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Former Facebook staffers launch Integrity Institute

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Re: Former Facebook staffers launch Integrity Institute

#51

Post by baumy »

camgunz wrote: post #43
debacle wrote: post #6

> Allen left Facebook soon after that for a data scientist job at the Democratic National Committee. So the guy on the election integrity team then takes a job with the DNC. This is called a revolving door. And now, curiously, he is part of the effort to push for more censorship of Facebook. This concerted effort to cow Facebook into censoring their platform more is coming from the RNC, DNC, Congress, and the mainstr…

Do you really disagree that there's way, way too much bad stuff on Facebook and it's had a hugely harmful impact on our society? Or, do you just think we shouldn't do anything about it?

Yes, I disagree with that. Even if I agreed, I'd still think we shouldn't do anything about it.

How much bad stuff is "too much?" Which stuff is "bad"? Who gets to decide? Why should I trust them? Who and what else is influencing them? What happens when the people making those decisions change? Why should I cede the authority to decide which "stuff" I get to see to anyone other than myself?

There are no good answers to any of these questions, and there never will be.

Re: Former Facebook staffers launch Integrity Institute

#52

Post by sinyug »

A few years back, when groups carrying Orwellian names like these[1] started appearing within these massive tech companies, my first thought was: this is a joke, right? But even then it was clear that it was anything but.

Things start making sense if you start looking at these as religious movements and the people initially attracted to it and forming the first inner circles as vicars/priests/imams. You have a Faith. Anyone who rejects the Faith is an infidel. Anyone who questions the tenets of the Faith is a blasphemer. Anyone who leaves it is an apostate. Once the group gains sufficient power, it is in a position to appoint political officers and, through the ability to enforce ideological purity, also determine who runs the organization.

You don't have to refer to fiction to point out parallels -- there are so many real life examples from Communist China to Nazi Germany to Soviet Russia -- but the Night Watch and Ministry of Peace in Babylon 5 is what comes to mind when I look at all the discussion around "integrity" and "misinformation." The greatest power a group can have is the ability to label all opposing views "misinformation" and its opponents "subversives."

[1] Exhibit One: Trust and Safety Council @ Twitter

Re: Former Facebook staffers launch Integrity Institute

#53

Post by baumy »

debacle wrote: post #6

> Allen left Facebook soon after that for a data scientist job at the Democratic National Committee. So the guy on the election integrity team then takes a job with the DNC. This is called a revolving door. And now, curiously, he is part of the effort to push for more censorship of Facebook. This concerted effort to cow Facebook into censoring their platform more is coming from the RNC, DNC, Congress, and the mainstr…

I had the same take away from that founders letter as you did - full of arrogance, as well as very chilling and creepy in my opinion.

Somewhere in this thread one of them is commenting, and made a point to link to that same letter saying how proud he was of it.

Just a complete disconnect.

Re: Former Facebook staffers launch Integrity Institute

#54

Post by colpabar »

TechBro8615 wrote: post #41
debacle wrote: post #6

> Allen left Facebook soon after that for a data scientist job at the Democratic National Committee. So the guy on the election integrity team then takes a job with the DNC. This is called a revolving door. And now, curiously, he is part of the effort to push for more censorship of Facebook. This concerted effort to cow Facebook into censoring their platform more is coming from the RNC, DNC, Congress, and the mainstr…

This is either a Trojan horse or an exercise in self-aggrandizing pomposity. What is this about “not breaking your NDAs” with Facebook? If you had integrity the NDAs wouldn’t matter, because no moral framework is constrained by respecting an arbitrary document drafted by a megacorporation to keep you silent. When your first move is to assuage any fears from your former employer that you might do something as drastic…

The line about the one founder taking a job with the DNC was enough for me, but I'm glad I read until this part because I think it's even more illuminating:

>"Frances is exposing a lot of the knobs in the machine that is a modern social media platform," Massachi said. "Now that people know that those knobs exist, we can start having a conversation about what is the science of how these work, what these knobs do and why you would want to turn them in which direction."

Which I translated to:

>Now that someone else has broken their NDA, we can use our jobs that we are not quitting to make more money.

Re: Former Facebook staffers launch Integrity Institute

#55

Post by colpabar »

camgunz wrote: post #43
debacle wrote: post #6

> Allen left Facebook soon after that for a data scientist job at the Democratic National Committee. So the guy on the election integrity team then takes a job with the DNC. This is called a revolving door. And now, curiously, he is part of the effort to push for more censorship of Facebook. This concerted effort to cow Facebook into censoring their platform more is coming from the RNC, DNC, Congress, and the mainstr…

Do you really disagree that there's way, way too much bad stuff on Facebook and it's had a hugely harmful impact on our society? Or, do you just think we shouldn't do anything about it?

I don't think the comment was about "too much bad stuff on facebook" at all, rather it was about how an actual facebook employee, who now works for the dnc, is forming a group that will advocate for policy that will affect facebook. When this happens in the banking industry, we call it regulatory capture. When it happens in the insurance/healthcare industry, we call it regulatory capture. When a board member of an oil company is appointed head of the epa, we call it regulatory capture. Why is this case any different?

