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Facebook paid Republican strategy firm to malign TikTok

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Facebook paid Republican strategy firm to malign TikTok

#51

Post by mkdirp »

tomatowurst wrote: post #3

At what point does: - having Facebook/Meta experience on your resume starts hurting you against others who don't - selling your company to Facebook/Meta or product on it hurts your brand and perceived to be immoral Is Facebook/Meta the Tobacco company of our generation? The harmful effects of smoking were covered up for almost a century, much as the impact of mass remote dopamine manipulation is not as prolific.

> having Facebook/Meta experience on your resume starts hurting you against others who don't

It already does. Meta is reportedly paying more to hire talent because of their reputation.[0]

[0] https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-pays-brand-tax-hire...

Re: Facebook paid Republican strategy firm to malign TikTok

#52

Post by shmatt »

tomatowurst wrote: post #3

At what point does: - having Facebook/Meta experience on your resume starts hurting you against others who don't - selling your company to Facebook/Meta or product on it hurts your brand and perceived to be immoral Is Facebook/Meta the Tobacco company of our generation? The harmful effects of smoking were covered up for almost a century, much as the impact of mass remote dopamine manipulation is not as prolific.

When you see a Meta candidate you know

* They went through one of the hardest interview loops in the industry

* They went through one of the hardest promotion ladders in the industry

* They solve all problems at huge scale out of the box

* If you aren't paying top of market and they're still interested, they're most likely financially comfortable from their years at Meta and won't be jumping ship every 18 months for a 20% raise

I'd say that's pretty attractive as a hiring manager

Re: Facebook paid Republican strategy firm to malign TikTok

#53

Post by ok123456 »

wanda wrote: post #9

Isn't this what all firms do to each other, all the time? Like, isn't this just normal business these days? Isn't this sort of thing a natural eventuality in a capitalist world? Capitalism crowns the person who wins, regardless of how they won. And besides, all press is good press because it's all exposure. Why wouldn't you do this sort of thing? It's only wrong to get caught. And even then, you can pay for a lawyer…

The 'yellow peril' aspect of it was certainly disgusting.

Re: Facebook paid Republican strategy firm to malign TikTok

#54

Post by kylevedder »

fartcannon wrote: post #42
krageon wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you were a weapons company (and really, most successful big IT corps are in this metaphor) and you need specific targeting (you do) then you absolutely would. Perhaps you have trouble with their moral fiber, but you would then basically be alone in the business world. Corporations hate integrity in their workers (except when it comes to keeping corporate secrets).

They're making new talent every day. No need to hire the tainted.

Good luck explaining to your boss that you can't fill the hiring rec because, even though you found qualified candidates, you disliked the fact that they had the audacity to be employed by a tech company you don't like and so they're "tainted". In expectation it's better for the business to lay you off and get someone not ideologically possessed to do hiring, in the same way it's better for the business to not have racist hiring managers.

Re: Facebook paid Republican strategy firm to malign TikTok

#55

Post by Loughla »

ok123456 wrote: post #53
wanda wrote: post #9

Isn't this what all firms do to each other, all the time? Like, isn't this just normal business these days? Isn't this sort of thing a natural eventuality in a capitalist world? Capitalism crowns the person who wins, regardless of how they won. And besides, all press is good press because it's all exposure. Why wouldn't you do this sort of thing? It's only wrong to get caught. And even then, you can pay for a lawyer…

The 'yellow peril' aspect of it was certainly disgusting.

Sure, but what are the repercussions?

If you know how to ride a media wave, you literally can't lose in today's media landscape (mixed metaphor, I know).

Re: Facebook paid Republican strategy firm to malign TikTok

#56

Post by afavour »

Jcowell wrote: post #50
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Positive PR, where you pay someone to go around convincing reporters how great you are, is normal business and I'm not sure it could ever be otherwise. Negative campaigns that function solely to tear down your opponents, as the article says (and my experience matches), are relatively uncommon outside of politics.

I disagree, the PC vs Mac is arguably not positive PR towards the PC industry but was very popular back when it aired. Even now Samsung sometimes poke fun at Apple mistakes. I would argue micro aggressive advertising is negative PR just with lipstick on it.

There’s a pretty large difference though. PC vs Mac were explicitly adverts, you knew Apple made them. This article describes the firm placing op-eds from “concerned parents” that they drafted themselves with no indication of their or Meta’s involvement. Whole different level.

Re: Facebook paid Republican strategy firm to malign TikTok

#57

Post by [deleted] »

bko wrote: post #25
tomatowurst wrote: post #3

At what point does: - having Facebook/Meta experience on your resume starts hurting you against others who don't - selling your company to Facebook/Meta or product on it hurts your brand and perceived to be immoral Is Facebook/Meta the Tobacco company of our generation? The harmful effects of smoking were covered up for almost a century, much as the impact of mass remote dopamine manipulation is not as prolific.

> - having Facebook/Meta experience on your resume starts hurting you against others who don't Why would it hurt you? They're at the forefront of technical challenges of scaling an immensely popular product and developing internal tooling. These aren't necessarily applicable everywhere, but they're incredibly valuable. If anything, I think the fact that they're working at a place where a very vocal minority of their…

[deleted]

Re: Facebook paid Republican strategy firm to malign TikTok

#58

Post by _jal »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #32
wanda wrote: post #9

Isn't this what all firms do to each other, all the time? Like, isn't this just normal business these days? Isn't this sort of thing a natural eventuality in a capitalist world? Capitalism crowns the person who wins, regardless of how they won. And besides, all press is good press because it's all exposure. Why wouldn't you do this sort of thing? It's only wrong to get caught. And even then, you can pay for a lawyer…

Positive PR, where you pay someone to go around convincing reporters how great you are, is normal business and I'm not sure it could ever be otherwise. Negative campaigns that function solely to tear down your opponents, as the article says (and my experience matches), are relatively uncommon outside of politics.

Tell me you've never run a business without telling me you've never run a business.

> Negative campaigns that function solely to tear down your opponents, as the article says (and my experience matches), are relatively uncommon outside of politics.

If you have competitors, they will try to trash your name, I promise you. It doesn't matter what scale you're operating at.

Trash talk is universal.

Re: Facebook paid Republican strategy firm to malign TikTok

#59

Post by hnaccount141 »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #36
tomatowurst wrote: post #3

At what point does: - having Facebook/Meta experience on your resume starts hurting you against others who don't - selling your company to Facebook/Meta or product on it hurts your brand and perceived to be immoral Is Facebook/Meta the Tobacco company of our generation? The harmful effects of smoking were covered up for almost a century, much as the impact of mass remote dopamine manipulation is not as prolific.

Are we writing off most of FAANG then? Maybe just reduce it down to "AN", assuming we aren't yet too annoyed with Apple and Netflix? Amazon and Google as well are both certainly full of dark patterns and badness. I'm certain that they have both tried to crush their competition as well. Can we assume that anyone who has worked at any of those companies has at best dubious morals, or are they instead small players in a…

> Can we assume that anyone who has worked at any of those companies has at best dubious morals, or are they instead small players in a big machine?

Why not both? They certainly are small players in a big machine, but the reality is that any engineer capable of getting a job in FAANG has plenty of other options that are less morally dubious. If they chose FAANG in spite of this they either don't believe it's immoral or are willing to look the other way for money/prestige.

I certainly wouldn't advocate for writing people off entirely based on their work history (after all, it could be that they went in not realizing the extent of the harm and that's why they're leaving), but I do think it's a factor worth considering.

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