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Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

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351–360 of 699 posts

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#351
> We're committed to doing the best work we can, but at some level the right body to assess tradeoffs between social equities is our democratically elected Congress. For example, what is the right age for teens to be able to use internet services? How should internet services verify people's ages? And how should companies balance teens' privacy while giving parents visibility into their activity?

Oh fuck, here we go. This asshole is going to be the death of so many good things if we're not careful. Let's flip the questions a bit.

How should internet services verify people are teaching their children how to be adults properly?

Try that one on for size Mr. Zuckerburg.

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#352

With the caveat that I don’t know much about Facebook’s research projects… the question “If we wanted to ignore research, why would we create an industry-leading research program to understand these important issues in the first place?” sets alarm bells ringing for me—because I can imagine a cigarette company saying the same thing about the scientists they hired to argue that smoking isn’t so bad after all, or an oil…

Google handled this in the right way: fire researchers who are clearly pursuing anti-company agendas, always. It's worse to pretend to support research (or "research", which TBH is what most of the anti-AI shite at Google was, bad actors working with external groups to "take down" big tech, funnel docs to DSA, etc) that hurts you than it is to just stop pretending you care what a bunch of hard-left extremist assholes think.

Facebook has a tough problem, though, because a lot of their criticism is not just one wing of loonies, it's from every direction including normal sane people, and a lot of them agree with each other for once. I don't think they're breaking any laws, but I don't doubt someone will invent a shady case or charge them under a new law just because everyone hates Zuck. Not sure how you dodge that.

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if I fully agree with that argument. With the US being a superpower, the stakes are high and this invites unique foreign influence via social media. That foreign influence could be state coordinated or just come from regular people who have an emotional stake in US politics. I've seen it myself, outside of the US people are more concerned about US politics than their own and engage with it on social media wh…

This is the kind of conspiratorial thinking that makes me think we're in a moral panic here.

>conspiratorial thinking

I wasn't aware there was any question that foreign groups (state supported or otherwise) actively coordinate on Facebook to influence US political campaigns.

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#354

Honestly am I the only one that doesn’t think that Facebook is that bad? Some of those points that he makes really should make you stop and think.

Honestly, agreed.. Well to start, Facebook is neither good or nor bad - it is not a person and does not have morality. The human mind is not really capable of dealing with an abstract entity such as a corporation so we anthropomorphize the large mess of people, software, and hardware presenting us a little app on our phones as imbued with a personality and morality. Then we debate whether this mess, which has Zuch's…

> people rely on Messenger and especially WhatApp for communication, artists rely on Instagram for inspiration and social outreach

Great. Zuckerberg also bullied the Instagram co-founders out of the company, ditto Whatsapp, and they've routinely lied about both

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#355
post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No that's of girls who have thoughts of suicide, 13.5% say it makes it worse. Ok, is that good or bad? The number is meaningless without a control.

One person having one more thought of suicide is too many. So no number - other than zero - is "meaningless". If Facebook made money doing something they knew there was a non-zero risk of pushing even one person to suicide, they are a sociopathic organization.

While we're at it, we should start tearing down any large or particularly beautiful bridges and condemning their architects and engineers, there's a ton of researching showing how those things increase suicides.

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#356

The quality of this comment section is like Facebook or Reddit level. Practically no deep discussion of the actual topic at hand just dunks on Zuck.

Why would anybody defend Zuck or Facebook? He hired the political activist that leaked all these documents, knowingly and expected a different result? Just like Google, these corporations don't seem to learn their lessons and act surprised when these activist employees betray them?

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#357
post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This happened at a company I was at. Hyper-growth startup, huge aura around it. A few high-level folks arrived whose perfection in smooth talking was rivaled only by their enjoyment of wreaking havoc on teams & relationships. They brought in their friends, paranoia and rumors spread, culture went off a cliff, CEO was confused what happened. Mass exodus followed.

How do you filter against hiring these types given their talking and schmoozing get them over the HR guard as well as director and above interviewers?

How I find them is in their speech. They come across as extremely insincere and "out" themselves by how they talk to either the interviewer(focus alot on themselves) or someone they believe is beneath them(dismissive). If you are a gatekeeper for their employment or something they need expect flattery and overly kind words. If you are no longer that gatekeeper expect to never hear from them again or abuse. Also this type tends to lie alot, thats usually how they do get canned.

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#358
post #34

> Now that today's testimony is over, I wanted to reflect on the public debate we're in. I'm sure many of you have found the recent coverage hard to read because it just doesn't reflect the company we know. Yeah, we know you don't know, because you're looking at it from on top of a mountain of 100 billion dollars, Mark. There isn't a single damned thing that can change your picture of it being the absolute greatest t…

> I'm sick of billionaires with megaphones blaring their virtues As a society, the US has shifted its values from intellectually sound principles, to what ever rich people shout out. I vomit in my mouth when I see videos of people showing currency, of people talking to you about "doing the hustle", etc etc. US has fallen into an abyss of moral decline, where the value of your words are directly proportional to the am…

Worthington's Law in action. More Money == Better Than.

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#359
post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No that's of girls who have thoughts of suicide, 13.5% say it makes it worse. Ok, is that good or bad? The number is meaningless without a control.

One person having one more thought of suicide is too many. So no number - other than zero - is "meaningless". If Facebook made money doing something they knew there was a non-zero risk of pushing even one person to suicide, they are a sociopathic organization.

[flagged]

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#360
post #68

I'm having a hard time reconciling all this right now. On the one hand, from the outside, I can see the actions that Facebook takes and they seem awfully guilty of what they are accused of. But on the other hand, I personally know and have previously worked with some of the people who work on trust and safety, specifically for kids. Good people who have kids of their own and who care about protecting people, especial…

I've been framing this whole thing as a universal property of human society and it seems to fit pretty well for me. Outrage attracts attention in all group interactions. I can't think of a single large scale group forum where this isn't true. It's integral to an absurd degree in our news cycle. Howard Stern exploited this property in his rise to fame. It's a core element in state propaganda, well documented throughou…

We used to solve this problem by teaching people to have thicker skin so that we control the outrage regardless of the forum in which it occurs.

However for the last 10 years or so grievance culture has taken root and not only excused outrage, its proponents have actively encouraged it.

It makes me think of that scene in Star Wars where palpating is like “good, good. Let the hate flow through you”, expect we now have millions of people encouraging this.

How I wish we could rewind things to a world where foregiveness was still a virtue and we were all taught that sticks and stones may break our bones but words will never hurt us. Without such virtues, a world with outrage is inevitable.

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