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Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

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Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#511

Post by onion2k »

rhaksw wrote: post #499
whakim wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this hits the nail on the head. It's not that Facebook or the many people who work there don't care about kids or a deleterious political climate. They do care. It's just about what happens when those concerns conflict with other concerns, such as maximizing user engagement. In my opinion Haugen's testimony and Zuckerberg's response simply confirm this: Haugen talks a lot about the research that was done and…

Fair to say it's about incentives? I think it's possible to run a profitable social media company that does care. We're just stuck with too few options. I'm unaware of any that make transparency a core value by, say, openly publishing moderator actions.

I think it's possible to run a profitable social media company that does care.

That's probably true but not at Facebook's scale. If the employees are willing to accept the argument "We could have increased profit but chose not to in the interests of users.", because everyone's bonuses and stock value is based on profit, you'd need to hire a lot of people who are happy to trade some amount of personal gain for user wellbeing. That would be difficult when you have tens of thousands of people.

Alternatively, maybe it'd be possible to run Facebook without giving the staff equity or bonuses. That would take a huge shift in the way tech renumeration works though.

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#512

Post by Radim »

subsubzero wrote: post #357
mc32 wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"Just call BS! Geez, that was easy. Why are all these HR people so incompetent?"

This assumes you are more intelligent than them, and can see through their insincerity during an interview process.

But have you considered that these "smooth talkers" can be smarter than you? Or at least have been perfecting their BS craft (while you perfected yours, such as programming), so that you are absolutely no match?

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#513

Post by trhway »

jamiek88 wrote: post #507
trhway wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think it's possible to run a profitable social media company that does care. No. Due to network effect successful company must be large, and the large company lives by different rules. FB for example is a trillion dollar company. It is like a TeV energy level in physics. Different behavior of matter. At those energy levels chemistry for example just doesn't exist, and matter itself changes as protons break apart.…

Then they are too big and must be broken up.

And who is going to break up TikTok or whatever comes next/instead?

The social media is like tobacco, and FB increasing the engagement at all costs is like when Big Tobacco were increasing addictiveness of the cigarettes. Like with tobacco, the way to deal with the issue is to wean the population off by in particular educating the population about the damage it does to them .

Btw, "Statement from Mark Zuckerberg" - that reminded that foundational tenet of Facebook :

Zuck: yea so if you ever need info about anyone at harvard

Zuck: just ask

Zuck: i have over 4000 emails, pictures, addresses, sns

Friend: what!? how’d you manage that one?

Zuck: people just submitted it

Zuck: i don’t know why

Zuck: they “trust me”

Zuck: dumb fucks

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#516

Post by ahahahahah »

6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #488
grandmczeb wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is there a link to the actual findings of the study? https://about.fb.com/news/2021/09/research-teen-well-being-a... > I feel like that statement is cherry picking, and without context there's not much weight to it. How can you form an option about whether it’s cherry picking if you’re unaware of the context?

As I understand it, the decks linked there are altered post-controversy. I think there are wsj links to the original decks that are more damning.

> As I understand it

You don't. The decks aren't altered. They are annotated. The FB released ones are also much higher quality than the WSJ scans.

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#517

Post by whakim »

rhaksw wrote: post #499
whakim wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this hits the nail on the head. It's not that Facebook or the many people who work there don't care about kids or a deleterious political climate. They do care. It's just about what happens when those concerns conflict with other concerns, such as maximizing user engagement. In my opinion Haugen's testimony and Zuckerberg's response simply confirm this: Haugen talks a lot about the research that was done and…

Fair to say it's about incentives? I think it's possible to run a profitable social media company that does care. We're just stuck with too few options. I'm unaware of any that make transparency a core value by, say, openly publishing moderator actions.

I honestly don't know if it's possible. Common sense seems to suggest that social networks become more harmful as they becomes bigger and more profitable. That's just my surface-level take though. I guess the meta-question is what to do about highly-profitable lines of business that cause demonstrable social harm. Clearly regulation and government intervention are one answer, as are reforms to corporate governance structures (e.g. German and Nordic rules around worker representation on corporate boards.)

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#518

Post by imgabe »

ehnto wrote: post #440
imgabe wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can. It's called pay directly for the services you use. It is a time-honored system where you give providers money in exchange for goods and services. In response, their incentive is to keep you happy and healthy and prosperous so you can continue to give them money.

Which will never happen. That takes customer impetus, it's not there. People don't understand the cost of the free products they use, they are unlikely to switch. So what ways would influence your outcome to actually happen? Because I think it would be the right way to run software platforms as well, I just don't see a pathway there that isn't heavy handed. I would be for regulating the advertising industry, since I…

I think a freemium model would be better. You should have to pay for having a large number of followers/friends past a certain point.

For example, maybe an account with 1,000 friends is free. Up to 10,000: $5 / month, up to 100,000 $50/month, and so on.

If you're Kim Kardashian with 250 million followers and you're making millions of dollars hawking skin cream or whatever, you can afford to pay a few thousand dollars a month to reach your large, valuable audience.

This way, the content creators can sell ads if they want. The platform doesn't sell ads. Users only see ads if they follow a creator who has sponsors. It's up to that creator to make their content worthwhile enough for people to choose to follow them in spite of the ads.

A platform should be like a company that sells TV broadcast towers. They give people a way to reach an audience. What that content creator does with their audience is up to them. Maybe they could charge a subscription. Maybe they get sponsors. If it's a large non-profit or government organization, maybe they pay at a lower rate or get to use it for free.

Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg

#519

Post by dang »

sayonaraman wrote: post #284
Aritch89 wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, can you help me understand why you consider the comments and media around this statement a blatant lie? Im absolutely in support of people speaking their mind, especially in today’s culture but Im not sure why the public opinion of there being legitimate effects from social media on people, specifically Facebook, would be a blatant lie in your eyes?

what they call "divisive and extremist actions" that need to be censored is basically anything which doesn't agree with their political ideology. It's a direct attack on free speech.

We've banned this account for using HN primarily for ideological battle. That's not what this site is for and it destroys what it is for, so we ban such accounts regardless of what ideology they're battling for or against.

Please don't create account to break HN"s rules with.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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