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Hook, hold, harvest and hide: Meta's alleged strategy laid out in first week

theguardian.com

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Re: Hook, hold, harvest and hide: Meta's alleged strategy laid out in first week

#181

Post by smsm42 »

gopher_space wrote: post #163
Aurornis wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is turning into a gish gallop. What specific laws would cause Mark Zuckerberg to go to jail?

This conversation feels like it really captures Mangione's point of view. It's like I'm listening to an internal dialogue.

Mangione had a personal grudge, caused by illness, pain and personal interactions with US healthcare system, which can grind down and drive to insanity anybody. The above just reads as a mashup or angry reddit posts which contain generic "evil rich people" platitudes, with zero depth or factual support. It's just low effort ranting.

Re: Hook, hold, harvest and hide: Meta's alleged strategy laid out in first week

#182

Post by intended »

gtowey wrote: post #92
Aurornis wrote: post #58

In the opening sentence: > according to a lawyer who is prosecuting the world’s largest social media company. The headline makes it sound like something internal at Meta got revealed. The catchy four-H phrase is the clever hook the lawyer came up with to try to hold the jury’s mind through the case. If you’re unfamiliar with how these trials work, the lawyers are trying to create a compelling narrative to support the…

The antidote to that would be for Meta to reveal all their internal communications. But they'll never do that because their own words and actions are likely far more damning than any story the DOJ could weave. The trend I have noticed is anytime the actual truth leaks from these actors and companies, it's so much more evil than I could have imagined. Like the recent tell-all book from someone who worked directly with…

If you are into the book, I would highly recommend commentary from people who were also at the firm at the same time and currently working on the field.

https://anchorchange.substack.com/p/careless-people-is-carel...

Re: Hook, hold, harvest and hide: Meta's alleged strategy laid out in first week

#183

Post by rudolftheone »

Gabrys1 wrote: post #37
api wrote: post #14

In my opinion at least, any attempt to intentionally engineer addiction is morally wrong and should be at the very least civilly if not criminally actionable (if it can be proven). It's mind control. That phrase is often associated with woo woo conspiracy theory, but I don't think that's hyperbolic. If you are engineering addiction, what you're doing is attempting to run a black hat security attack against the human…

By your definition, almost any ad is mind control and should be forbidden. At least any effective ad. And I don't disagree at that conclusion. There's a difference between telling people you have a product and making people want to have your product

Yeah, there was a great discussion here on making ads illegal, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43595269

Re: Hook, hold, harvest and hide: Meta's alleged strategy laid out in first week

#184

Post by blagie »

ajcp wrote: post #180
blagie wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> are (as far as the law is concerned) free and accountable for their own actions I don't think you've ever had a relative with e.g. Alzheimer's or dementia. There's a fine line where the above stops being the case. "Vulnerable to predatory behaviour" happens a long time before "can't find the bathroom without a nurse."

I do...

... then (at least if they are far enough gone), you have elderly relatives who are not "free and accountable for their own actions."

Re: Hook, hold, harvest and hide: Meta's alleged strategy laid out in first week

#185

Post by rhyperior »

SoftTalker wrote: post #112
rhyperior wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fascinating story. The author was hopelessly ignorant and guilty of facilitating, but the execs were so devoid of anything approaching ethics or morality. Explains a lot if true.

Unless you've been on the inside at the top levels of huge companies, you don't know about the sheer sociopathy of the people there. It's easy, even normal, to be naive as a regular employee, even one at a fairly high management level.

Yes and no. I have been on the inside and watched as a very senior but non-C-suite, one who works with the officers and next in line for C. Cultures reinforce themselves in groups of people and so yes you see all the narcissism and sociopathy in action but the limits and what’s acceptable differ. Not all companies behave like Meta on the inside.

Re: Hook, hold, harvest and hide: Meta's alleged strategy laid out in first week

#186

Post by ethbr1 »

gtowey wrote: post #129
Aurornis wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A key part of trials like this is the discovery process, which would surface a lot of the documents and emails that supposedly contain this information you’re talking about. If the lawyers found it, they’d be using it. I think the takeaway from this is that they decided their own catchphrase was more compelling than any language they found in those documents.

I know about discovery. I have a hard time believing that Meta is being perfectly transparent or comprehensive in what they disclose to the prosecution.

I think it's fair to say there's a lot of internal Meta comms that are undiscoverable because they intentionally no longer exist.

See Google's infamous 'Do we have deletion turned on for this chat?' executive records.

Companies aren't dumb, and the easiest way to prevent discovery is to have a policy that ensures prompt document destruction.

Luckily, humans (especially powerful ones) are terrible at adhering to often inconvenient opsec, hence the bits that do dribble out.

But it's worth not forgetting those are just bits...

Re: Hook, hold, harvest and hide: Meta's alleged strategy laid out in first week

#187

Post by ethbr1 »

pstuart wrote: post #172
smsm42 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think if facebook code governs your life, the major part of the fault does not lie with facebook. It is possible to live not being chained to the feed 24x7.

Absolutely. But many others are, and they can have an impact on your life even if you never logged in.

The tyranny of democracy is that you only need to influence the most susceptible 50%+1.

Re: Hook, hold, harvest and hide: Meta's alleged strategy laid out in first week

#188

Post by ethbr1 »

Aurornis wrote: post #118
digitaltrees wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America has a profound problem. It defines companies as legal persons with all the same rights. But it also applies the same restrictions and punishments as people without factoring in the underlying advantages a company has when breaking the law for profit. 1. Perpetual existence means breaking the law is a short term problem that is well worth the long term benefit — companies essentially live for ever and out live…

> America has a profound problem. It defines companies as legal persons with all the same rights. Corporate personhood does not mean a company have all the same legal rights as a person. Did you notice that companies can’t vote in elections or plead the fifth amendment like a person can? Corporations only get some rights. Corporate personhood is common across the globe. If you thought it was an American idea that’s c…

> Did you notice that companies can’t vote in elections

They absolutely can by proxy, post-Citizens United.

Corporation -> unlimited money -> influence -> votes

The only brake is whether a given corporation cares enough about a specific election to buy votes.

Re: Hook, hold, harvest and hide: Meta's alleged strategy laid out in first week

#189

Post by digitaltrees »

Aurornis wrote: post #118
digitaltrees wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America has a profound problem. It defines companies as legal persons with all the same rights. But it also applies the same restrictions and punishments as people without factoring in the underlying advantages a company has when breaking the law for profit. 1. Perpetual existence means breaking the law is a short term problem that is well worth the long term benefit — companies essentially live for ever and out live…

> America has a profound problem. It defines companies as legal persons with all the same rights. Corporate personhood does not mean a company have all the same legal rights as a person. Did you notice that companies can’t vote in elections or plead the fifth amendment like a person can? Corporations only get some rights. Corporate personhood is common across the globe. If you thought it was an American idea that’s c…

They can vote in some elections. And I would argue that unlimited political donations effectively means they can influence the layer above voting by influencing the people occupying the offices that were obtained through elections. So voting isn’t the lever of power that matters anymore and companies have superior influence on the levels that matter

Re: Hook, hold, harvest and hide: Meta's alleged strategy laid out in first week

#190

Post by pstuart »

ethbr1 wrote: post #187
pstuart wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. But many others are, and they can have an impact on your life even if you never logged in.

The tyranny of democracy is that you only need to influence the most susceptible 50%+1.

So far it seems to be the least-worst option. I wish there was a way to enable a citizen to vote their choice but do so in at least a reasonably informed way.
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