21–30 of 527 posts
Weird that an outspoken free speech advocate like Mark Zuckerberg would want to limit the speech of his employees.
I think the point is that employees that are taking advantage of free speech within the workplace are forcing others into the debate unwillingly, and this is causing strife and resentment. I applaud the move.
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?
If you work for a large social network with huge social responsibilities, discussions about ethics ought to be unavoidable, in my opinion. If you're writing accounting software for paper suppliers or something equally banal with few ethical implications, then sure, there's no need (and less reason) to have water cooler conversations about pro-genocide agitprop or whatever. EDIT to add that of course not all departmen…
The problem is distinguishing ethics from politics. These are very hard to disentangle, because ethical values are usually based on some political orientation. And I don't want Facebook to be making political decisions on my behalf, as a user. And I don't even want internal employee discussions to be derailed by political considerations.
So how do you distinguish ethics from politics? I don't think it's possible, unless the company defines its own ethical values, a priori, and only considers those when making decisions.
If you read the article, I think that this is precisely what Facebook's new policy is trying to do by putting a fence around "social issues."
I've made attempts to reach out to some of my old friends there on the T&S team in light of some evidence really blatant Russian agitprop thriving and finding an audience there. Between this and the Zhang memo, however, it looks quite doubtful that I'd be able to do much more than reconnect and share a rather depressing lunch as they explain that their hands are tied because of executive will. The IRA and/or its succ…
If we were to discuss politics at work at any length we would be at immediate risk of losing valuable people. We all pretty much know where we stand on politics, and it is not together. And many of us feel very strongly about our irreconcilable positions. But by carefully not talking about them (or engaging when someone less in tune starts) we get along just fine. That's not official policy but it is a good one.
How about bringing the same rules to the wider FB? I just want to look at baby pictures and connect with friends. I don't want to be part of a machinery that spreads misinformation and conspiracy theories.
I can't see how that is even possible at this point. You'd have to remove groups, pages, public profiles, and sharing, which would wreck the advertising and revenue ecosystem. Or, come up with magical AI which could detect politics/memes/disinformation and remove it instantly after it's been posted.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you work for a large social network with huge social responsibilities, discussions about ethics ought to be unavoidable, in my opinion. If you're writing accounting software for paper suppliers or something equally banal with few ethical implications, then sure, there's no need (and less reason) to have water cooler conversations about pro-genocide agitprop or whatever. EDIT to add that of course not all departmen…
> If you work ... with huge social responsibilities, discussions about ethics ought to be unavoidable, in my opinion. The problem is distinguishing ethics from politics . These are very hard to disentangle, because ethical values are usually based on some political orientation. And I don't want Facebook to be making political decisions on my behalf, as a user. And I don't even want internal employee discussions to be…
Are you sure that isn't exactly backwards? Because it definitely should be the other direction in my very strong opinion. One's morals or beliefs on ethics should inform their politics, not the other way around.
One way is based around a person's inner being, the other is molding their being and stances based on a sports team.
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've made attempts to reach out to some of my old friends there on the T&S team in light of some evidence really blatant Russian agitprop thriving and finding an audience there. Between this and the Zhang memo, however, it looks quite doubtful that I'd be able to do much more than reconnect and share a rather depressing lunch as they explain that their hands are tied because of executive will. The IRA and/or its succ…
How terrifying that sneaky Russians are able to effect arbitrary social change by just throwing $100k of FB ads at the problem! I thought I was a moderately intelligent and well-informed person, but after reading your comment, I now understand that no amount of reason or self-awareness can protect me from miniscule amounts of ad spend by foreign spies.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can't see how that is even possible at this point. You'd have to remove groups, pages, public profiles, and sharing, which would wreck the advertising and revenue ecosystem. Or, come up with magical AI which could detect politics/memes/disinformation and remove it instantly after it's been posted.
I’m sure they could develop a classifier that would catch most (~90%) of political content, and make it opt-in - if people want to see it they can, but it could be hidden by default. This would be my preferred approach, so that I can use it for connecting with people but avoid listening to everyone’s political outrage.
I bet a simple keyword filter for names of politicians could catch 90%.
I wonder if people would pay for it?
How about bringing the same rules to the wider FB? I just want to look at baby pictures and connect with friends. I don't want to be part of a machinery that spreads misinformation and conspiracy theories.
Right, because all societal issues will just go away if we close our eyes and ignore them.