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FB to curb internal debate over sensitive issues amid employee discord

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

#251

Post by iateanapple »

brian_cloutier wrote: post #185
Consultant32452 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a copy/pasta of a previous post of mine, but I feel it's very fitting here. Why would they give up control of the world by doing something silly like that? Think about how much political influence Twitter has based solely on which tweets they show the President and corporate press. Consider how much untraced in-kind donations these companies can make by tweaking which news stories you see. The crazy thing abo…

> Think about how much political influence Twitter has based solely on which tweets they show the President and corporate press. Consider how much untraced in-kind donations these companies can make by tweaking which news stories you see. I hope you take this as kindly as I intend it, but what you're proposing is a conspiracy theory. This is a relatively nice attribute for a theory to have, because it gives you a nic…

> I don't know, I guess it's possible? Maybe you have a better idea for how it could be happening, but it just doesn't seem very likely at all.

I’ve seen this kind of thought pattern a few times and frankly the way you are thinking doesn’t match reality.

I work on a 1000+ person enterprise software project.

Less than 5% of those 1000+ understand our customers requirements and use cases in any real depth. This is despite trying for years to incentivise developers to have a broader understanding of our business.

Within that core 5% most decisions are driven by the 3-5 people who care about the particular area.

So for a 1000 person+ org you would need to corrupt 3-4 people to drive a hidden agenda.

This is for a project not trying to be secretive in any way.

To relate it back to Twitter you would probably need the right 3-4 people to push hard for content moderators to be hired in San Francisco instead of Bangalore in order to push hard left views.

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

#252

Post by sidlls »

jgacook wrote: post #238
sidlls wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterargument: a workplace is, at best, a poor environment in which to advocate for one's political causes. Most people engaged in labor for a company do so because they are not financially independent--that is, they have to in order to simply live. The larger the organization the more likely the employee base will span incompatible political views. Also, very vocal proponents (regardless of what political view the…

1. I agree with you in as far as politicking that has nothing to do with your workplace can be a distraction, but as it pertains to Facebook the politicking is not abstract, but relates directly to Facebook's actions. It might be unacceptable for an employee to use company resources to boost a political candidate: this is not the case here. Facebook is curbing internal criticism of company policy. 2. I think it's dis…

Nobody said anything about “personal rights”. Also, yes, it is a political stance. And one in this context your own comment indicates you have a solution for: don’t work there (at FB). A lot of people don’t have the luxury to pick and choose employers for their political activities: arguably they’re not a position to agitate on the inside, either.

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

#253

Post by jschwartzi »

Thorentis wrote: post #210
mikenew wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because Facebook, by it's nature, is designed to filter content. It turned everyone and everything into a content generator, even down to the level of "Jimmy liked a post by Burger King!". It gives everyone access to this unfathomable ocean of content, and then filters it down to something a person can consume. Some of filtering is based on what the user wants to see, some of it is based on some notion of how "good"…

This is a fair point, but I think the political aspect is an "emergent property" if you will, rather than an inherent one. If Facebook limits the filtering to engagement, then it isn't the fault of Facebook that political content is engaging. That's just human nature. Disasters, outrage, politics, polarizing topics - these are all popular topics both online and off-line, and apread quickly as town gossip well before…

How could it not be the fault of Facebook when Facebook designed the algorithms that are creating all of the divisiveness on Facebook?

If I build a bridge intending it to stay up and it happens to fall down 6 months later, I'm responsible for it. Facebook created an algorithm that divides people politically and that surfaces content that is provably fictional. So they should be held responsible for it regardless of their intent. They don't get to invoke "common carrier" status when they're writing software that makes decisions about what you do or don't see. What makes a telephone a "common carrier" is the fact that the telephone doesn't decide who you call.

It doesn't matter whether it's software or a human. What matters is that decisions are being made by Facebook about what you do or don't see.

Whether or not it is intentional is immaterial to the effect. The law doesn't care about your intent. I wouldn't intentionally dump toxic waste into a river but I'm liable for dumping whether I intended to or not. Mark Zuckerberg can't just throw up his hands and go "oops it's software I can't help it" when it's his company that made all of the decisions about how the software works.

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

#254

Post by csa »

xamuel wrote: post #93
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…

>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…

> Nothing about Facebook's nature forces them to go beyond that and act as de facto language legislators

The ethics of being a/the major institution of mass communication in large parts of the world may not force FB to act as language legislators, but these ethics certainly should compel them to do so.