(here's another way of looking at it: if the guy was hired as a "data scientist" by the republicans, wouldn't you question his motives?)

Re: Former Facebook staffers launch Integrity Institute

#56

Post by strulovich »

tedivm wrote: post #44
strulovich wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it’s a linguistic issue. You’re lumping integrity as “do people abuse our system” with “does person A follow the same morals as me”. Specifically, looks like your morals are that products that are free in exchange for anonymously analyzing your data are immoral. (Remember: Onavo gave free VPN to users) It’s a reasonable position to take, but it’s unclear it’s necessarily true and that everyone who doesn’t agree wi…

This is part of the problem with talking with Facebook engineers. Most of society is against spyware. It's not a controversial topic- spyware is pretty frowned upon. Spying on people does, to most people, show a lack of integrity. So does much of the other actions Facebook has taken and which are now coming out in these leaks. If you bring this up with Facebook engineers it turns into a "linguistic" issue. You're tol…

I’m sorry if my tone is not coming across as I intended.

I think there’s plenty of arguments to be made against Facebook’s integrity effort, and plenty of that work happened on Guy Rosen’s shift.

But your feedback is not nuanced and seems to be avoiding a lot of the context on purpose. It seems to be about getting people enraged through an implied accusation in your first comment.

In reality there’s some things you should consider:

- Onavo started as a “compress your data to save you money app” (I used it back then for a while)

- Seems like they found making money from selling market research data from aggregated users is a more visible business than getting customers to pay (way before FB purchased them)

- customers willingly installed the app, they got value from it, and not one customer actually got hurt (correct me if I’m wrong)

- Onavo was popular in countries with censored internet as a free workaround

- selling or using aggregated market research data is not illegal. It’s practiced by all of FB’s competition at the time (Apple and Google have control of their platforms and I’ll guess use this data). Other equivalents include Uber’s credit card as a way to see where people spend money on what transportation and restaurants.

I’m sorry if you find any of this condescending, this is not my intention. I just wanted to clarify what’s your issue with Guy is. That is all.

Re: Former Facebook staffers launch Integrity Institute

#57

Post by jakelazaroff »

strulovich wrote: post #56
tedivm wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is part of the problem with talking with Facebook engineers. Most of society is against spyware. It's not a controversial topic- spyware is pretty frowned upon. Spying on people does, to most people, show a lack of integrity. So does much of the other actions Facebook has taken and which are now coming out in these leaks. If you bring this up with Facebook engineers it turns into a "linguistic" issue. You're tol…

I’m sorry if my tone is not coming across as I intended. I think there’s plenty of arguments to be made against Facebook’s integrity effort, and plenty of that work happened on Guy Rosen’s shift. But your feedback is not nuanced and seems to be avoiding a lot of the context on purpose. It seems to be about getting people enraged through an implied accusation in your first comment. In reality there’s some things you s…

Here's an easy test: was Onavo (or, for that matter, is Facebook) upfront with users about the data they were collecting and how they were using it? Or did they hide it behind legalese in the terms of service?

Re: Former Facebook staffers launch Integrity Institute

#58

Post by [deleted] »

frob wrote: post #26
strulovich wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see this mentioned on multiple threads. What is the accusation here? (FB employee, opinions are my own)

FB branded Onavo as a free VPN to protect your privacy. Instead, it routed all of your traffic through FB-owned machines so that they could profile your connections and get an idea of how much you were using other apps.

[deleted]

Re: Former Facebook staffers launch Integrity Institute

#59

Post by [deleted] »

mike00632 wrote: post #48
AlbertCory wrote: post #15

Long before the Internet, you could go through an airport and be unable to avoid the Moonies & the followers of Lyndon LaRouche. You could find the book "None Dare Call It Treason" and lots of people did. "The Daily Worker" (newspaper of the US Communist Party) was readily available. Any of those groups could take out ads in the newspaper, or hold demonstrations (like the Nazi Party in Skokie, IL). There were UHF sta…

The fact that over 40% of Americans are still not fully vaccinated and thousands of people per day are still dying needlessly proves that people actually aren't good at filtering out bullshit.

[deleted]

Re: Former Facebook staffers launch Integrity Institute

#60

Post by strulovich »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #57
strulovich wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sorry if my tone is not coming across as I intended. I think there’s plenty of arguments to be made against Facebook’s integrity effort, and plenty of that work happened on Guy Rosen’s shift. But your feedback is not nuanced and seems to be avoiding a lot of the context on purpose. It seems to be about getting people enraged through an implied accusation in your first comment. In reality there’s some things you s…

Here's an easy test: was Onavo (or, for that matter, is Facebook) upfront with users about the data they were collecting and how they were using it? Or did they hide it behind legalese in the terms of service?

I don’t think even Apple passes this test though. (And I do consider Apple to much better privacy wise than other big tech)
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