We as collective consciousness must stop idolizing corporations. Corporations are for profit. The lack of regulations and effective legislation is the problem. The biggest problem is that a lot of legislative mechanics are affected by shares ownership and lobbing. And we find this "a normal behaviour".

Tim Cook is not a saint. Apple makes some poor ethical choices. That said, I’d still prefer that Cook rather than Zuckerberg ran Facebook.

There is no saints or sinners. This is naive view of the problem.

As I stated it before, the problem is legislative and law enforcement related. Facebook or any other company will use every lawful opportunity to gain ROI. The system in place is the reason corporations to avoid responsibility and this is not Facebook or tech company related. You cannot have expectations of morality or any form of ethics. You can project in your mind or imagination, but this will not make a difference at all. As we can see historically with tobacco companies in the past.

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