Facebook's PR feels broken • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook's PR feels broken

#181

Post by Barrin92 » Sat, Jan 11, 2020, 5:39 AM UTC

manfredo wrote: post #133

jyrkesh wrote: post #106

> I’m sure, internally, it’s looked at as the “mainstream media trying to get clicks... I interviewed with FB shortly after the Cambridge Analytica stuff came out (but long enough after that it was clear to everyone that FB had screwed up big time). When it was my turn to ask questions in one particular interview, I gave a standard fallback when I have nothing else: "[despite all the blahblah positives], having worke…

Someone who worked at Facebook for the better part of a decade responded that they felt the media coverage was unfair to Facebook. You were suprised by this response because from an outsider's perspective you felt that Facebook employees should be apologetic? What makes you more qualified to judge whether the public perception was accurate as compared to someone who actually worked there - an "FB vet" in your own wor…

>What makes you more qualified to judge whether the public perception was accurate as compared to someone who actually worked there - an "FB vet" in your own words?

For starters, most of us here don't benefit financially from putting a positive spin on disasters at Facebook. As the Upton Sinclair saying goes, it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.

I've not talked to Facebook employees personally but I've witnessed the same degree of delusion at other large tech companies. Some are straight-up like a cult with employees willing to defend just about anything their company does regardless of how hazardous it was. Which is even more baffling if one takes into consideration that these are usually salaried employees working there only for a few years with no personal stake whatsoever.

The point isn't even to discuss some sort of internal nuance about the technical details of CA. If you are a company as large as Facebook and you allow user data to be abused to this degree, even if there is some nuance to it, when facing the public you apologize, tuck your tail between your legs, admit that you screwed up, and fix your problems, and you turn the arrogance and the world saving rhetoric down a notch.

Re: Facebook's PR feels broken

#182

Post by throwaway102030 » Sat, Jan 11, 2020, 5:43 AM UTC

jyrkesh wrote: post #106

> I’m sure, internally, it’s looked at as the “mainstream media trying to get clicks... I interviewed with FB shortly after the Cambridge Analytica stuff came out (but long enough after that it was clear to everyone that FB had screwed up big time). When it was my turn to ask questions in one particular interview, I gave a standard fallback when I have nothing else: "[despite all the blahblah positives], having worke…

> hey didn't want me back, but I had basically decided I'd never work there

Always stay positive! You won't work there not because you failed the interview, but because you didn't want to!

> Not even a hint of apology, remorse

He should have stood on his knees, and start crying asking for your forgiveness.

> "no one thanks us enough."

I'm 99% sure you are lying or intentionally misquoting. I cannot imagine any colleague of mine who would have said that during the interview. Because people who talk like that publicly do not survive in the company long enough. Especially, nobody would allow them doing interviews (there are shadow interviews, there is feedback from the candidate by the recruiter, a guy who talks like this wouldn't have been removed from doing interviews).

I work for Facebook.

I think CA scandal is media trash. 10 years ago the internet was very different from what it is now, more open, more friendly, safer. And Facebook worked in that environment and behaved similarly. The data stolen by CA won't help you win the election despite what the NY Times tells you.

Any anyway, poking the company over and over for the issue company solved three years before you learned about it is just stupid. It would be as stupid as poking the author of telnet for security problems caused by it.

Although I work for the company, there are tons of things I disagree with. For example, moderation is too strict and can be exploited by bad actors (causing good accounts to be banned). Or moderation forgives far left calling to crucify "white nationalists", but can ban you for a photo of machine gun or boobs. But how media covers CA scandal is just lies and over-exaggeration.

OK, now go downvote.

Re: Facebook's PR feels broken

#183

Post by Aperocky » Sat, Jan 11, 2020, 6:02 AM UTC

starfallg wrote: post #166

Aperocky wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, attack the idea, not the user. I also don't see you guys are on the same page either. For one, was there false reporting? It is entirely possible to do 5 bad things and have media report you did 10 bad things. And while 5 bad things was committed it doesn't excuse the media for wrong reporting, not saying that they did this in this case.

That's exactly the reason why it feels like a classic PR tactic. Instead of discussing what went wrong and how FB's policies and operations are deficient, the conversation is being shifted towards how much the media is biased towards it. FB is not the victim here. Hence to have a productive discussion, being on the same page is indeed important - as in accepting first and foremost what FB's responsibilities are.

The conversation did not shift, both started from the opposite end and did not move, there were no conversation to begin with.

And this is why we have the schism in our society. No one is willing to find the middle ground and listen any more. Everyone simultaneously believes that listening is others responsibility.

Re: Facebook's PR feels broken

#184

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jan 11, 2020, 6:08 AM UTC

bhl wrote: post #174

tempsy wrote: post #138

i don't think FB ever had great PR. The Social Network was largely a negative portrayal of Zuck and FB. I remember when FB bought Instagram there was a lot of initial backlash. Most of the positive stuff around Facebook was mainly due to the huge upward movements in it's stock price post IPO that solidified Zuckerberg and Sandberg as business geniuses. Would argue that their individual profiles became much more posit…

Ben Mezrich, author of the Accidental Billionaires which was later adapted into the Social Network, has a differing opinion: like Liars Poker and Wall Street, the movie made Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg more well known and popular than before.

