Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Facebook paid Republican strategy firm to malign TikTok

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 324 posts

Re: Facebook paid Republican strategy firm to malign TikTok

#311

Post by sirspacey »

Melatonic wrote: post #284
ardit33 wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Engineering wage raises during 2010-2014 are a huge part due to Facebook back then entering a biding war for talent, which google had to counter which raised comps for everyone. Also, after 2015 you had more companies hitting the fray (Uber, Airbnb, etc). If it wasn't for Facebook, the compensation industry wise would look something like MSFT's comp (pretty low in general). So, for one thing, Meta / Facebook has…

I was not commenting on that - more on Facebook's business practices in general. As for Silicon Valley collusion re: wages in my opinion the agreement that George Lucas / Steve Jobs / Ed Catmull / Others made in the late 90s / early 2000s to screw over tech workers and specifically VFX workers (they were afraid of a VFX union) was worse and flys under the radar way more than it should. VFX workers to this day continu…

I’m still blown away how true this is, especially given how overwhelmingly vital VFX is to film & TV revenue now - Star Wars, MCU.

Re: Facebook paid Republican strategy firm to malign TikTok

#312

Post by jessaustin »

michaelmrose wrote: post #307
jessaustin wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing in Russia is in any sense a "great threat to Western society".

They have recently threatened to murder all of western society with nuclear weapons should it choose to intercede to prevent the mass murder they are presently perpetrating upon the old folks women and children of one of their neighbors while discussing the possibility of perpetrating further mass murders against its other neighbors. The only saving grace is that this is probably but not certainly a bluff.

I don't think anyone on my TV really believes that nuclear war is a thing that can happen? If they thought it could happen, surely they wouldn't constantly argue for escalating conflict? Surely they don't really want to melt everyone's children? That seems very antisocial?!

Ukraine is not part of "western society". Numerous Western politicians have had off-mic moments in which they admitted that dangling NATO membership was only ever meant to bait Ukraine and Russia into a ruinous proxy war. Which has now occurred.

Re: Facebook paid Republican strategy firm to malign TikTok

#313

Post by TheRealNGenius »

j16sdiz wrote: post #198
numair wrote: post #193

In case you think this is some esoteric issue involving kids’ stuff — keep in mind that the founder of TikTok was one of the most balanced voices within China, who argued that the country needed to engage with the West in a healthier manner. Zuckerberg et al and their incessant lobbying for that TikTok ban basically vaporized that guy’s pull within China, which eliminated a super-valuable asset for the West. So, yeah…

> one of the most balanced voices within China Except TikTok, like Facebook, is not available in China. The 抖音 platform cannot see posts from tiktok.

They're talking about the founder. You'd know this if your reading comprehension skills were up to par with your knowledge of what country TikTok isn't in. Otherwise, that tidbit is tangential at best, and doesn't provide any evidence to the contrary of the quoted claim.

Re: Facebook paid Republican strategy firm to malign TikTok

#314

Post by TheKarateKid »

Melatonic wrote: post #284
ardit33 wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Engineering wage raises during 2010-2014 are a huge part due to Facebook back then entering a biding war for talent, which google had to counter which raised comps for everyone. Also, after 2015 you had more companies hitting the fray (Uber, Airbnb, etc). If it wasn't for Facebook, the compensation industry wise would look something like MSFT's comp (pretty low in general). So, for one thing, Meta / Facebook has…

I was not commenting on that - more on Facebook's business practices in general. As for Silicon Valley collusion re: wages in my opinion the agreement that George Lucas / Steve Jobs / Ed Catmull / Others made in the late 90s / early 2000s to screw over tech workers and specifically VFX workers (they were afraid of a VFX union) was worse and flys under the radar way more than it should. VFX workers to this day continu…

It was a combination of both the lawsuit and Facebook. Had the lawsuit happened without Facebook bidding for top talent, it would've taken decades for compensation to rise to the rate they are now because there was no other company able or willing to attract top talent away from Google, Apple, etc.

Right now, the same thing is happening thanks to Amazon. They're having a hard time hiring SWE's due to the terrible reputation, so they've increased their compensation sharply to attract talent. Facebook followed suit since they are also finding it difficult due to its horrible public perception right now.

The result is that other major tech players are upping their compensation to continue to compete for top talent. It's wonderful.

