Zuckerberg has been very principled on free speech and Facebook and society as a whole is better for it. I hope this FB employee is replaced with someone more grounded on liberal ideals of free speech, tolerance and openness.
I'm resigning from my job at Facebook
341–350 of 493 posts
Re: I'm resigning from my job at Facebook
#342Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well to start forums are a self selecting group of like minded individuals. To be an active member usually requires thought and care, intelligence and skills such as reading comprehension and critical thinking... Oh, and the whole system isnt built to game your senses in order to mine minute data points about you that is then sold to companies who then masquerade their content as ads all while pretending that they're…
Beyond ads, everything I interact with on social media is through choice. I'm aware of how targeted advertising works: it reminds me of seeing toy adverts between children's TV shows. Thank you for the life coaching.
Oh, sorry. I didnt realize you are super-duper smart. Maybe because your posts are anything but... Or maybe you're just being sarcastic and just not a very good writer... Either way, thanks for contributing. It really makes a difference.
Re: I'm resigning from my job at Facebook
#343Zuckerberg has always made it clear to investors and employees that Facebook is not a democracy. Mark is in charge and has full control of the company to do as he pleases when he pleases. When they IPOed he made it clear that’s how the company works. IPO materials made it clear that if you don’t like that don’t invest in it. Not saying I agree with his actions (or inactions) and decisions but he’s been very clear abo…
That's somsething of a sideways argument though. I mean, it's speciously true of any organization that isn't actually a democracy. Google isn't a democracy. Apple isn't a democracy. But most corporate environments act at least a little like democracies anyway. And that's not by choice, it's a darwinian thing. Companies that can't motivate their employees to work towards shared goals don't tend to succeed. And so on s…
Most large corporate environments don’t have the CEO as the sole controlling shareholder in the company.
While CEOs are powerful and have a lot of autonomy on day-to-day decision making they too are generally employees employed at the discretion of the board. The board itself exists and is populated by individuals at the pleasure of a diverse set of shareholders. There’s real accountability. That’s not the case at Facebook. Again not saying that’s good or bad but the model was no secret when people signed on.
Re: I'm resigning from my job at Facebook
#344Earlier quoted context omitted.
I honestly don’t understand how this ignorant of a comment still gets on HN. What y’all are talking about is “The Internet” where all the trash and racist are free to make whatever content they want. What everyone else is talking about is private companies that publish trash based on recommendation engines, timeline visibility algorithms, sharing functions, and whole other bunch of programmed ways to “increase engage…
That IS what it is doing. The content you see on FB is posted by other humans, not by some 'algo' on FB.
That’s not true at all. The content is filtered out according to their algorithms. They ditched the “see everything your friends are doing” feed a long time ago. Even the group and friend suggestions are tailored.
https://about.fb.com/news/2018/01/news-feed-fyi-bringing-peo...
Re: I'm resigning from my job at Facebook
#345I don't understand why doesn't Facebook just: -Allow all posts -Allow users to customize what they want to see (e.g. "dont show me posts that glorify violence" or "only allow covid posts that match WHO guidelines" or "allow exceptions from political figures or of historical significance") and allow users to ban hide posts that are found untruthful by third parties (snopes, etc). To me effectively everyone wins. Faceb…
> I don't understand why doesn't Facebook just: -Allow all posts [...] To me effectively everyone wins. "Everyone", including racists, terrorists, drug cartels, human smugglers, child pornographers, scammers, phishers, hackers, gun nuts, anarchists... I know you say you'd be fine with all that stuff, but if I write long enough I'll find something you're not OK with. And everyone else has a different something. Findin…
A public forum can also be common ground to disagree on.