[deleted]

Re: Facebook's PR feels broken

#185

Post by yaih » Sat, Jan 11, 2020, 6:09 AM UTC

manfredo wrote: post #133

jyrkesh wrote: post #106

> I’m sure, internally, it’s looked at as the “mainstream media trying to get clicks... I interviewed with FB shortly after the Cambridge Analytica stuff came out (but long enough after that it was clear to everyone that FB had screwed up big time). When it was my turn to ask questions in one particular interview, I gave a standard fallback when I have nothing else: "[despite all the blahblah positives], having worke…

Someone who worked at Facebook for the better part of a decade responded that they felt the media coverage was unfair to Facebook. You were suprised by this response because from an outsider's perspective you felt that Facebook employees should be apologetic? What makes you more qualified to judge whether the public perception was accurate as compared to someone who actually worked there - an "FB vet" in your own wor…

Unfortunately, the problem with your analysis is that your view only makes sense if seen in isolation.

A lot of us are evaluating the entire picture, based in large part on the track record of Facebook over the last 10+ years.

For example, everyone who takes a look at the "friendly fraud" [1] case comes away thinking "Boy, these Facebook employees will stop at nothing to make a buck". Now layer that on top of whatever came out during the CA scandal, and now you can see that the issue is Facebook employees are actually acting like a cult.

And by the way, nothing has changed. You can see this in how every time someone from Facebook does any PR at all (e.g. podcast interviews), they take a lot of care to make sure they don't go on podcasts which bring up the privacy issue.

Here is an open challenge to any Facebook employee who is reading this comment - go on an interview with a known "hostile" who is also not considered an idiot conspiracy theorist - e.g. DHH - and have them interview you. You know that you would never even consider doing it, because you do have a lot of shitty things still going on at Facebook that you wouldn't want to later contradict.

By the way, the same challenge applies to folks working at Google.

[1] https://www.consumerreports.org/privacy/facebook-friendly-fr...

Re: Facebook's PR feels broken

#186

Post by Aperocky » Sat, Jan 11, 2020, 6:10 AM UTC

dannyr wrote: post #153

jyrkesh wrote: post #106

> I’m sure, internally, it’s looked at as the “mainstream media trying to get clicks... I interviewed with FB shortly after the Cambridge Analytica stuff came out (but long enough after that it was clear to everyone that FB had screwed up big time). When it was my turn to ask questions in one particular interview, I gave a standard fallback when I have nothing else: "[despite all the blahblah positives], having worke…

I shared a Lyft ride with a Facebook employee right after the CA controversy. I asked her what do employees think about it. She told me that people are really worried about how the controversy affected the stock price. (Facebook stock was down around that time.) I'm not sure how many employees worry about stock price than the supposed effect of the CA controversy but I was disappointed to hear that from a Facebook em…

Ask yourself:

My company might have exposed millions of user to political propaganda/wrong think. It is being fixed though.

6 month worth of base salary.

Choose.

Re: Facebook's PR feels broken

#187

Post by tempsy » Sat, Jan 11, 2020, 6:11 AM UTC

bhl wrote: post #174

tempsy wrote: post #138

i don't think FB ever had great PR. The Social Network was largely a negative portrayal of Zuck and FB. I remember when FB bought Instagram there was a lot of initial backlash. Most of the positive stuff around Facebook was mainly due to the huge upward movements in it's stock price post IPO that solidified Zuckerberg and Sandberg as business geniuses. Would argue that their individual profiles became much more posit…

Ben Mezrich, author of the Accidental Billionaires which was later adapted into the Social Network, has a differing opinion: like Liars Poker and Wall Street, the movie made Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg more well known and popular than before.

highly doubt it but would trust internal Facebook data on any bump in users if that was the hypothesis

Re: Facebook's PR feels broken

#188

Post by humanrebar » Sat, Jan 11, 2020, 6:14 AM UTC

taurath wrote: post #132

smacktoward wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is that the U.S. has this pesky thing called the First Amendment that makes restricting political speech difficult.

But don't forget, money is speech, and corporations are people. All of which is absolutely not in the first amendment.

The right to freely associate + the right to speak + the right to printed speech = the right to collaborate on speech

i.e., there is free speech for groups as well as individuals

Saying there's right to free speech for groups unless someone gets paid is a little silly and hard to enforce. Hence our current situation.

From another perspective, there is obviously "freedom of the press" but the Constitution does not say who is allowed to own a press and it doesn't say you have to personally own a press to make use of it. In fact, it would probably be problematic if you weren't allowed to hire a press if you had something you wanted to say.

Re: Facebook's PR feels broken

#189

Post by manquer » Sat, Jan 11, 2020, 6:14 AM UTC

Aperocky wrote: post #154

lobe wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't read it like that at all. As stated in the article, the offending bit was the last two lines. "If you haven't tried it, I suggest you do" is the smug, condescending jab that was completely unnecessary. It is inflammatory for no benefit. The start of the response was perfectly fine and I did not feel the author took offence to it.

And the author should not take offense to that either. I have no idea why people would take offense to 'If you haven't tried it, I suggest you do'. Maybe the same reason they would be offended by talking to a person with different opinions.

I think more than offended to me he seemed surprised PR let it through

Re: Facebook's PR feels broken

#190

Post by mola » Sat, Jan 11, 2020, 6:44 AM UTC

Is it just me, or is this completely bonkers? Let's say that teen Vogue were transparent about the article being sponsored. Meaning it would have had a tiny print somewhere saying that the article is part of a partnership with Facebook. How would that matter? Most people reading it would hardly notice it, even if they do notice it , it will hardly change the way they process the information in the piece. Our mind have a hard time knowing where certain facts it recalls came from. The bad thing is not the non cohesion of the Facebook PR it's the total lack of regard for truth and ethics that these corporate MBA and media types have. If it gets the job done then it becomes good, as in: morally good. Even if you manipulate the truth, bend the mind of the masses towards misconceptions, but do it well, then you are being ethical and good. Only if you fail then something is not good. That's a pretty messed up moral system.

Corporate shouldn't be able to buy anything from media outlets other than Ads that look.like ads and completely visually separate from actual journalistic pieces. Anything else is just unethical.