Re: Facebook paid Republican strategy firm to malign TikTok

#316

Post by AbrahamParangi »

The “maligning” is true though. TikTok should be banned in the US because everything that people hate about Facebook (unaccountable, society warping) is also true of TikTok in addition to being controlled by an adversarial state. It is a strictly worse problem.

Imagine if most papers or news channels in the US were controlled by a single, foreign, adversarial country. That’s what TikTok is for gen z.

Re: Facebook paid Republican strategy firm to malign TikTok

#317

Post by [deleted] »

kylevedder wrote: post #226
mechanical_bear wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> smaller labor force you are willing to hire and a lower quality one. The first part is true. The second is a leap, plenty of high quality talent actively chooses to not work at FB, or happens to not work there. By not selecting from the former FB pool I have not lowered the overall quality of my labor pool. I have increased the integrity standards though.

Given the nebulous notion of a set of high quality talent (assume quality is a scalar and they're the people above a given threshold), it's pretty clear that: len(set(high quality talent) - set(ever employed at facebook)) Note that "refuses to work at facebook" doesn't select for engineering talent, while "ever employed at facebook" explicitly does, meaning the average talent in the set containing facebook employees…

[deleted]

Re: Facebook paid Republican strategy firm to malign TikTok

#318

Post by boc »

bllguo wrote: post #278
boc wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US hasn't changed - it's always been a country of crazy people and smart people and zealots and honest, hard working folks. There's no such thing as our "true face" - American was populated by the radicals and risk-takers from other, older societies. We've always been a nation of slightly insane people.

Absurd, of course there is a "true face." Whether the country has stayed the same or not has nothing to do with it, this is a discussion about how the US is perceived internationally. We have been flooding the rest of the world with its messaging and cultural exports for decades. In many places, China included, people genuinely looked up to the US. That has changed meaningfully across the globe.

Respectfully, Americans don't care at all what other countries think of America.

China had their chance to challenge America in the 21st Century, but they threw it away the moment Xi became too obsessed with his own power and ambitions. The focus on building a Han ethnostate is costing them dearly, both in the eyes of the world and in terms of population growth. Without immigration, China's demographic window is closing rapidly and they will grow old before they grow rich.

Re: Facebook paid Republican strategy firm to malign TikTok

#319

Post by croon »

yunohn wrote: post #99
croon wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying the concept isn't real, I'm just generally skeptical of prescriptive statements such as GGP. There are plenty of things happening around me that influence me, like kind gestures big or small, the birth of my children, learning about things (that are verifiable), which I can assure you are not staged or driven by someone.

> There are plenty of things happening around me that influence me You’re being really pedantic with those examples - obviously, they weren’t talking about events like the “birth of a child”…

I understand the context, but I was questioning the OP:s use of "anything", so I don't think I'm being pedantic. They could've just as easily said "any news around you", or whatever they felt they meant.

If I expand OP's statement, I'm a bit troubled by the (purposeful) spreading erosion of trust in society. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot to distrust, especially now, but when you blanketly start distrusting everything, the trustworthy lose and the unscrupulous win. Further, you yourself lose.

TL;DR: trust but verify > distrust and don't verify. We might recognize that verification is the only relevant conditional, but I think it's safe to say that it's not what's being generally applied when it comes to media consumption.

Re: Facebook paid Republican strategy firm to malign TikTok

#320

Post by michaelmrose »

jessaustin wrote: post #312
michaelmrose wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have recently threatened to murder all of western society with nuclear weapons should it choose to intercede to prevent the mass murder they are presently perpetrating upon the old folks women and children of one of their neighbors while discussing the possibility of perpetrating further mass murders against its other neighbors. The only saving grace is that this is probably but not certainly a bluff.

I don't think anyone on my TV really believes that nuclear war is a thing that can happen? If they thought it could happen, surely they wouldn't constantly argue for escalating conflict? Surely they don't really want to melt everyone's children? That seems very antisocial?! Ukraine is not part of "western society". Numerous Western politicians have had off-mic moments in which they admitted that dangling NATO members…

> Numerous Western politicians have had off-mic moments in which they admitted that dangling NATO membership was only ever meant to bait Ukraine and Russia into a ruinous proxy war. Which has now occurred.

Please don't spread conspiracy theories.

Post reply on HN