Relevant points:

- If FB’s status as a mass comms source is threatened, then the company itself is threatened. This threat can be due to a lack in trust in the platform and/or legislation that effectively legislates them out of existence (see below re free speech). This existential issue should compel them to factor language legislation into their corporate policies.

- Stockholders certainly care about FB’s status as a mass comms source even if no one else does.

- Stakeholders obviously care about this, too.

- Relying on governments to regulate mass communications is a Pandora’s box for FB since FB is an international platform.

- In the US, in order to facilitate and encourage free speech, mass comms laws are not particularly restrictive, but they are built on an underlying assumption about social-based regulation that generally hold up but seem to be completely broken with platforms like FB. If FB doesn’t address this issue, then the laws that end up addressing this issue may end up legislating FB out of existence.

To close, whether playing the language legislator is part of FB’s nature, an emergent property, or something else, there are very real reasons that FB has policies on regulating language. Whether they do this well or not is a completely different issue, but putting the onus on government legislators to address the problem with formal laws seems, at best, overly dismissive.

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

#255

Post by ciarannolan »

baby wrote: post #233
ciarannolan wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the question is really about how the internal politics of Facebook work. The question is whether you should devote years of your limited working time and your talent to make the world a worse place to live in (which I think FB almost certainly does).

And I’ll say that you’re entitled to your opinion. If you do think that, then indeed I would not recommend to join. If you are on the verge, like I was, then my advice is to join because you will be surprised to see that it’s not what you thought it was.

It may not be what you think it was internally, but it's negative externalities are there for the world to see.

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

#256

Post by jballer »

throwitawayfb wrote: post #168

I've just been given an offer from Facebook and I have a few days to decide to take the job or not. The ethical implications of what I'm doing are intense. On one hand, a near 400k total comp package is very nice, but on the other hand I don't want to make the world worse off. I think if I could make that kind of money working from home for another company it'd be an easier decision. Unfortunately, I have to play the…

I work at FB. I wouldn’t want to be working alongside people who think I’m a mercenary abdicating my moral precepts. And I wouldn’t expect that of my colleagues. So my guess is that you could get away with it easily, but you‘d be doing a disservice to yourself and your team.

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

#257

Post by claudeganon »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #234
claudeganon wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last time I checked, Walmart doesn’t sell conspiracy theories, stoke political violence, or demonstrably false, targeted advertising. You can muddy things with as many analogies as you like, but it’s quite obvious that Facebook’s engineering staff is closer to my example than yours.

Sorry, I don't mean this to be dismissive, but I don't think I can productively engage with the idea that Facebook is more closely analogous to the Nazi Party than to Walmart. I just wouldn't know where to begin.

My comparison was to IBM, not the Nazi party.

Facebook themselves already admitted that they were used to further a genocide, so your dismissal is somewhat beside the point.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/06/technology/myanmar-facebo...

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

#258

Post by Thorentis »

whateveracct wrote: post #248
Thorentis wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a fair point, but I think the political aspect is an "emergent property" if you will, rather than an inherent one. If Facebook limits the filtering to engagement, then it isn't the fault of Facebook that political content is engaging. That's just human nature. Disasters, outrage, politics, polarizing topics - these are all popular topics both online and off-line, and apread quickly as town gossip well before…

> This is a fair point, but I think the political aspect is an "emergent property" if you will, rather than an inherent one. This is like saying discrimination that gets baked into an ML model isn't the creators' fault imo.

No it isn't. The creator chooses which data to feed in, and which not to. Garbage in, garbage out. If Facebook positions itself as the arbitor of data and actively stops people from posting, then it must take responsibility for what is on the platform. If it simply allows people to sort the data that anybody can post, then any properties of that sorting (whether by likes, or date posted) are emergent.

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

#259

Post by stagehn »

dahart wrote: post #160
ikiris wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love it if there was a difference between the two again.

I think I know what you mean, and me too. But... mandatory diversity training at work is typically very bland, sticks to communicating what the rules are, and is very apolitical compared to forums, employee banter, or stuff you find on the news or Facebook or YouTube. Having been through a bunch of them at several companies, I wouldn't put them in the same camp as 'politics' at all.

It is heavily political since there's no evidence of efficacy. You can see the heterodox academy piece that summarises the available evidence. Since it is not efficacious then I'm forced to conclude that the motive is political and ideological.

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

#260

Post by baby »

ciarannolan wrote: post #255
baby wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I’ll say that you’re entitled to your opinion. If you do think that, then indeed I would not recommend to join. If you are on the verge, like I was, then my advice is to join because you will be surprised to see that it’s not what you thought it was.

It may not be what you think it was internally, but it's negative externalities are there for the world to see.

What about the upsides?
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