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How 'Careless People' is becoming a bigger problem for Meta

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Re: How 'Careless People' is becoming a bigger problem for Meta

#31

Post by LinuxBender »

piva00 wrote: post #25
LinuxBender wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's more of a meme though in fairness multiple things can be simultaneously true. The original purpose was to gather data from people and map who is friends with who. A live diary so to speak. It's original name was LifeLog. Think tanks said it was too on the nose so they cancelled it and shortly thereafter Zuk was on the news announcing TheFaceBook. [1] Most of these platforms came out of and were indirectly fund…

As far as I know there was an earlier project called "Hot or Not" where Zuck and some others scraped Harvard's students roster to build.

It happened but it's not why Facebook was created. FB was a government project. I would call Hot or Not a side project.

Re: How 'Careless People' is becoming a bigger problem for Meta

#32

Post by skmurphy »

these are paragraph 14 and 15 of 16; I think this is called "burying the lede."

I was surprised to see that Facebook cofounder Dustin Moskovitz, who has historically shied away from openly criticizing the company that made him a billionaire, endorses the book. Brooke Oberwetter, a former Facebook policy manager whose time at the company overlapped with the period Wynn-Williams writes about, also recommends it.

“I can’t fact check the whole book (and neither can anyone else), but I can say that the meetings and events I was a part of that are recounted in the book (and things that were relayed to me by others contemporaneously) are accurately represented,” she writes on LinkedIn. “Maybe more importantly, the vibe she captured is spot on. It was just all so juvenile.”

Re: How 'Careless People' is becoming a bigger problem for Meta

#33

Post by hello_computer »

LinuxBender wrote: post #21
kmeisthax wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To steal/paraphrase from Cory Doctorow: "Facebook started as a website to nonconsensually rate the fuckability of Harvard graduates, and it only got worse from there."

That's more of a meme though in fairness multiple things can be simultaneously true. The original purpose was to gather data from people and map who is friends with who. A live diary so to speak. It's original name was LifeLog. Think tanks said it was too on the nose so they cancelled it and shortly thereafter Zuk was on the news announcing TheFaceBook. [1] Most of these platforms came out of and were indirectly fund…

Thank you LinuxBender for being a player character.

Re: How 'Careless People' is becoming a bigger problem for Meta

#34

Post by CaffeineLD50 »

williamstein wrote: post #23
this_user wrote: post #5

Meta is probably the only large tech company where we would be better off if they had never existed. Or, at the very least, it nothing of value would be lost.

They have open sourced a lot of valuable code.

I've noticed that too. But it would have happened sooner or later by someone

And drug lords have built soccer fields for the poor and dictators made freeways and cheap cars and rockets

I'd say FBs semi open source (not fully unrestricted iirc) was less unique or inevitable that the good actions of other notable evil organizations

Re: How 'Careless People' is becoming a bigger problem for Meta

#35

Post by sometimes_all »

vineyardmike wrote: post #17

I think the last sentence of the book review hits the narrative here well: > Ultimately, Careless People is a test for how you feel about Meta. For many, it only reaffirms the belief that the company’s leaders are ruthless, immoral capitalists. For others, it’s a hit job that bends reality to enforce a familiar narrative. I wish it challenged both sides. As always, the author has a vested interest in promoting the bo…

I agree on the part of people criticizing when convenient; I had the same thought when watching "The Social Dilemma" on Netflix.

I read Careless People, and if I was in the author's shoes and if what she says was accurate, I would've run away screaming within my first two years. The fact that she portrays herself as morally upstanding, and yet stayed so long even after seeing some truly reprehensible stuff is difficult to digest, and I do think that there were many signs that she knew she had neither the power or the means to actually make the changes she says she was seeking. She also makes excuses that she wasn't paid as much in her initial days because she didn't know about stock compensation and she just took the first offer they gave, but that rings a bit hollow to me, because that difference would've been amended within a few years, once she got promoted and figured out the general compensation range at Meta. Also it's not like she didn't have career options outside of Meta.

While the hypocrisy grinds me, I still feel that getting these stories out is important; morally upstanding people who quit early will not likely see and experience the full extent of the bad stuff companies do, and people who participate but stay quiet will not bring the bad stuff out in the open.

Re: How 'Careless People' is becoming a bigger problem for Meta

#36

Post by sunflowerfly »

denvaar wrote: post #6
this_user wrote: post #5

Meta is probably the only large tech company where we would be better off if they had never existed. Or, at the very least, it nothing of value would be lost.

FB Marketplace, but that's about it. Even that is a hot bed for people like bike thieves.

FB marketplace is a terrible market. It does not allow exact searches. It forces scrolling hundreds of ads in the hope of finding what I need. Even Craigslist had (has?) far better searching. If you do something crazy like sort by distance half the ads disappear. It is full of scam ads (I have given up trying to buy used phones, for example). Sadly I am forced to use it because that is where all the local person-to-person selling happens.

Re: How 'Careless People' is becoming a bigger problem for Meta

#37

Post by blackqueeriroh »

kbelder wrote: post #24
this_user wrote: post #5

Meta is probably the only large tech company where we would be better off if they had never existed. Or, at the very least, it nothing of value would be lost.

I think Twitter (and to a lesser degree its derivatives like bluesky, threads, etc) did far more harm than Facebook. It played a major part in ruining journalism and politics to a degree that far outshadows any other social media platform.

Absolutely not. Facebook did far more damage than Twitter ever did.

Re: How 'Careless People' is becoming a bigger problem for Meta

#38

Post by soraminazuki »

quantified wrote: post #7
this_user wrote: post #5

Meta is probably the only large tech company where we would be better off if they had never existed. Or, at the very least, it nothing of value would be lost.

Could have very well lived without twitter too. It's not like everyone was aching for it before it existed.

Or just social media in general. Even Mastodon is full of toxic people. There's probably something about social media style timelines that brings the worst out of people.

Re: How 'Careless People' is becoming a bigger problem for Meta

#39

Post by [deleted] »

kmeisthax wrote: post #4
hello_computer wrote: post #3

“Lost Idealism” my ass. Everyone with two brain cells knew what zuck was from square-one. Play with the devil, get burned.

To steal/paraphrase from Cory Doctorow: "Facebook started as a website to nonconsensually rate the fuckability of Harvard graduates, and it only got worse from there."

[deleted]

Re: How 'Careless People' is becoming a bigger problem for Meta

#40

Post by soraminazuki »

LinuxBender wrote: post #21
kmeisthax wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To steal/paraphrase from Cory Doctorow: "Facebook started as a website to nonconsensually rate the fuckability of Harvard graduates, and it only got worse from there."

That's more of a meme though in fairness multiple things can be simultaneously true. The original purpose was to gather data from people and map who is friends with who. A live diary so to speak. It's original name was LifeLog. Think tanks said it was too on the nose so they cancelled it and shortly thereafter Zuk was on the news announcing TheFaceBook. [1] Most of these platforms came out of and were indirectly fund…

That's a distinction without a difference whatsoever. It's the same man doing the same things.
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