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Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative about Meta

thetimes.com

411–420 of 615 posts

Re: Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative about Meta

#411
post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you work in or closely follow the tech world? I read this book thinking that it'll be some expose but honestly it was underwhelming in a sense, it's almost better than I thought. Everything in the book either was obvious for anyone who worked in the industry, or better than I thought it'd be. There were some weird personal things about Zuckerberg, but even those were expected or given. It was an OK read, however a…

normalizing toxic as standard industry practice is sort of like condoning it, imo

That's a strange outlook. How often do you still get shocked that a politician lied? Do you cultivate the surprise effect by fear of feeling complicit if your reaction instead is "what else is new?"

Re: Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative about Meta

#412
post #4

I'm going to place an order for the book right now. I encourage you all to do the same. We the people hold the power to keep in check the immoral companies, governments, and other unscrupulous entities that would exploit the collective to enrich the few. And ultimately that's through our money and how we spend it. Screw Meta and their anti-human business model.

Its an entertaining read, much more gripping than I was expecting. I assumed it would just be a dirt dishing exercise, combined with self aggrandising horse shit (ie Frances Haugen)

But actually its a good story.

One thing to note, all meta employees who are "let go" with any kind of severance has the same clause. They are all basically given a bunch of cash and told "we'll recover this as a debt if you bad mouth us"

Which goes against the "freedom of expression" shit the Zuck espouses.

Re: Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative about Meta

#413
post #23

Having listened to the book on Audible, I'm both shocked at the behavior of the executive team, and not surprised all at the same time. What bothers me about all of this is what it says about us. It says we're willing to give rich and powerful people a pass just because they make overtures towards something we care about. We wouldn't give our children a pass like this, nor would we teach our children to act this way,…

What it would be terrific is that people that have access to Sheryl Sandberg in public repeteadly ask her: "Do you still invite your employees to sleep on your private jet's bed?" as reminder about how fucked up her mind and demands are.

Same should be applied to the other nasty members of Zuck's inner past/present circle.

My inner guts tell me that all these freaks just try out these out of place demands to see if people without their money and power would actually knee and say "yes" to every request that comes out of their mouth.

Re: Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative about Meta

#414
post #23

Having listened to the book on Audible, I'm both shocked at the behavior of the executive team, and not surprised all at the same time. What bothers me about all of this is what it says about us. It says we're willing to give rich and powerful people a pass just because they make overtures towards something we care about. We wouldn't give our children a pass like this, nor would we teach our children to act this way,…

>We wouldn't give our children a pass like this, nor would we teach our children to act this way

Where do you live where this is the case? I'd love to move there!

Re: Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative about Meta

#415
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I guess I just don’t understand contracts and laws. What's to understand? Person agrees to thing. Person is held to thing.

And yet it’s not even that simple. Contracts can be invalidated. Other countries have fairness doctrines with allow/disallow lists of things that can be included in contracts. There are other ways.

The US has limits on contracts as well, and courts can and will invalidate clauses or entire contracts for a variety of reasons. Read any of your terms and conditions, there is almost always a clause in there saying that if a clause is found to be unenforceable, you agree that the rest of the contract is still valid. The bar is a lot lower in the states, but it’s still there.

E.g. You can sign a contract to work for less than minimum wage, it will be entirely thrown out in court.

Re: Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative about Meta

#416
post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

normalizing toxic as standard industry practice is sort of like condoning it, imo

It's like saying "Today's big companies follow lots of dark patterns such as forcing customers to call them to close their accounts, which became a standard practice in banks, SaaS and other businesses." It's an observation, nothing more than that.

You posed it as an observation only known to insiders of the industry. This book was targeted to the general public. By saying 'its no big deal' to anyone who thinks it is, you are are saying that those in the industry are normalized to it, and that the normalization should be the status quo. Like working in a factory farm slaughterhouse and saying everyone should be normalized to the suffering that goes on in there, instead of trying to change it.

Re: Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative about Meta

#417

Are we shocked that a private entity, when given control of the public square, is using it's position to manipulate the discourse that goes in it's square? You think the quadspillion dollar megacorp is just going to let you criticize them? The naivety in tech is downright embarrassing sometimes. This isn't the 90s or even the 2010s, we should know the lay of the land by now

No one said they were surprised. It's good to get documentation.

Re: Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative about Meta

#418
post #250
post #23

Having listened to the book on Audible, I'm both shocked at the behavior of the executive team, and not surprised all at the same time. What bothers me about all of this is what it says about us. It says we're willing to give rich and powerful people a pass just because they make overtures towards something we care about. We wouldn't give our children a pass like this, nor would we teach our children to act this way,…

Yes, all of this happens (and worse!) and still no boycott of Facebook. We have been turned into a country of dopamine deficient addicts. And now these same companies are funding a useless war, killing innocent children, and soon, collapsing the world economy. If you still use these platforms knowing what we know now you are just as complicit as every executive. https://www.resistandunsubscribe.com/

On the other side of every "useless war" is the what if question. Killing Hitler before WWII would have been seen as a cruel interference with German sovereignty.

Anyway it would be wise not to tie social network corporate affairs to the war. The two are not linked in a more significant way than a social network in general being linked to such affairs as a media.

Re: Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative about Meta

#419
post #4

I'm going to place an order for the book right now. I encourage you all to do the same. We the people hold the power to keep in check the immoral companies, governments, and other unscrupulous entities that would exploit the collective to enrich the few. And ultimately that's through our money and how we spend it. Screw Meta and their anti-human business model.

Just be aware that the author really doesn't get much of the money you're spending. The publisher takes a sizable chunk, as does Amazon if you ordered from there.
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