Re: I'm resigning from my job at Facebook
#346Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not about users being outraged about what they can read. "Those other people are idiots and will kill us all without some rules" is a basic human conceit. These people calling for censorship on Facebook don't want to see that stuff, sure, but way more importantly they want FB to censor so that other people CAN'T read that stuff. They think that if they shout loud enough, they will get to decide what other, more…
>The correct answer to people being wrong is education, never censorship. What do you do when people reject education itself as a matter of course or principle? Or can only view such attempts defensively, see them as patronizing at best, and so radicalize further as a result? Heck, even "this post is misleading" approaches, which leave the original content intact, are seen by some as a form of censorship (and definit…
> What do you do when people reject education itself as a matter of course or principle?
Shrug. Sometimes the wrong choices of others can't be helped.
> Fundamentally, if misinformation is more appealing and attractive than truths, how far can educational approaches go?
Well, based on approximately the last 1000 years of history, considering that we have an orbiting science lab 400km above the Earth and outdated superstitions seem to be waning worldwide, I would venture a preliminary guess that in the long run, truth will win out.
All of the other times we tried mass censorship, it ended very poorly, with millions upon millions of deaths.
Trust in your fellow human beings. You can't have a society without trust. Most people are not malicious, nor are they exceedingly dumb. Let people read.
If you're worried about people not knowing the things they need to know, or being mislead by wrong or bad information, I encourage you to write a book, or make a website. Hell, I'll even help you set it up, for free, if you need assistance doing so.
Re: I'm resigning from my job at Facebook
#347250 comments in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23394671
seems like there is more discussion here though :/
Re: I'm resigning from my job at Facebook
#348I respect the moral stance he took, though that this is a public open letter is a little self-serving (but even with that quitting a well-paying job in the midst of a pandemic and a huge recession is not easy). I disagree wholeheartedly with his position that Facebook should be wading into politics and interpreting Trump's tweets and posts because with Trump (and even politics in general) everything is in the eye of…
It may be self-serving but it may also be targeted to other Facebook employees and recruits or to the general FB-using public to let folks know how dire and complete their complicity with things is. As someone who is repeatedly contacted by FAANG recruiters, I can tell you there are two of them I keep asking hard questions about company culture and role in society. They stop responding, then a different recruiter rea…
>It may be self-serving but it may also be targeted to other Facebook employees and recruits or to the general FB-using public to let folks know how dire and complete their complicity with things is.
Fair enough and I do consider his action to be a moral stance that took courage to make. And I certainly respect your decision to not work for these companies.
Having said that, I think you are way overstating how bad FB or Twitter or Google is (I wasn't sure which two companies you were talking about). And I say that because I look at the full picture of the economy that has, for example, timeshare companies, payday lenders, banks and credit card companies, casinos, alcohol and beer companies, pharmaceuticals (especially with opiates). Products from those companies can have terrible real-world consequences on people that may take decades to rectify, and then when I look at Facebook and the negative things they bring .. Facebook doesn't even rank. I'm sure FB has problems that they need to work on fixing but the hyperbole around them is so outrageously disproportionate, it feels like gaslighting.
Re: I'm resigning from my job at Facebook
#349Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not really a huge stretch, his post on LinkedIn [0] has 200K+ reactions, and it's an understatement to say he'll have no trouble _at all_ getting a job within a few weeks. [0]: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/timothy-j-aveni_blacklivesmat...
You're making the assumption that he knew what the reaction would be. The post could have easily gone ignored, especially in the current turmoil. I agree that software developers have it pretty good. But let's not, on that basis, discount acts of moral integrity.
Not really, given the left bias of technology companies there is zero chance that his act will be ignored by companies. If anything, standing behind free speech is brave nowadays
If nothing works he can probably open a gofundme campaign.
Re: I'm resigning from my job at Facebook
#350Earlier quoted context omitted.
The other people back in your country of origin who didn’t make it because of physical or mental illness, lack of opportunities you may have had, bad turns of fate, etc —- would you not think of them as even less privileged than yourself?
TIL everyone is privileged now - Have two eyes? what about the blind - Can you speak english? What about those that never had the opportunity to learn - Are you alive ? What about those that passed away The judgement never ends
The "logic" behind this concept of privilege as often applied within HN does not add up.
For who has the privilege of judging others privilege and where does it end?